At Digital Trust, a Las Vegas digital asset trust company, any given day can bring forth a situation that would have seemed inconceivable just a few years ago.
One example: A company reached out because a client wanted to purchase a $40 million home entirely in cryptocurrency.
“They didn’t know how to go about accepting crypto for the purchase,” said Theresa Fette, co-founder and CEO of Digital Trust. “We’re working with them on the ability to accept that as payment.”
Cryptocurrencies are forms of money that are not sanctioned by governments. They’re also not susceptible to commodity or precious metals value fluctuations. These currencies—like Bitcoin and Ethereum—are traded via a technology called blockchain, which provides a tamper-proof record of transactions.
Cryptocurrencies have been notoriously volatile during their brief existence, though many, including Fette, view them as the currencies of the future.
On February 18, one Bitcoin was worth close to $41,000—down from $61,000 on October 1, 2021. Yet, on March 1, 2017, that same Bitcoin was worth just over $1,000.
Some view cryptocurrencies as too complicated to understand or appreciate, but there’s also a growing segment of the population that wants in on this wave, whether or not they understand exactly how these currencies work.
That’s where a company like Digital Trust comes in.
If a potential customer or company wants to get into Bitcoin, the firm can help. If that customer wants to change a more established currency into a digital asset—or vice versa—Digital Trust can do that, too.
On the individual side, Digital Trust specializes in helping to convert IRA savings into digital asset holdings, though it also provides an array of others services.
Because digital assets can be so volatile, Fette said, a retirement savings plan can be a good bridge to get into the crypto world. That’s because there’s often more time available for investors to weather any possible significant downturns.
In Nevada, the digital asset “on-ramp” sector of the financial industry—which has to date been fairly limited in numbers and mostly centered in New York City—has seemed to take a liking to the state and its favorable business climate, Fette said.
That should be no surprise, because Nevada was already a popular state for wealthy families to establish trusts, partly because of friendly tax policies.
There aren’t a large amount of companies like Digital Trust, but Matthew Saltzman, a managing partner at the law firm Saltzman Mugan Dushoff, said the state has gained a reputation in crypto circles.
His firm helps set up trust companies that can act as “custodians” for clients’ digital asset portfolios.
Other Las Vegas companies, like Prime Trust, also work in the digital asset space.
“Prime Trust is now an internationally known company for working in the digital asset space, and it’s right here in Tivoli Village in Las Vegas,” Saltzman said. “From Prime Trust, I think many people became aware of Nevada.”
Saltzman said his firm is working to help establish additional trust companies that hope to offer crypto services. Digital asset trust companies now make up the majority of the trust company business the firm does, he said.
“These trust companies can act as a custodian of assets, which is really where they fit into the cryptocurrency/blockchain world,” Saltzman said. “People have a real interest in having people hold those digital assets.”
In Nevada, a trust company must be licensed by the Financial Institutions Division of the state’s Department of Business and Industry.
In the mostly unregulated cryptocurrency space, Saltzman said, supervision from a state agency often gives people an amount of comfort.
“People do want to feel safe, so there’s this entire industry building up around trust companies acting as these custodians,” he said. “Like other assets, people try to steal digital assets, and you have to protect against that.”
As infamous as cryptocurrencies are for being volatile, they’re perhaps equally infamous for their lack of regulation.
At the federal level, there is no mechanism in place to regulate crypto, though discussions, according to multiple recent reports, could progress on that topic quickly this spring.
“The only way to look at this industry is up,” Fette said. “There’s so much growth and so many new things that will be here next year and the year after. My personal belief is that digital currency is here to stay. If you think we’ll be still carrying around dollar bills and coins 10 years from now, I don’t know that you’re keeping up with the 21st century.”
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