Crypto-as-a-Service (CaaS) is a cloud-based business model and infrastructure solution that enables businesses, fintech companies, and developers to integrate cryptocurrency and blockchain functionality into their operations without having to build or maintain the underlying technology from scratch. CaaS provides ready-to-use, scalable services, typically delivered via APIs or white-label platforms, such as crypto wallets, trading engines, payment gateways, asset storage, custody, and compliance tools. This allows businesses to quickly offer digital asset functionality under their own brand, reducing development costs, time, and required technical expertise. Like other "as-a-service" offerings, this model allows businesses of all sizes, from startups to established companies, to participate in a cost-effective manner. In September 2025, Coinbase Institutional listed CaaS as one of its biggest growth areas.
Pantera Capital has been driving the development of CaaS through investments since 2013.
We strategically invest in infrastructure, tools, and technology to ensure CaaS can operate at scale. By accelerating the development of backend fund management, custody, and wallets, we have significantly enhanced the service tier of CaaS. Enterprises using Crypto as a Service (CaaS) to transparently integrate crypto functionality into their systems can achieve numerous strategic and operational advantages faster and more cost-effectively. These advantages include:
One-stop integration and seamless embedding: The CaaS platform eliminates the need for custom development cycles, enabling teams to activate features in days rather than months.
Flexible monetization models: Enterprises can choose a subscription-based pricing model for predictable costs or a pay-as-you-go billing model to align expenses with revenue. Either approach avoids large upfront capital investments.
Outsourcing Blockchain Complexity: Enterprises can offload technical management while benefiting from a powerful enterprise-grade backend, ensuring near-perfect uptime, real-time monitoring, and automatic failover. Developer-Friendly APIs and SDKs: Developers can embed wallet creation and key management functions, smoothly handle on-chain settlements, trigger smart contract interactions, and create fully sandboxed environments. White Label Branding and Intuitive Interface: CaaS solutions are easily customizable, enabling non-technical teams to configure free infrastructure, supported assets, and user onboarding processes. Other Value-Added Features: Leading providers bundle ancillary services such as on-chain analytics-based fraud detection; automated tax filing; multi-signature fund management; and cross-chain bridging for asset interoperability. These features transform cryptocurrency from a technological novelty into a revenue-generating product line while maintaining a focus on core business capabilities.
Three Core Use Cases
We believe the world is rapidly evolving towards a cryptocurrency-native environment, with individuals and businesses interacting more frequently with digital assets. This shift is driven by increasing user acceptance of blockchain wallets, decentralized applications, and on-chain transactions, thanks to continuously improving user interfaces, abundant educational resources, and practical application value.
However, for cryptocurrencies to truly integrate into the mainstream and achieve widespread adoption, a strong and seamless bridge must be built to bridge the gap between traditional finance (TradFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi). Institutions both pursue the advantages of cryptocurrencies (speed, programmability, and global accessibility) and rely on trusted intermediaries to manage their underlying complexities: tools, security, technology stack, and liquidity provision.
Ultimately, this ecosystem convergence has the potential to gradually bring billions of users onto the blockchain.
Use Case 1: Banks Banks are increasingly partnering with regulated cryptocurrency custodians such as Coinbase Custody, Anchorage Digital, and BitGo to provide institutional-grade custody, insured storage, and seamless spot trading services for digital assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum. These foundational services (custody, execution, and basic lending) represent the most readily achievable part of cryptocurrency integration, enabling banks to easily attract customers without forcing them out of the traditional banking system. Beyond these fundamentals, banks can leverage decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols to generate competitive yields from idle government assets or customer deposits. For example, they can deploy stablecoins to permissionless lending markets (such as Morpho, Aave, or Compound) or liquidity pools of automated market makers (AMMs) like Uniswap for real-time, transparent returns that often outperform traditional fixed-income products. Real-world asset (RWA) tokenization holds transformative opportunities. Banks can initiate and distribute on-chain versions of traditional securities (e.g., tokenized U.S. Treasury bonds, corporate bonds, private credit, or even real estate funds issued through BlackRock's BUIDL fund), bringing off-chain value to public blockchains like Ethereum, Polygon, or Base. These RWAs can then be traded peer-to-peer through DeFi protocols such as Morpho (for optimized lending), Pendle (for yield sharing), or Centrifuge (for private credit pools), while ensuring KYC/AML compliance through whitelisted wallets or institutional vaults. RWAs can also serve as high-quality collateral in the DeFi lending market. Crucially, banks can provide seamless stablecoin access without churning customers. Through embedded wallets or custodial sub-accounts, customers can hold USDC, USDT, or FDIC-insured digital dollars (for payments, remittances, or yield farming) directly within the bank's app, without leaving the bank's ecosystem. This "walled garden" model resembles a new bank but with regulated trust. Looking ahead, major banks may form alliances to issue branded stablecoins backed 1:1 by centralized reserves. These stablecoins can be settled instantly on public blockchains while complying with regulatory requirements, thus bridging traditional finance with programmable money. If a bank views blockchain as infrastructure, not an accessory tool, it is likely to capture the next trillion-dollar value. Use Case Two: Fintech Companies and Neobanks Fintech companies and new banks are rapidly integrating cryptocurrencies into their core offerings through strategic partnerships with established platforms such as Robinhood, Revolut, and Webull. These collaborations enable seamless use and secure custody of digital assets while providing instant trading of tokenized versions of traditional stocks, effectively bridging the gap between traditional finance and blockchain-based markets. Beyond partnerships, fintech companies can also leverage professional service providers like Alchemy to build and launch their own blockchain infrastructure. Alchemy is a leading blockchain development platform provider, offering scalable node infrastructure, enhanced APIs, and developer tools that simplify the creation of custom Layer-1 or Layer-2 networks. This enables fintech companies to tailor blockchains for specific use cases, such as high-throughput payments, decentralized authentication, or RWA, while ensuring compliance with evolving regulatory requirements and optimizing for low latency and cost-effectiveness. Fintech companies can further deepen their involvement in the cryptocurrency space by issuing their own stablecoins and leveraging decentralized protocols offered by platforms like M^0 to mint yield-generating, fungible stablecoins backed by high-quality collateral such as US Treasury bonds. By adopting this model, fintech companies can mint their own tokens on demand, maintain full control over the underlying economic mechanisms (including interest accrual and redemption mechanisms), ensure regulatory compliance through transparent on-chain reserves, and participate in co-governance through decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). Furthermore, they can benefit from enhanced liquidity pools on major exchanges and DeFi protocols, reducing fragmentation and increasing user adoption. This approach not only creates new revenue streams but also positions fintech companies as innovators in the field of programmable money and fosters customer loyalty in the competitive digital economy. Use Case 3: Payment Processors Payment companies are building stablecoin “sandwiches”: a multi-tiered cross-border settlement system that receives fiat currency at one end and outputs instant, low-cost liquidity in another jurisdiction while minimizing foreign exchange spreads, intermediary fees, and settlement delays. The components of the “sandwich” include: Top layer (deposits): US customers send US dollars to payment providers such as Stripe, Circle, Ripple, or new banks like Mercury. Middle layer (minting): US dollars are instantly converted at a 1:1 ratio into regulated stablecoins—typically USDC (Circle), USDP (Paxos), or bank-issued digital dollars. Lower Bread Slice (Payout): Stablecoins are bridged or exchanged for local currency stablecoins—for example, aARS (pegged to the Argentine peso), BRLA (Brazil), or MXNA (Mexico)—or directly become part of a central bank digital currency pilot project (e.g., Drex in Brazil).
Settlement: Funds arrive in local bank accounts, mobile wallets, or merchant payments on a T+0 (instant) basis, with total costs typically below 0.1%, compared to 3-7% through SWIFT + correspondent banks.
Western Union, a 175-year-old remittance giant processing over $300 billion in remittances annually, recently announced the integration of stablecoins into its ecosystem. CEO Devin McGranahan acknowledged in July 2025 that the company had historically been “cautious” about cryptocurrencies, concerned about their volatility and regulatory issues. However, the Genius Act has changed that.
"As the rules become clearer, we see a real opportunity to integrate digital assets into our business," McGranahan said on the Q3 2025 earnings call. The result: Western Union is currently actively testing stablecoin solutions for Treasury bond settlements and customer payments, leveraging blockchain technology to eliminate the cumbersome processes of correspondent banking. Zelle, a bank-backed P2P payment giant (part of Early Warning Services, a consortium of JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and others), already facilitates over $1 trillion in fee-free transfers annually within the U.S. via simple phone numbers or email addresses, and currently boasts over 2,300 partner institutions and 150 million users. However, cross-border payments have previously been a challenge. On October 24, 2025, Early Warning announced a stablecoin initiative aimed at bringing Zelle to the international market, offering "the same speed and reliability" overseas. As banks, fintech/new banks, and payment processors integrate cryptocurrencies in an intuitive, plug-and-play, and compliant manner (with as few regulators as possible), they can continue to expand their global reach and strengthen relationships. Conclusion: CaaS is not hype—it represents a revolution in infrastructure that makes cryptocurrencies invisible to end users. Just as people don't think of AWS when watching Netflix or Salesforce when checking a CRM, consumers and businesses won't think of blockchain when making instant cross-border payments or accessing tokenized assets. The winners of this revolution are not the companies that add cryptocurrencies as an afterthought to traditional systems, but rather the institutions and enterprises that see blockchain as infrastructure, and the investors who support the underlying technology that underpins it all.
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