The New Medici Bank Is About to Take On Its First Crypto Clients

A new crypto-friendly bank with a historic pedigree is about to take on its first clients.

Revealed exclusively to CoinDesk, Medici Bank is launching into private beta in October.

Founded by Prince Lorenzo de' Medici, a descendant of the Renaissance-era Italian banking family, Medici Bank will join the short list of financial institutions that welcoming to crypto companies.

The handful of U.S. banks willing to bank crypto firms includes Silvergate in California and Signature, Metropolitan Commercial and Quontic Bank in New York.

Fidor Bank in Germany, whose U.S. operations Boyle used to oversee, also has crypto clients.

The bank plans to fully launch in the first quarter of 2020 with a goal of $1 billion in combined deposits and assets under management within three years.

While the bank's appetite for banking crypto companies is not limitless, Medici is willing to have up to a third or half of its total business be crypto clients, Boyle said.

Licensed as an International Financial Entity by Puerto Rico's Office of the Commission of Financial Institutions, Medici Bank has six employees and plans to have 20 by the end of this year, 50 by the end of 2020 and 100 by the end of 2021.

Digital banks are generally defined as any provider of banking services without branches, serving clients only through mobile apps or the web.

"Banks like to put up walled gardens and make it difficult for you to take your money elsewhere, we want to make it very easy for you to send your money elsewhere, whether it's from one place to another or from one bank to another."