DZ Bank in crypto, tokenization and digital money

At the end of December 2025, BaFin granted DZ BANK authorization under the EU Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR) for its crypto platform meinKrypto (DZ BANK, in German). meinKrypto is a crypto wallet built into the VR Banking App, the app customers of the Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken already use for their current account. At launch it offers bitcoin, ether, litecoin and cardano.

DZ BANK provides the platform, and each local cooperative bank decides whether its own customers get it. In Cryptonews' report on the license, Sujha Sundararajan wrote that the offer is aimed at self-directed retail investors and that 71 percent of the 670 cooperative banks were considering crypto services. Boerse Stuttgart Digital keeps the crypto assets in custody, and EUWAX AG executes the orders, as the page on BSDEX sets out. The law firm Heuking advised DZ BANK on the MiCAR authorization, according to Finance Loop's overview of law firms for digital assets.

Before meinKrypto, DZ BANK worked on tokenization for institutional clients. From September 23 to 27, 2024, it used the Deutsche Bundesbank's Trigger Solution for the automated post-trade processing of a Smart Derivative Contract, settled in central bank money (Deutsche Bundesbank). Together with KfW, DZ BANK carried out the first issuance of a crypto security whose full lifecycle, from creation to payment, ran on a public blockchain (DZ BANK).

On the buy side, DZ BANK, DekaBank and Union Investment bought the Siemens digital bond issued on Polygon under the Electronic Securities Act (eWpG), and DZ BANK was a joint lead manager of NRW.BANK's 100 million euro digital bond on Polygon. It also bought the European Investment Bank's first DLT-native commercial paper on Clearstream's D7 platform. For payments, DZ BANK took part in the Commercial Bank Money Token pilot of the German banking industry, described on the page on tokenized deposits, and it is among the first participants of Pontes, the ECB service that settles wholesale transactions in tokenized assets in central bank money (ECB).

A German bank that wants to offer crypto trading or custody needs an authorization as a crypto-asset service provider under MiCAR, granted by BaFin. The page on the CASP license explains the procedure, and MiCA in Germany covers what BaFin asks of banks. For meinKrypto the authorization sits with DZ BANK, and each cooperative bank that offers the wallet files its own MiCAR notification with BaFin.

Tokenized bonds follow a different law: the eWpG lets an issuer create a crypto security in a register kept by a licensed registrar. The page on tokenization in Germany covers these registers and the banks that use them.

DZ BANK is on the About page among Finance Loop's event and network partners, and Finance Loop thanked DZ BANK AG in its review of its first year. The event graphic of the Digital Finance Night Frankfurt, which Finance Loop hosted on the evening of the Crypto Assets Conference, names DZ Bank, and a speaker from DZ PRIVATBANK was on its program. At the Frankfurt Forum on Digital Assets & Applications, organized by d-fine and announced on Finance Loop's blog, DZ Bank spoke on the panel about payments in DLT-based markets next to Deutsche Bundesbank, Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank and AllUnity.

Yes, through meinKrypto in the VR Banking App, if the customer's local Volksbank or Raiffeisenbank has chosen to offer it. DZ BANK holds the MiCAR authorization for the platform. Customers of banks that do not take part cannot use it.

Boerse Stuttgart Digital keeps the crypto assets in custody for DZ BANK's platform. The page on crypto custody explains what custody means for an investor if a provider fails.

DZ BANK joined Qivalis, a consortium of European banks based in the Netherlands that plans a euro stablecoin under MiCAR. Qivalis applied to De Nederlandsche Bank for a license as an e-money institution, and DZ BANK is its eleventh member, according to the same Cryptonews report. The page on euro stablecoins compares Qivalis with EURAU and EURC.