Anchorage Digital, a federally chartered crypto bank and institutional custody provider, has integrated Lido's liquid staking protocol, giving its institutional clients direct access to wrapped staked ETH (wstETH) through the Anchorage platform. The integration allows institutions to hold yield-bearing staked ETH positions within a regulated custody environment without managing validator infrastructure directly. Anchorage is one of the few entities with a federal OCC trust charter for digital assets.
For Armada's crypto desk, this development is relevant on two dimensions. First, Anchorage is a custody competitor to Fireblocks, and Armada should confirm whether its existing Fireblocks MSA and collateral custody framework covers wstETH if counterparties seek to pledge it. Second, wstETH combines ETH price exposure with staking yield, which changes the collateral risk profile relative to spot ETH. Armada's collateral policy should explicitly address whether yield-bearing token variants of approved assets are eligible.