Potential Integration of ckBTC and ckETH with online banks

General DFINITY
1

Hello ICPeople!
Ishaaq from The ICP Pulse here.
So, what I’ve seen as part of the utility around ckETH and ckBTC, I hereby propose the following.
Integrating ckBTC and ckETH through a potential partnership with the following crypto friendly banks.
List of Banks

  1. Dukascopy Bank - A Bank based in Geneva, Switzerland Offering retail services to crypto and forex clients. regulated by FINMA.
  2. Xapo Bank - A Bank based in Gibraltar, offering services to both institutions and retail clients, most focus is around BTC custody and related services.

Background

  1. As a client at dukascopy bank, I have deposited ETH, USDT and BTC via ETH mainnet, and I
    found that it might be very expensive if ETH mainnet was busy, at a time where I want to deposit anything, leading towards a lot of frustration.
    as we all know, ckBTC and ckETH offers a robust mechanism to allow native deposits to arrive with less hassle and also a much cost effective way, which might help lead towards more adoption, and also to bring in more liquidity to the IC.
  2. Not a client of Xapo bank, but they have a very good reputation and also a huge clientbase, focusing on BTC native people.
    They were also the title sponsor, for the Bitcoin Conference 2024, held at Nashville, which makes them stand out.

Why these 2 banks?
Explanation:
Although there are many crypto friendly banks such as Amina Bank, Sygnum Bank etc, these banks require around 50k of liquid assets to open an account, which may hinder retail adoption as we intend to achieve according to this proposal.

Implementation Plan
as the major contributor to the IC, imo the foundation should reach out to them and do the necessary integrations together with the respective teams.
with rosetta on hand, I believe this should be very much possible.
I believe @chepreghy @ais @emilio.canessa and @emmaperetti are the best to check the possibility for this scenario.

Potential Advantages

  1. Dukascopy is a Finma regulated institution, and also very much respected among forex traders, for its robust trading platform.
    This allows to grab the attention of many traders and related entities.
  2. Xapo is more leaning towards institutions and high net worth clients, so the focus is to onboard institutions towards the IC

Potential Disadvantages
Imo, there are not any available at the moment, as I believe this is one of the best ways to onboard more people into the IC.

Conclusion
Adoption of this proposal is likely to onboard both non-native and crypto-native people into the ecosystem, in a much broader way.

Note:
I am willing to provide any support, including facilitating potential discussions among the entities if required, as a community member.

Fellow ICPeople, I kindly invite all of you to provide your feedback and support this proposal to gain the attention it might deserve, so we can push the adoption of the IC.

Thank you!
Best,
Ishaaq

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