Anchorage Digital is expanding institutional access to onchain finance through a new partnership with Frgmnt, giving its clients a way to access fUSD and sfUSD without having to arrange a separate custody setup.
Under the integration, institutional clients will be able to hold, mint, stake, unstake and redeem fUSD through Anchorage Digital’s existing custody infrastructure. The move gives funds, corporate treasuries and fintech companies a more familiar route into Frgmnt’s stablecoin and yield-generating products.
Frgmnt operates both assets on Base. The protocol mints fUSD against USDC, while users can stake fUSD to receive sfUSD and gain exposure to rewards generated through Frgmnt’s underlying onchain strategies.
“Institutions should be able to access onchain financial products through infrastructure that meets their operational and custody requirements,” Frgmnt CEO and co-founder Aurélien Roussel said.
According to Roussel, integrating Frgmnt with Anchorage Digital’s institutional environment could make the protocol easier to access for institutions that already rely on Anchorage for digital asset custody and operations.
Anchorage Digital brings fUSD into its institutional custody infrastructure
Frgmnt uses the USDC backing its fUSD stablecoin in selected onchain lending markets. Rather than simply holding the underlying assets, the protocol aims to generate returns through these strategies.
Users who want exposure to those rewards can stake their fUSD and receive sfUSD.
The new partnership brings these functions into Anchorage Digital’s existing custody environment. That means institutions can manage their Frgmnt positions alongside other digital assets rather than creating a completely separate custody arrangement.
Anchorage Digital Bank N.A. operates under a federal charter and is regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Its institutional platform offers services that include custody, staking, trading and settlement.
The company has also been expanding the number of onchain products available through its infrastructure.
In July, Anchorage Digital integrated Lido, allowing institutional clients to mint and burn wrapped staked Ether without moving their assets outside Anchorage’s custody environment. The integration gave clients access to Ethereum staking while maintaining Anchorage’s custody, governance, reporting and settlement framework.
Anchorage also partnered with Binance in July to support off-exchange settlement. Under that arrangement, institutional traders could access Binance’s trading environment while their pledged crypto and U.S. dollar collateral remained in segregated custody through Anchorage’s Atlas platform.
The Frgmnt partnership follows a similar philosophy: institutions can gain access to onchain financial products while continuing to use infrastructure they already rely on.
“Institutional adoption of onchain finance depends on combining access to innovative protocols with the security and operational standards institutions expect,” Anchorage Digital CEO and co-founder Nathan McCauley said.
He added that supporting Frgmnt gives Anchorage clients another way to access onchain opportunities through institutional infrastructure.
Anchorage Digital continues expanding its stablecoin services
The partnership with Frgmnt comes as Anchorage Digital continues building a broader business around stablecoin issuance, custody and institutional access.
In May, Anchorage Digital began providing regulated custody for CADD, a Canadian dollar stablecoin issued by Tetra Digital Group. CADD is backed one-to-one by Canadian dollars held with a licensed Canadian trust company.
Anchorage has also taken a direct role in issuing other stablecoins.
Western Union launched its USDPT payment stablecoin on Solana in May, with Anchorage Digital Bank serving as the token’s issuer. The stablecoin is fully backed by U.S. dollars and is designed to support Western Union’s payment ecosystem.
Earlier in May, Anchorage CEO Nathan McCauley said roughly 20 partners were exploring stablecoin launches through the company.
Anchorage has been positioning itself as a neutral infrastructure provider capable of supporting multiple stablecoin issuers rather than focusing on a single stablecoin ecosystem.
The wider financial industry is also moving toward greater institutional access to stablecoins.
In June, BNY introduced direct USDC minting and redemption through its Digital Asset Custody platform. The service allows institutional customers to mint, redeem, hold and transfer USDC within the bank’s infrastructure.
These developments highlight a broader trend: banks and digital asset firms are increasingly building custody, settlement and issuance services around stablecoins as institutional demand for blockchain-based financial products grows.
Frgmnt uses fUSD backing to generate onchain returns
Frgmnt’s model differs from stablecoins that are primarily designed for payments or settlement.
When users mint fUSD, the underlying USDC can be deployed across selected onchain lending markets. The protocol uses these strategies to generate returns, which are reflected through its staking product, sfUSD.
Users can therefore choose between holding fUSD or staking it to receive sfUSD and gain exposure to the rewards generated by the underlying strategies.
Frgmnt also provides onchain data and performance information through its own analytics tools, along with third-party platforms such as Dune and DeFiLlama.
The protocol has been managing deposits through capped waves as it scales. According to Frgmnt, another deposit wave is expected to open in September.
The project operates on Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 network. Native USDC has been available on Base since September 2023, allowing users to access the stablecoin without relying on a traditional bridge from another network.
Frgmnt uses USDC as the asset against which fUSD is minted before deploying the backing into the lending markets selected by the protocol.
Institutions can manage the full fUSD lifecycle through Anchorage
One of the main advantages of the partnership is that institutional clients can manage the different stages of the fUSD lifecycle through Anchorage Digital.
Clients can mint fUSD, hold it in custody and stake it for sfUSD. They can later unstake their sfUSD and redeem fUSD without having to establish a separate custody arrangement specifically for Frgmnt.
This could simplify the operational process for institutions that are interested in onchain yield strategies but need to maintain their assets within regulated or familiar custody infrastructure.
Anchorage Digital serves institutional customers through several regulated entities.
Anchorage Digital Bank operates in the United States under its federal charter, while Anchorage Digital Singapore is licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Anchorage Digital NY also holds a BitLicense from the New York Department of Financial Services.
The company was founded in 2017 and has attracted investment from firms including Andreessen Horowitz, GIC, Goldman Sachs, KKR and Visa. Anchorage has previously stated a valuation of $4.2 billion.
For institutions interested in accessing fUSD and sfUSD through the new integration, Frgmnt said they can work with their existing Anchorage Digital representative or contact Frgmnt directly.
What the Frgmnt-Anchorage partnership means
The partnership reflects a growing effort to bring decentralized financial products into infrastructure that institutional investors are already comfortable using.
For Frgmnt, integration with Anchorage Digital provides a potential path to a broader institutional audience. For Anchorage, supporting fUSD and sfUSD adds another onchain financial product to its expanding custody and institutional services ecosystem.
The bigger question will be whether institutional investors embrace yield-generating stablecoin products as part of their broader digital asset strategies.
As banks, custodians and crypto infrastructure providers continue adding stablecoin and onchain services, partnerships such as this one could help bridge the gap between traditional institutional finance and decentralized markets.
This article is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice.
