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Traditional finance settles trades like it’s still faxing paperwork. Crypto settles them in seconds. BitGo’s COO Jody Mettler thinks onchain asset management is the connective tissue that finally makes these two worlds play nice together.
Speaking at Money20/20 Europe in Amsterdam on June 11, Mettler laid out how BitGo’s infrastructure, particularly its Go Network, can help institutions automate trading while keeping assets locked in cold storage. The pitch comes weeks after BitGo went public on the NYSE under the ticker BTGO, a milestone that itself says a lot about where institutional crypto custody is headed.
The settlement gap problem
Here’s the thing about traditional finance: it’s slow. Equity trades in the US only recently moved to T+1 settlement, meaning it still takes a full business day for a stock trade to actually finalize. Cross-border payments can take even longer, sometimes days, depending on the corridors involved.
Mettler’s argument is straightforward. Onchain asset management tools can compress that settlement timeline for traditional financial products by leveraging blockchain rails. Instead of waiting for a chain of intermediaries to confirm and reconcile every transaction, you put the process onchain where it happens automatically and transparently.
What the Go Network actually does
BitGo’s Go Network is designed to facilitate off-chain settlement for over 1,000 digital assets. Think of it as a clearing layer that lets institutions trade and settle without moving assets out of cold storage until absolutely necessary.
The Go Network attempts to solve this by enabling trades to execute and settle off-chain while the underlying assets remain in BitGo’s qualified custody. For institutional players, particularly those managing client funds under regulatory oversight, this kind of setup addresses two concerns simultaneously: security stays intact while operational efficiency improves.
Going public changes the calculus
BitGo’s decision to list on the NYSE in early June 2026 is worth pausing on. A public listing under the ticker BTGO changes that dynamic in a few ways. Public companies face quarterly reporting requirements, regulatory scrutiny from the SEC, and the general accountability that comes with having shareholders who can vote with their feet.
Mettler specifically highlighted cross-border liquidity and the preparedness of financial infrastructure across US and EU markets during the talk. That focus on cross-border use cases is strategic, as cross-border settlement is where the pain points are most acute and where blockchain-based solutions offer the most obvious efficiency gains.
Mettler’s appearance at Money20/20 Europe, a conference historically dominated by payments and banking executives rather than crypto natives, underscores this positioning. BitGo isn’t just talking to crypto people anymore. It’s talking to the banks, asset managers, and payment processors that control the vast majority of global capital flows.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
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