Last week, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company entered the crypto sector with a $100 million investment in Bitcoin (BTC) and a $5 million equity stake in crypto services firm New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG). Life insurance firm MassMutual announced Thursday it became the latest institutional player to gain direct exposure to BTC, seeking "measured yet meaningful" exposure to an increasingly digital world. NYDIG is one of the fastest-growing institutional crypto firms with $2.3 billion under management, and it helped MassMutual facilitate the $100 million purchase. MassMutual's $100 million BTC stake is a drop in its general investment account's whopping $235 billion, but the vote of confidence from the 169-year-old insurance company could influence other institutions to join.

Here is the rest of the week in review:

BBVA (BBVA  ), the second-largest bank in Spain with around $840 billion in assets, plans to enter the cryptocurrency trading and custody space, according to reports. The Spanish bank will reportedly roll out its crypto offering from Switzerland, which boasts relatively comprehensive rules around digital assets. A source with knowledge of the plans said BBVA is "launching its Europe-wide crypto initiative from Switzerland," adding BBVA's new services will go live next month after satisfying compliance hurdles. The source noted: "This is a cryptocurrency offering." A second source said the project will likely be revealed around Christmas once the bank works out some final regulatory issues. About 6 months ago, BBVA reportedly began integrating the SILO custody platform built by core banking software provider Avaloq and Swiss crypto specialists METACO. BBVA said it could not comment on the reports.

Paxos filed to become a federally regulated bank in the US, according to a public document filed with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and released Wednesday. The stablecoin issuer wants to create the Paxos National Trust, joining crypto payments firm BitPay and custody provider Anchorage in seeking a federal charter to operate as a bank. Paxos General Counsel Dan Burstein wrote in a blog post: "A national Trust Bank charter provides us with flexibility to operate across the U.S. while continuing to adhere to the highest regulatory standards." The bank would operate out of New York, where Paxos is already located. Paxos currently has a New York trust charter and multiple licenses and offers cash custody, gold custody, digital asset issuance, securities clearing, commodities trading, and other financial services. Paxos' application will have a 30-day comment period as the next step in the process.

Crypto prices edged down to $565 billion this week in another volatile period while Bitcoin meandered between $18,000 and $19,000. For the majors, Ripple (XRP) plunged while the others were all largely unchanged. In the top 100, the biggest losers were HedgeTrade (HEDG), down 15%, Ripple, down 13%, and Numeraire (NMR), down 12%. The biggest gainers were Blockstack (STX), up 37%, Nexo (NEXO), up 31%, and Elrond (EGLD), up 25%. Next week traders will keep watching if Bitcoin can break the key historic $20,000 level.

The author owns a small amount of BTC.