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Bitcoin hitting a 21-month low is the kind of event that sends retail traders to grief forums and institutional investors to their procurement teams. Angela Ang, BitGo’s newly appointed Managing Director for Asia-Pacific and President of BitGo Singapore, is firmly in the camp that sees the current moment as a structural opportunity rather than a reason to panic.
In an interview on Bloomberg’s “Insight with Haslinda Amin” on July 2, 2026, Ang laid out why BitGo is doubling down on the APAC region precisely when bitcoin prices are at their lowest point in nearly two years.
From retail chaos to institutional order
The core thesis Ang presented is simple, even if the execution is not. The crypto market is maturing. Retail speculation, which once drove the dramatic price swings that made crypto famous, is giving way to institutional demand. And institutions do not move money without first asking two questions: is it secure, and is it compliant?
That framing matters because it defines exactly what BitGo sells. The firm specializes in institutional-grade custody, trading, staking, financing, and settlement services. When bitcoin is volatile, that pitch gets louder. The messier the market, the more valuable a compliant, battle-tested custodian becomes.
Ang brings a resume that reads like a deliberate preparation for this exact role. She spent over a decade at the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Singapore’s central bank and financial regulator, before moving to TRM Labs, a blockchain intelligence firm focused on compliance and financial crime. Her background is not in trading or market-making. It is in the rules that govern how institutions can participate in digital asset markets at all.
BitGo appointed her on June 17, 2026, roughly two weeks before the Bloomberg interview. The timing, coming during a bitcoin downturn, sends a signal. BitGo is not hiring for bull market hype. It is hiring for the long-cycle institutional buildout that continues regardless of price.
BitGo’s balance sheet gives it room to move
Context helps here. BitGo completed a $2.6 billion IPO in January 2026, a milestone that put the firm in a different category from most crypto-native businesses. It reported $16.2 billion in revenue for 2025 and currently safeguards over $80 billion in digital assets for approximately 5,500 clients.
Those numbers matter for the APAC expansion story. Building regulated infrastructure in multiple Asian jurisdictions is expensive and slow. Licensing processes, local partnerships, compliance staffing, and government relations all take time and capital. BitGo’s public market status and revenue base give it the resources to play that long game in a way that smaller, venture-backed competitors cannot easily match.
Singapore has one of the more developed crypto regulatory frameworks in the world, which is part of why BitGo has established a local entity there. An executive with deep MAS experience is well-positioned to navigate that patchwork of regulatory regimes and build relationships with the government bodies that will ultimately determine how institutional crypto participation evolves in each market.
What the bitcoin dip actually signals for custody demand
Here is the counterintuitive part of Ang’s argument. A falling bitcoin price is, in some ways, good for BitGo’s sales cycle. When prices are rising, institutions can be tempted to move fast and cut corners on infrastructure. When prices are falling and the market looks unstable, the conversation about proper custody and regulatory compliance becomes much easier to have.
The 21-month low that bitcoin reached around the time of Ang’s interview is uncomfortable by any measure. But for an institutional custodian, market discomfort translates into urgency. Clients who were watching from the sidelines suddenly need to know that if they enter the market, their assets are properly held, insured, and legally structured.
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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