St. Cloud Financial Credit Union, an institution founded by postal workers in 1930, is now holding real Bitcoin in custody for its members. In a new interview with Bitcoin Magazine, CEO Jed Meyer details the credit union's patent-pending hybrid custody model, which gives each member individual Bitcoin ownership secured in a multisig vault — an arrangement that requires multiple cryptographic keys to authorize a transaction. The move is notable for the credit union sector — member-owned, not-for-profit cooperatives — because, according to Meyer, it is the first credit union to put Bitcoin on its core ledger, the central ledger system a credit union uses to track member accounts.

Meyer also notes that the institution has grown to more than 20 BTC under custody without even trying.

The discussion traces the credit union's path to Bitcoin, opening with stablecoins — digital tokens pegged to money such as the US dollar — alongside dollars and Bitcoin as new money networks. Meyer compares the Bitcoin ETF route with direct credit union custody under the hybrid model and describes how direct buy and sell capabilities can bring Main Street into Bitcoin. The conversation also covers Minnesota custody law, exams by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), the federal agency that regulates and insures US credit unions, and the CLARITY Act, federal legislation aimed at clarifying oversight of digital assets — regulatory threads at the center of any credit union's decision to hold Bitcoin — along with what it takes for a credit union to own Bitcoin. Further segments address plans for the Lightning Network, a Bitcoin layer built for faster, lower-cost payments; the Cloud Dollar stablecoin; the cooperative ownership model underlying credit unions; how credit unions decide which digital assets to offer; educating skeptics; and why credit unions must own their rails.

The interview, titled "$350M St Cloud CEO: The First Credit Union to Put Bitcoin on Core Ledger," was published by Bitcoin Magazine and written by Patrick Green. The full video is available on Bitcoin Magazine's website.

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