Custody

Custody is who holds the keys on behalf of someone else, and under what legal terms. It is the plumbing behind every ETF, every corporate treasury position and every institution that wants exposure without operating key management itself. Unglamorous, and the single largest determinant of whether institutional money can enter a market at all.

What we track on this desk

• Qualified custodians. Who is licensed where, and which products they are approved to hold.
• Segregation and bankruptcy remoteness. Whether client assets are legally separate from the custodian’s own — the question that decides outcomes when a firm fails.
• Concentration. How many funds share one custodian, and the single-point-of-failure risk that creates.
• Proof of reserves. What is actually attested, by whom, and whether liabilities are covered as well as assets.
• Bank entry. Prudential rules determining whether regulated banks may custody digital assets, tracked with the Regulation desk.

How to read a custody story here

“Proof of reserves” is the phrase that most often means less than it appears to. An attestation showing assets without a corresponding liability figure demonstrates nothing about solvency, and a point-in-time snapshot can be satisfied with borrowed funds. Our coverage states what was attested, by whom, and on what date — and where a claim covers assets only, we say so.

Partnership announcements are the other soft spot. A custodian named in a press release may be one of several, or may be handling a pilot. We report the scope a filing or statement actually establishes; where sources characterise a relationship differently the story is Disputed.

Where to go next

See the Verification Center for how publishers are counted, or the Wallets hub for the self-custody side of the same problem.