custody

GoPlus Security issued a security alert stating that the security organization SEAL recently reported multiple cases of asset loss among users of self-hosted wallets on iOS, involving several users. Users are reminded to update their iPhones to the latest iOS version as soon as possible and to check if any malicious applications are installed on their devices.During the period from October 28 to November 3, six related reports were received, with losses amounting to approximately $127,000, compared to four reports and about $434,000 the previous week. The related attacks are suspected to be associated with exploitation tools targeting wallet applications, such as DarkSword and Coruna, with victims mainly from Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan.

According to official news from Bitget, the platform announced the launch of the Open Custody Network (OCN). With the core concept of "Assets in Bank, Tradings on Bitget," it aims to connect banks, custody companies, and other professional financial institutions with Bitget's trading infrastructure. This network integrates core capabilities such as independent asset custody, bank and institutional-level security guarantees, integrated trading services from exchanges, and capital efficiency, breaking the traditional model of centralized exchanges that concentrate asset custody and trading on the same platform.OCN utilizes an asset mapping mechanism to open up the channels between independent asset custody and trading services, allowing all eligible users to participate in Bitget's spot, leveraged, and contract trading while retaining independent custody rights over their assets. This provides access to exchange-level liquidity and integrated trading services, further lowering the barriers to trading participation and enabling more users to access financial services in a more equitable manner.Bitget CEO Gracy Chen stated that OCN aims to break the traditional model where users must custody their assets with an exchange to use its trading services, allowing users to enjoy high-quality liquidity and efficient capital utilization while independently choosing their asset custody methods, making financial services more open and inclusive.

According to the Hong Kong News Bulletin, the main forum of Hong Kong FinTech Week x StartmeupHK 2026 concluded on November 3 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. The Deputy Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury, Chan Ho Lam, stated: "Certainty plays a key role in innovative development. Under the direction of the 'Hong Kong Digital Asset Development Policy Declaration 2', we will establish a licensing system for virtual asset trading, custody, advisory, and management services, and submit a draft amendment to the Legislative Council in 2026 to clarify the compliance path for the market."In addition, during the panel discussion, the Chief Executive Officer of the Securities and Futures Commission, Ashley Alder, elaborated on the SFC's strategic vision, pointing out that artificial intelligence and tokenization will empower the development of Hong Kong's financial market, but it is essential to protect investors and maintain market integrity at the same time. Ashley Alder also noted that in the face of increasingly severe threats related to artificial intelligence, the industry must enhance cyber resilience. Regarding tokenization, she believes that achieving true scale effects hinges on integrating it into market operations, bringing substantial benefits through improved efficiency, accessibility, liquidity, and settlement speed. The Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Eddie Yue, stated that Hong Kong has the advantage to seize new growth opportunities brought by financial technology. With the good progress made under "FinTech 2030," banks and fintech companies will be able to utilize data, artificial intelligence, tokenization, and other emerging technologies more effectively.

The cryptocurrency custody institution BitGo has added a Stacks Bitcoin staking feature to its qualified custody services. Eligible institutions are required to allocate 5% of their Bitcoin holdings in STX to participate in staking paired with BTC.This staking form is a bond with a term of approximately six months, funded by Stacks miners. Stacks is a smart contract network built on Bitcoin. After the launch of this feature, institutional clients can complete related staking operations within BitGo's qualified custody framework.

According to a report by South Korea's News1, industry sources say that the Financial Services Commission (FSC) of South Korea held an emergency security inspection meeting on November 2 with major cryptocurrency exchanges and custodians, using the Binance theft incident as an opportunity to discuss increasing the proportion of cold wallet custody at exchanges. The current proposal is to raise this proportion from the 80% stipulated by the existing Virtual Asset User Protection Act to around 99%, which is maintained by some large exchanges.It is reported that the cold wallet custody ratio of Upbit user assets exceeds 99%, Bithumb is about 94%, Coinone is 85%, and exchanges like GOPAX are just above 80%. Industry insiders warn that increasing the ratio will reduce the assets available for immediate withdrawals in hot wallets, which may lead to withdrawal delays and increase the operational burden on small and medium-sized exchanges. In August of this year, Bithumb experienced delays of about 13 hours for withdrawals of some altcoins due to insufficient hot wallet balances. This proposal is still under discussion and has not yet been finalized.

Matthew Sigel, the Head of Digital Asset Research at VanEck, stated that Citigroup Wealth released a report titled "Expanding the Investable Universe: A Guide to Crypto ETFs," recommending spot BTC and ETH ETFs to suitable clients as a way to allocate digital assets through regulated brokerage accounts beyond stocks and bonds. Additionally, on August 18, Citigroup announced that its new Custody+ platform will begin holding Bitcoin for institutional clients this year.Sigel noted that this will make Citigroup the 6th bank among the 29 global systemically important banks to have launched or announced institutional Bitcoin custody, following BNY, Standard Chartered, Société Générale, State Street, and Deutsche Bank. BNY, Standard Chartered, and SG-Forge have been licensed and are serving institutions, while Deutsche Bank stated it will launch within weeks, and JPMorgan has indicated it will not provide custody at this time. Sigel mentioned that last week's Binance hacking incident may be one reason for Citigroup not announcing the timeline, as he heard the service was originally set to launch last week.

As of 1:42 AM Beijing time, 100 million XRP (worth approximately 125 million USD) has been locked in Ripple's custody account.

Standard Chartered Bank has announced that it is providing digital asset custody services in Luxembourg and the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC).The bank's authorized partnership with LMAX covers its Luxembourg entity and Dubai branch. Additionally, an independent collateral link will allow clients to trade using tokens held in the bank's custody.

The founder of hardware wallet company OneKey, Yishi, stated that the security incidents involving Binance and previously Bybit indicate that even if wallet private keys are not leaked, attackers may still steal assets by infiltrating the signature approval system. BlackRock's Bitcoin spot ETF IBIT holds approximately 815,000 BTC, valued at about $63 billion, and is currently primarily custodied by Coinbase.Although IBIT has introduced Anchorage Digital as an additional custodian, there are no plans for asset transfers at this time. Yishi pointed out that BlackRock has not separately purchased insurance for the Bitcoin held by IBIT, and Coinbase's commercial crime insurance coverage is $320 million, shared among multiple clients. The custody agreement stipulates that the liability limit for each cold storage address is $100 million. In the event of a significant theft where assets cannot be recovered or adequate compensation obtained, losses may be borne by ETF holders. There is currently no evidence to suggest that IBIT has become a target of attack.

Steve Gregory, the CEO of Binance.US, stated that the funds of Binance.US users are completely independent and not affected by this incident. He also emphasized that Binance.US and Binance are entirely separate entities, and there are no shared asset custody arrangements between the two.

The issuer of synthetic US dollars USDe, Ethena, stated in a post on X that it is aware of potential security incidents related to Binance. Ethena indicated that all collateral with exchange exposure is held with an off-chain custodian, rather than directly on the exchange itself. Ethena mentioned that updates will be provided through its official account once more details about the incident are known.Subsequently, Ethena added that the total unrealized profit and loss exposure to Binance amounts to approximately 8.8 million dollars, significantly lower than the excess reserve fund of over 60 million dollars. Ethena stated that information regarding collateral and reserve funds can be found on its transparency page, and it will provide reserve proof executed by multiple external agencies within a few hours, published in that discussion thread.On the same day, Binance announced that it is investigating reports of potential security issues and will release verified information through official channels. Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao stated that the situation appears to be an attack on Binance and expressed expectations that user funds will be fully covered.

Google has launched a Multi-Party Computation (MPC) custody platform aimed at banks and financial institutions to protect cryptocurrencies and tokenized assets. The platform disperses shares of private keys across different environments, preventing any single participant from having complete control over the private key; before transaction signing, it can also verify spending limits, approved addresses, and multi-party authorization requirements according to institutional rules.This service is currently in a private preview phase and is planned to be commercially available in early 2027. Google stated that several large financial institutions are participating in the testing; Alphabet has used this technology to protect its digital assets on Solana and Ethereum, but has not disclosed the list of held assets or testing institutions.

According to CoinDesk, Google will launch its Google Multi-Party Compute (MPC) security service at the first digital asset seminar held in New York on Wednesday, helping financial institutions such as banks to store and transfer cryptocurrencies and tokenized assets.The product is currently in a private preview phase, with several financial institutions testing it. Its parent company, Alphabet, has used it to protect its digital assets on Ethereum and Solana, with plans for commercial use in early 2027, and pricing has not yet been disclosed. The system splits private keys into multiple shards, which are stored across different systems, requiring checks against pre-set institutional rules before transaction signing, and supports ECDSA and Ed25519 algorithms.

According to Solid Intel, Brazil's largest bank Itaú Unibanco has become the first bank to officially engage in cryptocurrency trading and custody services under the new regulations set by the Central Bank of Brazil. The bank has reported the relevant business to the Central Bank of Brazil on Tuesday, ahead of the deadline of October 30.

According to a statement released by Predict.fun on the X platform, a small number of user wallets experienced unauthorized fund transfers, with total losses amounting to approximately 400,000 USDT. Preliminary investigations indicate that an API documentation website hosted by a third-party service provider may have been compromised, affecting a small number of users in a short period.The website has been taken offline and will remain closed until the investigation is complete. Predict.fun promises to fully compensate users who have directly suffered losses due to this incident and will release a complete review report and subsequent preventive measures after the investigation concludes. Predict.fun is a prediction market platform based on the BNB Chain.

According to an official announcement from Ripple, Bank of New York Mellon (BNY) has supported XRP and the US dollar stablecoin RLUSD on its digital asset custody platform. Eligible institutional clients can custody, hold, and transfer related assets through this platform. The two parties are further expanding their digital asset collaboration based on the existing RLUSD reserve custody and Ripple Prime custody partnership.BNY plans to expand support for tokenized assets and investment products on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) and collaborate with Ripple, allowing clients to directly mint and redeem RLUSD through BNY in the future. Additionally, both parties are exploring XRPL-based supply chain financing solutions with the working capital platform C2FO, tokenizing trade financing assets such as accounts receivable to broaden investor participation channels.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse stated that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has finally approved the application related to Ripple National Trust Bank. This approval will provide Ripple with a business platform under a federal regulatory framework to support its dollar stablecoin RLUSD and offer digital asset custody services to enterprise clients.Garlinghouse noted that this move reflects the integration of the cryptocurrency industry with the traditional banking system, emphasizing the importance of innovation, accountability mechanisms, and federal regulation.

Blink Wallet, a Bitcoin wallet, announced a monthly idle fee of $1 for custodial accounts that have not logged into the app for 12 consecutive months. This adjustment was initiated at the beginning of September through a change in the terms of service and push notifications were sent to inactive users, with the first deduction completed in mid-October. According to a blog post released by the company, users who log back in within 12 months will have the deducted fees refunded.This fee applies only to custodial accounts and aims to alleviate the burden that inactive accounts place on the startup. The announcement stated that these accounts incur ongoing costs related to ledger and infrastructure maintenance, record verification retention, compliance monitoring and reporting, as well as support for claims, which were previously shared by active users through regular in-app transaction fees. Sources told Bitcoin Magazine that approximately 100,000 accounts met the criteria for inactivity at the time of the first deduction, with a total balance exceeding $800,000. The first deduction collected about $45,000, primarily from accounts that had been idle for over a year with small Bitcoin balances. Blink Wallet originated from the Bitcoin adoption wave in El Salvador, initially named Bitcoin Beach Wallet, and was an early custodial Lightning Network wallet that introduced the Stable Sats feature to hedge value against the US dollar. The wallet was spun off from the founding company Galoy in October 2024, operated by Lukas Duczko and a new board, with Duczko holding a controlling stake, while Galoy continues as a service provider and minority shareholder, also establishing the Bitcoin Beach Fund.In recent years, custodial wallets have faced overall pressure, with Wallet of Satoshi, Alby, and Blue Wallet successively halting custodial wallet services and shifting to self-custody infrastructures like Spark. The EU MiCA regulations regarding licensing and KYC compliance requirements are an important backdrop. Blink launched a self-custody wallet supported by Spark in June 2026, and its user base is still adapting to this transition. On September 19, hackers withdrew 6.61 Bitcoins from custodial wallet users through compromised management tools, and the company's investors subsequently announced that they would fully compensate affected users.

According to Chainlink's official blog, Chainlink has officially launched the CustodySync solution, allowing qualified custodians to enable their institutional clients to participate in the DeFi lending market under the premise of asset retention custody. Anchorage Digital, a federally chartered digital asset bank in the United States, is the official launch partner.This solution publishes custody balances on-chain through Chainlink Proof of Reserve and issues tokenized certificates representing custody assets with transfer restrictions as collateral in the lending market; the custodian and the lending protocol calculate the Loan-to-Value (LTV) based on the same price data from Chainlink Data Feeds and Data Streams, with the designated collateral agent executing sales when liquidation is triggered. Chainlink states that the current scale of digital asset custody is approximately $700 billion, with deposits in the DeFi lending market exceeding $80 billion and active loans over $30 billion.

US licensed brokerage and tokenized stock infrastructure service provider Alpaca tweeted that its entity Alpaca Clearing & Custody ME Ltd (Alpaca Middle East) has received in-principle approval (IPA) from the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) of the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) for its financial services license application.After obtaining the financial services license, Alpaca Middle East plans to provide brokerage services and virtual asset custody services within the scope of the final approval from the FSRA. Alpaca stated that in-principle approval is not equivalent to a financial services license, and Alpaca Middle East is not permitted to conduct regulated activities within or from the ADGM until the relevant license is obtained.