# Institutional custody of digital assets

> Working with Fireblocks, SIX Digital Exchange moved a regulated custody infrastructure for digital assets into production. It gives institutional clients secure access to crypto assets using multi-party computation and bank-grade governance. In the following months, the production custody service was expanded as planned to include institutional trading and staking services.

**Sector:** Tertiary sector · **Industry:** Security services · **Organisation:** SIX Digital Exchange (SDX), Fireblocks · **Maturity level:** Production

Canonical URL: https://www.sapientblock.com/en/use-cases/six-digital-exchange-digitale-vermoegenswerte-institutionell-verwahren

## Documentation status

- **Project status:** Production
- **Evidence:** Evidence medium
- **Editorial review:** pending

## Description

In a strategic collaboration with Fireblocks, SIX Digital Exchange has established a production custody infrastructure for regulated financial enterprises. This system enables banks and asset managers to securely hold and transfer digital assets without having to develop their own highly complex key storage solutions. The use of modern cryptography ensures that no single actor can gain sole control over assets.

With SDX Web3 Services, SIX Digital Exchange and Fireblocks created an institutional bridge between traditional banking and the market for digital assets. The technical foundation is formed by multi-party computation technology, which splits private keys into multiple shares and performs computations in a distributed manner. This approach effectively protects holdings from internal misuse as well as external attacks on central key archives. Following the production deployment of the custody services, SDX gradually expanded the offering in 2023 to include complementary staking functions and institutional trading. Although the operators confirm successful production operation, no isolated metrics on total assets under custody or percentage cost reductions have been disclosed to date.

## Benefits

- Shortened time-to-market for digital assets
- Reduction of technical and operational in-house development risk
- High level of security by avoiding centrally stored private keys
- Regulatory-compliant integration into existing banking processes
- Scalable platform for additional services such as staking and trading
- Automated approval workflows for institutional transactions
- Clear traceability and logging of all operational steps

## Challenges

- Dependence on specialised third-party technologies for critical core functions
- Complex integration of cryptographic protection layers into existing core banking architectures
- Dynamic regulatory requirements for the custody of digital assets
- High training requirements for staff regarding MPC protocols and Web3 risks

## Technology foundation

The solution is based on multi-party computation cryptography from Fireblocks combined with the Web3 infrastructure services of SIX Digital Exchange. By splitting private keys into mathematical shares, the risk of a single point of failure is eliminated without impairing operational transaction speed.

## Sources

- [SDX and Fireblocks Partner for Institutional Custody](https://www.fireblocks.com/blog/sdx-x-fireblocks)
- [SIX Digital Exchange goes live with digital asset custody](https://www.ledgerinsights.com/six-digital-exchange-goes-live-with-digital-asset-custody/)