Custody is the key to… Jack McDonald, one of the Legends of the industry in Custody, joined Joe Endoso, COO of Linqto, for a fireside chat about Polysign and the state of digital assets and custody. Custody is such a misunderstood and unknown part of the digital asset industry. Everyone takes it for granteer4q12d, but it is vastly complex and immensely important. Ok, let’s all admit custody might not be very sexy, but custody is the foundation that underpins the management and safekeeping of assets.

The world of digital assets is growing and maturing at tremendous speed, and, as such, so has demand for digital custodian services; institutional investors need trusted custody and trading solutions on par with their requirements for investing in traditional securities. Custody is the glue that brings the broader crypto industry together, without it you can’t have tokenization, you cannot have smart contracts. So, what’s the market context? Well over the last five years, the number of blockchain wallet users worldwide has skyrocketed from 15.2m to over 81m today. In the past year alone, global cryptocurrency adoption has jumped over 880%, particularly driven by usecases in emerging markets. And whilst crypto has captured immense interest from retail investors, the role of custodians in the institutional cryptocurrency ecosystem cannot be underestimated. Institutions have to deal with much greater solution complexity due to compliance and regulatory controls over fund movements, the need to interface with established legacy systems, reporting requirements, and a load more. A better platform for custody and fund administrations is essential to address this challenge and aid accelerating the transition from traditional finance to decentralized finance.

Polysign is a regulated qualified custodian so they custody the key. It has a native blockchain at its core, which is key from a security and a regulatory compliance standpoint. Polysign isn’t trying to be a silver bullet solution (many crypto firms attempt to be an exchange, brokerage and custody house), instead they focus on one thing and do it really well: custody-based services for institutions. It’s just acquired MG Stover, the ‘go to’ in fund administration around digital. They also have a subsidiary called Standard Custody and Trust, which has patented tech for securing secret keys, it provides custody and escrow services for institutions. The strategic imperative of putting those businesses together is to compliment custody from all angles.

Fireside Chat with Polysign CEO – Jack McDonald