Crypto Storage Firm Qredo’s Revamped Self-Custody Wallet Goes Live

Crypto storage technology firm Qredo has revamped its self-custody wallet platform, bringing to market a cheap, open source option for institutional crypto traders that no longer want to risk allowing digital assets to be held by others in centralized situations.

Like the earlier version of the protocol, New Qredo, announced on Tuesday, uses clever key sharding tech called multi-party computation (MPC), with improved control over team permissions and approval processes, the company said in a press release.

Having complete control over digital assets is ever more vital in the wake of last year’s blows-up of FTX and the bankruptcies of various other centralized crypto platforms. As such, there’s a gap in the market for a custody system that’s open-source, on-chain and doesn’t cost the earth, according to Qredo chief operating officer Josh Goodbody.

“The New Qredo is a brand new institutional-grade custody and wallet management platform, and the radical thing we’ve done is make it open and available to anyone,” Goodbody said in an interview with CoinDesk. “The big players in this space like Copper, Fireblocks and others gate-keep their product and charge a very high service fee that means really only large firms are able to use them.”

Qredo has been building custody and wallet products for over four years now, with over 85,000 users globally, of which 350 are institutional and corporate clients, Goodbody said. The firm sees an average of over $4 billion of monthly asset movements in and out of wallets.

“We saw a spike to just under $6 billion per month following the collapse of FTX, when everybody flooded to self custody,” Goodbody said. “Over the course of last year alone, the flight to self custody saw us secure just under $30 billion of crypto asset movements.”