An institution that buys Bitcoin has to decide who will hold the keys that move it.

Its board also needs to know who can approve a transfer and how access would be restored if the usual people or systems fail.

Vincent Fong, Chief Editor of Fintech News Network, put the concern to a panel of custodians at the Luno Institutional Digital Asset Conference in Kuala Lumpur.

“Who do we trust with our assets, and is it actually safe?”

His question led the panellists through what an institution would need to check before holding crypto itself or entrusting it to a digital asset custody provider.

Angela Ang, Managing Director (APAC) at BitGo, explained that the distinction between self-custody and third-party custody starts with control of the private keys.

Under BitGo’s regulated custody arrangement, the custodian holds the keys and keeps client assets in cold storage, with the wallets disconnected from the internet.

An institution using a wallet it controls itself remains responsible for those keys, even if it obtains the technology from a provider.

Tan Ji Sheng, CEO of Gambit Custody, used individual self-custody to make the risk easier to picture.

Someone using a software wallet must retain the recovery phrase, and a hardware wallet still requires a backup if the device is lost.

An institution has to manage that responsibility across the people authorised to act for it.

Aaron Thian, Institutional Sales Director at Anchorage Digital , asked whether it wanted to “buy a safe box” or “sign up for a bank account”.

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