Digital Asset Custodian Gets Cold Storage Approval

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Digital Asset Custodian Fireblocks Trust Receives New York DFS Approval for Institutional Cold Storage
State-chartered trust becomes one of the first custodians to meet 2025 standards for segregated, air-gapped vaulting of virtual currency

NEW YORK – November 20, 2025 – Fireblocks Trust Company today announced that the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) has formally green-lighted its segregated cold-storage architecture for institutional digital-asset custody, positioning the firm among the first qualified custodians to satisfy newly tightened state rules that took effect last month.

The approval comes as regulators worldwide tighten safeguards following a wave of high-profile hacks and collapses. Under the updated NYDFS guidance issued 10 October, custodians must now demonstrate “clear traceability of beneficial ownership” for every on-chain or omnibus wallet, maintain air-gapped private keys, and obtain prior regulatory consent before engaging any sub-custodian . Fireblocks Trust’s submission—audited by Deloitte & Touche and stress-tested over 18 months—passed all 42 technical and operational checkpoints, including disaster-recovery drills and penetration tests performed by NCC Group.

“Institutional investors have been waiting for a U.S. regulator to endorse a cold-storage model that is both technically bullet-proof and legally segregated,” said Stephen Richardson, VP of Product at Fireblocks Trust. “This approval gives pensions, endowments and ETF sponsors a fiduciary-grade path to allocate to bitcoin, ether and whitelisted ERC-20 tokens without relinquishing bankruptcy-remote protections.”

The custodian already safeguards more than US $14 billion of client assets across 180 institutions, including Galaxy, FalconX and the University of Michigan’s endowment. Since the SEC’s no-action letter of 30 September clarified that state-chartered trusts can serve as qualified custodians for crypto, daily inbound inquiries have jumped 60 %, according to internal data shared with CoinDesk.

Market demand is rising in tandem. Boston Consulting Group estimates that regulated crypto custody assets under management will reach US $7.5 trillion by 2030, up from US $420 billion today, while a November 2025 survey by Coalition Greenwich found that 78 % of U.S. asset managers cite “lack of qualified cold storage” as the primary obstacle to allocating more than 1 % of portfolios to digital assets .

Fireblocks Trust’s cold vaults reside in Class-III bank vaults on the U.S. East Coast, protected by multi-signature Shamir secret-sharing and offline transaction signing. Client assets are never re-hypothecated, and the firm carries a US $100 million crime insurance policy underwritten by Lloyd’s syndicates. Real-time proof-of-reserves is published on its website every 24 hours, and SOC-1 Type 2 and SOC-2 Type 2 reports are issued quarterly.

“We built this to exceed the custody standards that apply to the largest traditional clearing banks,” said CEO Michael Shaulov. “When a pension fund board asks, ‘Is our bitcoin out of reach of hackers and creditors?’ we can now answer with a fully regulated ‘yes’ backed by the New York State government.”

The firm plans to roll out similar segregated cold-storage offerings in Singapore and the U.K. during Q1-2026, pending local licensing.

Media Contact