Institutional digital asset custody has long forced firms to choose between safety and flexibility. Cold storage protects assets but slows trading, while faster market access can add counterparty, prefunding, and operational risks.
Zodia Custody is building around that gap. The firm is nominated for Best Digital Asset Custody Provider at the BeInCrypto Institutional 100 Awards 2026.
| Founded | Backed By | Offices | Jurisdictions | Employees | Regulatory Footprint |
| 2020 | 5 banks | 7 | 15+ | 150+ | 5 |
“The role of the digital custodian has been evolving since this started a decade ago. The custodian will increasingly provide core infrastructure. We will be expected to connect across the entire life cycle, from issuance platforms to custody and wallets,” Anoosh Arevshatian, Chief Product Officer at Zodia Custody told BeInCrypto.
Zodia Custody Infrastructure Snapshot
The nomination centers on Solutions by Zodia Custody, the firm’s white-labeled infrastructure and advisory suite for financial institutions.
The product allows banks and enterprises to launch their own digital asset services under their own brand, using Zodia Custody’s institutional infrastructure rather than building custody systems from the ground up.
Zodia describes Solutions as a white-label digital asset custody service for enterprises and financial institutions, while its banks-focused page positions it as infrastructure and advisory support for large financial institutions.
Digital asset custody is one of the hardest parts of institutional adoption. Firms need secure key management, governance controls, compliance workflows, asset support, client reporting, audit trails, and regulatory readiness before they can offer services at scale.
Solutions by Zodia Custody give institutions a faster route to market. Instead of spending years developing custody infrastructure internally, financial institutions can use a tested platform to launch white-labeled digital asset services in weeks.
Bringing Trading Closer to Custody
Zodia Custody was established in late 2020 by SC Ventures, Standard Chartered’s innovation unit, and Northern Trust. The firm was built to bring banking-grade custody standards into digital assets.
Its shareholder base now includes Standard Chartered, Northern Trust, SBI Holdings, National Australia Bank, and Emirates NBD. Emirates NBD became the fifth traditional financial institution to back the company through a strategic investment in December 2024.
The bank-backed structure is central to Zodia’s positioning. Custody is one of the few parts of digital asset infrastructure where institutions still expect familiar controls: segregation, governance, auditability, compliance, and clear legal accountability.
Zodia Switch extends that model from safekeeping into portfolio activity. The product does not turn Zodia into a trading venue. Instead, it lets institutions access liquidity from inside their custody setup.
That is a practical shift. It reduces the need to choose between keeping assets protected and making them usable.
A Wider Institutional Product Stack
Zodia Switch builds on a wider custody and settlement suite.
The firm already offers Interchange, its off-exchange settlement product with LMAX. It also offers Solutions by Zodia Custody, a white-label custody infrastructure product for banks, alongside services for government and law enforcement clients.
Zodia has also become part of Europe’s regulated digital asset product market. Its custody mandates include 21Shares’ physically backed ABTC ETP, Invesco’s European Physical Bitcoin ETP, and Bitwise, formerly ETC Group. Invesco states that each Physical Bitcoin ETP certificate is secured by Bitcoin held offline in cold storage by Zodia Custody.
“When you build your entire foundational design around mitigating threats as the primary goal, it changes everything. User experience and abstracting the difficulty of digital assets can follow later; the primary importance must be security at the foundational level,” the Chief Product Officer at Zodia Custody told BeInCrypto.
The firm is also connected to new post-trade infrastructure. ClearToken’s CT Settle, a delivery-versus-payment settlement service for cryptoassets, stablecoins, and fiat currency, used Zodia Custody as the sole digital custodian in its first settlement cycle. The platform is powered by Nasdaq Eqlipse Clearing technology.
Zodia’s regulatory footprint has also expanded. In January 2026, French market regulator AMF listed Zodia Custody Europe S.A. as a MiCA-licensed CASP passporting from Luxembourg, authorized for custody and administration of crypto-assets on behalf of clients and crypto-asset transfer services.
Standard Chartered Moves Closer
Zodia’s nomination also comes as Standard Chartered appears to be bringing digital asset custody deeper into its institutional banking strategy.
On April 8, 2026, reports suggested that Standard Chartered was seeking to merge parts of majority-owned Zodia Custody with one of its digital asset operations. The report said the bank planned to integrate Zodia’s crypto custody business into a division inside its corporate and investment bank that provides similar services.
That move would underline the direction of the market. Digital asset custody is no longer a side product for financial institutions. It is becoming part of the same infrastructure stack as trading, settlement, collateral management, and tokenized asset services.
For Zodia, the timing strengthens the nomination. The firm already sits at the intersection of bank ownership, regulated custody, ETP servicing, and institutional trading workflows. Zodia Switch gives that position a sharper product story.
The BeInCrypto Institutional 100 Awards recognize firms building the systems that could define the next phase of digital finance. Zodia Custody’s nomination reflects its role in moving institutional custody from passive safekeeping toward controlled, auditable asset activity.
