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The Future of Finance Digital Asset Custody Event 2025

December 3, 2025
1 Day Event: 9.00am to 8.00pm

This one-day event gathers the leading minds from finance, regulation and technology to address one of the most critical challenges in digital assets: custody and safekeeping. Through expert panels and deep dives, we’ll examine how custodians can ensure asset security, enable trading, manage identity, navigate global regulation, and evolve in an increasingly converged landscape. From technical trust models like MPC and HSM, to cross-jurisdiction liability, and the path to consolidation, the event aims to set a clear roadmap for institutional confidence in digital assets.

Topics:

Not all digital asset custodians are created equal
How digital asset custodians can facilitate trading
Is digital identity the killer app for digital asset custodians?
America versus Europe versus Asia: The current state of digital asset custody law and regulation
Is the digital asset custody industry consolidating or converging?

This Future of Finance Digital Asset Custody one day event will explore some of these issues on December 3, 2025

Come and join:

Pension funds, foundations, endowments, insurers
Pension consultants
Custody banks and sub-custodian banks
Digital asset custodians
Asset managers & wealth managers
Regulators, policy makers, and regulatory advisors
Legal, compliance & risk professionals focused on digital assets
Technology providers (custody infrastructure, key-management, security, APIs)
Blockchain / DLT platforms and interoperability firms
Financial institutions exploring entry into digital assets (banks, securities firms)
Institutional investors, family offices considering digital asset exposure
Standardisation bodies and industry associations concerned with custody frameworks

Venue:

The Aon Centre, The Leadenhall Building, 122 Leadenhall Street, London EC3V 4AN

Who will attend:

Pension Funds; Foundations and Endowments; Insurers; Pension Consultants; Custody Banks; Sub-Custodian Banks; Digital Asset Custodians; Asset Managers; Wealth Managers; Regulators and Policy Makers

Agenda

Click the plus signs to read more about each panel.

TBC
Not all digital asset custodians are created equal
Topics and Questions:

Traditional versus digital asset custodians
Are the differences between digital asset custodians greater than the differences between traditional custodians?
What are the material differences between custodying digital assets and custodying traditional assets?
Is a bank-owned digital asset custodian with a history in traditional custody well-equipped (e.g., knowledge of traditional techniques, lack of knowledge of digital assets, governance and operational procedures) to provide digital asset custody?
Do digital asset custodians enjoy a technological superiority over traditional custodians?
Traditional custodians have switched recently to settlement on trade date plus one day (T+1) in North America. What can they learn from digital asset custodians settling trades on T+0?
It is often not appreciated that non-bank custodians have a solid record (Prime Trust in Nevada in 2023 apart). Is that just luck?

Asset safety
Different things happen to customer assets when different types of digital asset custodian fail. Does asset segregation cover that risk?
Is it always clear when a custodian is liable for a loss and a customer is liable for a loss?
How important is financial strength sufficient to make a customer whole if assets are lost?
Is insurance an adequate substitute for capital (capitalised banks have both)?
Most custody losses have occurred at exchanges (e.g., Coinbase 2021, FTX 2022, Bybit 2025). Does it ever make sense to custody assets on a cryptocurrency exchange?
What is the case against self-custody (and it may be different for retail and institutional users)?
How much attention should customers pay to sub-custodians used by a digital asset custodian?
How important is the regulatory status (full banking licence, securities licence, registration with a regulator) of a digital asset custodian?
There is no auditing standard for digital assets. What prevents digital asset custodians from simply making up records of client assets in custody (Madoff risk), e.g., audit, Proof of Reserves?

Services
Is market coverage (number of blockchains serviced, number of cryptocurrencies serviced) correlated with the riskiness of a digital asset custodian?
Is the provision of “staking” and “lending” services a red flag?
Does the provision of Decentralised Finance (DeFi) services by a digital asset custodian provide a vital service to institutions (e.g., centralised access to decentralised services) or is it red flag?
Have technical capabilities (Hardware Security Modules (HSMs), Multi-Party Computation (MPC), MultiSig, key sharding) evolved to the point where they are not a differentiator?
Are available digital asset custody services adequate for safekeeping security tokens?
The growth of tokenised money market funds and cryptocurrency ETFs mean digital asset custodians must supply fund accounting and transfer agency services as well. Are traditional custodians better placed to supply these services?

Closing question
It seems institutional money is not yet convinced they can trust digital asset custodians to keep their assets safe. Is it a case of ignorance or prudence?

Panellists

Dominic Longman - Global Head of Markets at Zodia Custody
How digital asset custodians can facilitate trading
Topics and Questions:

Services
Many digital asset custodians claim to be offering a “prime brokerage” service. What do they mean by “prime brokerage”?
Is off-exchange settlement of trades on closed networks, with assets remaining in third party custody, a work-around pending a depository/central bank money solution or a permanent solution?
What contribution do cryptocurrency “lending” and “staking” services make to levels of trading activity on cryptocurrency exchanges?
How important is the ability to re-use customer assets to the revenues of digital asset custodians?
Collateral management has been identified as an early use-case for tokenisation. Are the benefits confined to traditional markets (e.g., repo, securities lending) or do they apply to cryptocurrency trading as well?
How are tokenised money market funds being used in cryptocurrency trading (e.g., as higher yielding alternatives to Stablecoins, as collateral on exchanges, as off-ramps into fiat currency etc.)?
How important is the price (set-up, ad valorem and transaction fees) of custody to traders?

Asset safety
How do digital asset custodians safeguard client digital assets when “staking” or “lending” them?
How do digital asset custodians safeguard client digital assets when posting them as collateral?
How confident can clients of a trading firm be that their assets are held in a bankruptcy remote structure?
Is it possible to hold client assets in a segregated account and supply the customer with “prime brokerage” or “prime financing” services?
Is it riskier for an investor to hold digital assets in an omnibus wallet/account than traditional securities in an omnibus wallet/account?
Real world assets (RWAs) are seen as an early use case for tokenisation. What does it mean for a custodian to safekeep a token that represents a physical asset?
Are pre-signed transactions (allowing assets to be transferred without reliance on private keys) a useful idea or an imprudent one?

Stablecoins
Does it make sense for digital asset custodians to issue Stablecoins to support cryptocurrency trading?
If they do not issue Stablecoins of their own, how should custodians position themselves for wider use of Stablecoins (e.g., KYC, AML, CFT and sanctions checks)?
Is it a problem for certain digital asset custodians that Stablecoins are overwhelmingly denominated in US dollars?

Closing question
Trading is at present overwhelmingly a cryptocurrency activity. How relevant will that experience be for custodians supporting clients trading security tokens?

Panellists

TBC
Is digital identity the killer app for digital asset custodians?
Topics and Questions:

Definition
“Digital identity” means more than one thing (e.g. self-sovereign Decentralised Identifiers (DIDs), verified credentials issued by banks to customers, complete data sets controlled by individuals, complete data sets about individuals maintained by third party specialists, government issued IDs etc.). Is a definition of “digital identity” – or the components of “digital identity” – necessary?

Uses
The obvious use-case for digital identity in custody is customer on-boarding, which currently involves multiple document exchanges, multiple parties, duplication and repetition of processes, different processes for different businesses and asset classes, and often takes months. Are custodians persuaded digital identities are the key to a more efficient process?
Legal Entity Identifiers (LEIs), originally conceived to identify counterparts in traditional markets, are being used to identify issuers in digital asset markets. How does it help digital asset custodians to verify issuers (e.g., identifying a client customer at onboarding, reducing the risk of fraud etc.)?
We now have a Digital Token Identifier (DTI) comparable with the International Securities Identification Number (ISIN) in traditional markets. How useful is it to digital asset custodians in identifying assets?

Value
How big a risk (e.g., financial loss, money laundering, fraud, regulatory fines, data breaches) do custodians take if identities (e.g., at onboarding) are mismanaged?
Assembling an identity (whether digital or not) is a (still largely manual) data gathering exercise. How hard would it be to automate the process (e.g. via APIs)?

Obstacles
Is the compliance function within a regulated financial institution a friend or foe of digital identities?
Is the compliance function within regulated financial institutions too fragmented (i.e., divided between account opening, credit risk, legal, tax, cyber-security etc.) to support digital identities?
Investors and asset managers want to own and control their own data, and that of their customers. How does that complicate provision of digital identities?
Digital asset custodians are reluctant to rely on identities verified by other entities or identity verification credentials issued by other entities (i.e., do digital asset custodians insist on duplicating verification checks). Is that reluctance justified?
Is there a risk that digital identity might be captured by a single commercial entity rather than becoming an open public protocol?
The current customer identification process represents good business for data vendors. Won’t they oppose any moves to replace data checks with digital identities?
Who is most to blame for lack of progress on digital IDs – lack of investment by banks, lack of engagement by investors, vested interests of data vendors, unwillingness of data vendors to assume liability, surfeit of regulatory obligations, slow response of government tax and other offices, lack of official direction or something else?

Making it happen
Why have industry utilities (e.g., SWIFT KYC Registry, e-KYC Singapore) and/or technology vendors (e.g., Clariant, Onfido) not solved the identity verification problem?
Is obliging companies and individuals to take ownership of their identification data, and assume responsibility for keeping it up to date, as with MyInfo in Singapore, not a solution?
What contribution can governments make (e.g., a national verified identity, setting credential standards and digital identity frameworks to govern issuance, stabilising and harmonising diverse national rules on money laundering etc.)?
Does retail business offer any useful lessons? For example:

In the United Kingdom, Select ID runs a marketplace allowing banks to offer customers a choice of digital ID providers, giving customers control of their data.

The EU has had an eIDAS digital identity framework since 2014 and a Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI Wallet) for citizens, which will contain legal credentials issued by national governments, is being launched on the back of it. Will this help custodians?

In India the central securities depositories (NSDL and CSDL) make use of a verified national identity (Aadhaar) to on-board retail investors

Does blockchain technology have any role to play in digital identities?
What prevents the industry agreeing digital identity standards and best practices and sharing – even mutualising in a separate entity – standardised information?
How long might it take to secure industry-wide adoption of digital identities – and what factors are needed to drive it?

Closing question
The direct costs and opportunity costs of inefficient identity verification run into tens of billions of dollars. If issuers and investors can be identified more easily and efficiently, and so saving money, what contribution will that make to

the growth of the digital asset markets versus the traditional financial markets?

Panellists

Alexandre Kech – CEO of GLEIF (Global Legal Entity Indentifier Foundation)
America versus Europe versus Asia: The current state of digital asset custody law and regulation
Topics and Questions:

How important is the legal and regulatory jurisdiction in determining what happens to client assets if a digital asset custodian fails?
How important is the legal and regulatory status of digital asset custodians in attracting digital assets to a particular jurisdiction?
How important is the jurisdiction that registers or licenses digital asset custodians to the credibility of a digital asset custodian?

United States
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) Interpretive Letter 1184 on 7 May 2025 frees national banks and federal savings associations to provide digital asset custody services, reversing the previous policy under the Biden Administration. How enthusiastic are the banks?
The SEC has repealed Staff Accounting Bulletin (SAB) 121 of 2022, which obliged digital asset custodians to put client assets on the balance sheet, via SAB 122. Has this encouraged conventional custodians to enter the market?
What does the passage of the GENIUS (Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins) Act mean for digital asset custodians?

United Kingdom
The Property (Digital Assets Etc.) Bill which clarifies that tokenised assets can be recognised as property even if they do not fit into the two traditional categories of personal property in the laws of England and Wales. How much does this matter to digital asset custodians?
The FCA has proposed that digital assets belonging to customers be held in trust for bankruptcy remote reasons. Is that a good idea?
The UK government has shied away from imposing full liability on digital asset custodians if customer assets are lost. Does that create unwelcome uncertainty for potential customers?
The UK sandbox includes three CSDs (ClearToken, Euroclear and Montis) but only one bank (HSBC). Do digital asset markets need a CSD to keep a register of ownership of digital assets, settle digital asset transactions and maintain the integrity of issues?
Is the proposed UK regime for regulating Stablecoins helpful to custodians (e.g., HQLA assets must be held in custody)?

European Union
MiCAR applies familiar custody obligations (from UCITS and AIFMD) to an unfamiliar asset class, including full liability for loss of customer assets. Does this put EU-based digital asset custodians at an advantage or a disadvantage?
MiCAR is widely seen as inhibiting issuance of Stablecoins in Europe. Is that fair?

Singapore
In Singapore, licensed custodians are obliged to keep a large majority (typically 90 per cent) of client tokens in cold storage. Is this popular with customers?

United Arab Emirates (UAE)
In Dubai the Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA) publishes a compulsory rule book on custody that specifies digital asset custodians are not liable for loss of client assets in custody but must provide custody from a separate entity to any trading activity, and segregate client assets and not rehypothecate them, though they are allowed to “stake” assets on behalf of clients. How appealing does this make UAE as a digital asset custody location?

Consequences of regulatory differences
Custodians continue to face the challenge of helping clients comply with different reporting and tax reporting obligations. Is taking global responsibility a case of mission impossible?
Is there a risk of regulatory arbitrage?
Is there a “race to the bottom” between jurisdictions in digital asset custody regulation or a convergence on core issues such as segregation of customer assets?
The one globally agreed regulation is AML, CFT and sanctions checks, though implementation is patchy (the FATF review of June 2025 found only 1% of 138 jurisdictions fully compliant, 29% largely compliant, 49% partially compliant and 21% not compliant). How seriously should custodians take AML, CFT and sanctions screening checks?
Are the business models of digital asset custodians too different to develop a viable regulatory framework that covers them all, i.e., is clarity and harmony on the regulatory treatment of custodians on a global scale a pipedream?

Panellists

TBC
Is the digital asset custody industry consolidating or converging?
Topics and Questions:

The number of non-bank cryptocurrency custodians is declining and the number of traditional banks offering digital asset custody services is rising. Does that tell us that institutional interest in digital assets is rising or that traditional custodians are looking to expand into a new segment?
Is the entry of traditional custodian banks into digital asset custody an existential challenge for the incumbent, non-bank digital asset custodians, i.e., must new entrants to custody rise to standards set by traditional custodians?
Will digital asset custodians specialise by asset class (e.g., cryptocurrency, security tokens, fund tokens, RWAs, digital money) or will digital asset custodians have to be able to look after all asset classes?

Consolidation
Digital asset markets lack scale. Does scale in digital asset custody depend on scale in digital asset markets or can it be achieved by consolidation?
Can regulators be expected to encourage (or at least not discourage) consolidation of the digital asset custody industry?
What cross-selling opportunities might a consolidation of digital asset custodians create?
Msot traditional global custodians have substantial asset management businesses, despite (or perhaps because of) the correlation between the two industries. Are there good arguments for combining digital asset custody with digital asset management?

Convergence
An increasing number of firms active in digital assets (both traditional and new entrants) are emphasising how their services make their customers indifferent as to whether an asset is traditional or digital. Is this how markets, technologies and companies converge on a single model?
How important is the ability of a digital asset custodian to offer traditional securities as well (e.g., it gives clients the options to trade digital and traditional assets without having to operate a separate network)?
If digital asset custodians and traditional custodians are converging on a single model, to what extent are custodians’ agents of the process of convergence or subjects (even victims) of the process of convergence?
To what extent does convergence depend on interoperability between blockchain networks and between blockchain networks and traditional markets – and can digital asset custodians accelerate that process?
How comfortable are custodians of different kinds about interoperating with each other?
Is there any evidence that regulators are encouraging convergence (e.g., by facilitating competition between digital asset custodians, traditional custodians and new entrants offering an entirely different service model)?
What partnerships and collaborations, if any, indicate growing convergence between digital asset custody and traditional custody?

Outcomes
How far might consolidation go -is an oligopoly akin to those which prevail in traditional global custody (ten global banks) and sub-custody (a handful of global and regional networks) a likely end-state?
What will happen to vendors of digital asset custody technology in a consolidating or converging digital asset custody industry (i.e., will they consolidate, or form partnerships, or exit the industry)?
Many developments in the digital asset markets (e.g., Canton Network, Kinexys Digital Assets, BX Digital Seturion etc.) suggest that blockchains are evolving into networks of networks that enable different market participants and asset classes to interact in different ways, including between private and public networks (technically, creating a “common” or “unified” ledger). What is the role of digital asset and traditional custodians in such a future?

Closing question
Convergence might be an intrinsic property of digital technologies because they facilitate interoperability, i.e., computing, the Internet, artificial intelligence (AI), Cloud computing, blockchain and the Internet of Things (IoT) are erasing the boundaries between money, money market instruments, securities, banking, asset management, wealth management, private equity, real estate, commodities, trade finance, identity and even retailing in the sense of ecommerce and embedded finance. Does this imply that the successful custodian of the future will be either a multi-faceted provider of multiple services or a highly specialised service provider embedded in a network of networks?

Panellists

TBC