Fireblocks Buyer’s Guide for Hedge Funds, Sovereign Wealth Funds, and Asset Managers

The Custody and Operations Questions Allocators Now Ask First

An asset manager’s infrastructure used to be an operations concern. But with digital assets, it’s a fundraising constraint. Operational due diligence questionnaires now open with custody structure, key control and segregation of client assets. A fund that cannot answer those questions cleanly does not reach the investment committee, however well the strategy has performed.

On a single platform, Fireblocks lets institutions hold, move, manage and issue value across both traditional finance and digital assets. More than 2,500 enterprises run their digital asset operations on Fireblocks across 200+ blockchains, and the platform has secured over $16T in digital asset transactions. This guide is for asset managers, funds and treasury allocators selecting the infrastructure their operating model will rest on.

For asset managers, the decisions that carry the most weight revolve around three areas:

• Security and key management: How keys are generated and stored, what controls sit around signing, and who has the ability to bypass them
• Return generation on held positions: Whether assets under custody can be staked, lent or deployed onchain without leaving the control framework
• Reporting and oversight: What lands in your NAV process, your fund administrator’s system and your annual audit, and how much of it is assembled by hand

Comparing providers is complicated by the fact that the three models on offer are structurally different, not just differently priced. A third-party custodian holds your assets. A prime broker holds them and extends services against them. Self-custody keeps control with you and puts the operational burden there too. Each carries a distinct counterparty and control profile, and the right answer depends on your mandate, your investors and the fund’s legal jurisdiction rather than on a feature list.

Those evaluating digital assets across a broader institutional scope may also want the Fireblocks Buyer’s Guide for Banks & Financial Institutions.

Where Fireblocks Excels in Digital Asset Infrastructure for Asset Managers

Hold Assets Under Your Own Control and Still Pass Operational Due Diligence

The traditional trade-off asks a manager to choose between control and credibility. Placing assets with a third-party custodian separates the party running the strategy from the party holding the assets. That separation is a fraud control before it is anything else, which is why allocators treat it as non-negotiable. What it costs you is the ability to move quickly, capture yield or access onchain markets.

Direct custody on Fireblocks resolves that differently. Key shares are distributed across parties and devices under MPC, so the manager keeps control of the assets. The control framework itself is supplied and independently certified: approval quorums, role separation enforced at signing so that no single person can both originate and authorise a movement, and an immutable transaction record. Where a mandate or jurisdiction calls for a licensed custodian instead, qualified custody through Fireblocks Trust Company is available on the same platform, which means the custody structure can differ by fund without a second integration.

Fireblocks for Asset Managers

• Direct custody with MPC-CMP key management, plus deep cold storage for long-hold positions, under one policy framework
• Qualified custody through a licensed Fireblocks entity where a regulated custodian is the required structure
• Staking and Earn generate return on positions already held, with validator operations and onchain lending handled by the platform
• Off Exchange allows trading on connected venues while collateral stays in custody, which removes prefunded venue balances from your exposure schedule
• DeFi security suite for onchain strategies, with signing protection and contract-level risk controls that are defensible in a due diligence review
• Policy Engine enforces approval quorums, whitelists and limits at the transaction layer, which is how segregation of duties is evidenced rather than asserted
• Financial data produces reconciliation and audit-ready reporting across every account, wallet and venue for your fund administrator and auditors
• Tokenization for issuing and administering tokenized funds, share classes and other onchain financial products
• Security Posture Management monitors configuration and access risk continuously, which is increasingly a question in operational due diligence
• Flexible deployment for managers with data residency or hosting requirements

Digital Asset Use Cases for Asset Managers

• Multi-asset fund custody across liquid tokens, with segregated accounts per fund or share class
• Staking and yield strategies on held positions, without transferring assets to a third party
• Onchain and DeFi strategies executed under institutional signing controls
• Multi-venue trading with collateral retained in custody rather than prefunded on exchanges
• Treasury management for corporate or fund-level digital asset positions
• Tokenized fund issuance and lifecycle administration, including commodity-linked and real-world asset structures
• NAV support, reconciliation and audit reporting derived from onchain data rather than assembled from statements

Decision-Making Framework: Evaluating Digital Asset Infrastructure for Asset Managers

Work through these categories with your COO and your fund administrator. A long-only fund and a multi-strategy fund running onchain credit will weigh them very differently.

Category	What to Evaluate	Why It Matters for Asset Managers
Custody structure and key control	Who holds the keys, how shares are distributed, whether qualified custody is available, and what independent recovery looks like	This is the first question in most operational due diligence questionnaires
Client asset segregation	Per-fund and per-share-class account structures, omnibus versus segregated holdings, and the records that prove it	Segregation is a regulatory obligation in most jurisdictions and an investor expectation in all of them
Counterparty exposure	Which entity holds credit or custody risk, and what happens to assets if that entity fails	Digital asset market history is a series of counterparty failures
Return on held positions	Whether custodied assets can be staked, lent or deployed, and whether doing so moves them outside your control framework	Idle positions are a drag on fund performance, but yield obtained by surrendering control is a due diligence problem
Asset and chain coverage	Supported tokens and networks, approval process for new assets, and whether you can add them yourself	A restricted approved list quietly constrains your mandate
Governance and segregation of duties	Approval quorums, role separation, whitelisting, and where those controls are enforced	Controls enforced in application code can be bypassed, controls at the transaction layer can be evidenced
NAV, reconciliation and audit output	Reporting formats, integration with your fund administrator, and completeness of the transaction record	Month-end and annual audit are where infrastructure decisions are felt
Tokenization capability	Support for issuing tokenized funds or share classes, and administering the full lifecycle	Tokenized structures are moving from pilot to product
Security and resilience evidence	Certifications, incident history, configuration monitoring, and the third-party evidence pack available to you	Allocators and regulators increasingly ask for the provider’s evidence, not the manager’s summary of it
Commercial model	Whether pricing scales with assets under custody, transaction count or platform access	Basis-point pricing on AUC compounds against you precisely as the fund succeeds

Why Fireblocks: Core Value, Positioning & Differentiators for Asset Managers

Fireblocks is digital asset infrastructure built for institutions that have to answer to investors, auditors and regulators. Custody, trading connectivity, yield, onchain access and reporting share one policy framework and one transaction record, which is what allows a manager to hold control of assets and still produce the evidence an allocator asks for.

Core Capabilities

• Multi-Party Computation security with patented MPC-CMP, distributing key shares so no single compromise exposes fund assets
• Direct custody, qualified custody and cold storage available on one platform, selected per fund or mandate
• Off Exchange for trading on connected venues with collateral retained in custody
• Staking, Earn and the DeFi security suite for generating return on held positions under institutional controls
• Policy Engine and automation for transaction governance, approval quorums and rules-driven operations
• Treasury management across accounts, venues and chains from one operational view
• The Fireblocks Network for venue, liquidity provider and counterparty connectivity through one integration
• Tokenization for issuance and lifecycle administration of onchain fund structures
• Financial data and compliance tooling for reconciliation, screening, digital asset compliance and audit-ready reporting
• Certifications including SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, ISO 27017, ISO 27018 and CCSS, with regulated entities disclosed publicly

Value Proposition

For an asset manager, the platform does five things:

• Keeps control of fund assets with the manager while supplying a certified control framework
• Removes prefunded venue balances from the exposure schedule
• Turns held positions into yield-generating positions without moving them outside the control perimeter
• Produces NAV, reconciliation and audit output from platform records rather than from statements
• Supports tokenized fund structures on the same infrastructure as the liquid book

How Fireblocks Measures Up for Asset Managers

The table below compares direct custody on the Fireblocks platform against the three structures asset managers most commonly weigh: a third-party custodian, prime broker custody, and in-house self-custody.

Capability	Direct Custody, leveraging Fireblocks Platform	Third-Party Custodians	Prime Broker Custody	In-House Self-Custody
Who controls the keys	The manager, via distributed MPC key shares, on infrastructure the manager does not build or maintain	The custodian	The prime broker	The manager, self-managed
Qualified custody option	Available separately via a licensed Fireblocks entity	Yes	Bundled with the service	Not available
Asset segregation evidence	Per-fund accounts, immutable transaction record	Varies, sometimes omnibus	Frequently omnibus	Self-documented
Counterparty exposure	Retained by the fund	Custodian risk	Broker credit risk	Retained by the fund
Asset and chain coverage	200+ networks, self-serve token additions	Restricted approved list	Broker-selected list	Limited by dev capacity
Staking and yield on held assets	Yes, via Staking and Earn	Partial	Broker-set economics	Custom build required
DeFi and onchain strategy access	Yes	Rarely permitted	Rarely permitted	Self-managed risk
Trading collateral held off venue	Yes, via Off Exchange	Partial	Native to the model	Not available
NAV, reconciliation and audit output	Yes	Custodian statements	Broker statements	Manual
Governance and segregation of duties	Policy Engine, enforced approval quorums	Vendor-defined	Broker-defined	Application layer only
Tokenized fund issuance	Yes	Not offered	Not offered	Custom build required

Prime broker custody deserves a fair reading. For a fund that trades actively across venues and wants financing against its book, the model is coherent and the operational lift is low. What it concentrates is credit exposure to a single counterparty and control over which assets you may hold. Third-party custody solves the segregation question convincingly and constrains yield, onchain access and asset coverage in the process. A self-custody build preserves everything except the certified control framework, which is the part allocators actually test. For a closer read on how these structures compare on treasury operations specifically, see the treasury management comparison.

Tools, Resources & Onboarding for Asset Managers

The path from evaluation to production is structured, with professional services for implementation, migration and fund administrator integration, and Global Platinum Support available for managers running continuous operations.

Sandbox Environment and Developer Tools

Simulate fund operations in the Fireblocks sandbox, complete with API users, transaction policies and prefunded wallets. Test approval quorums, account structures and the reporting output your fund administrator and auditors will receive.

Join the Sandbox

See a Live Demo

Connect with the team to walk the custody structures, staking and off-exchange collateral flows against your own mandate and due diligence requirements.

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