Announcing:

I’m coming to Onramp because I’m certain multi-institution custody will change the way we store Bitcoin and ultimately contribute to its success as the future of money.

As with any new technological breakthrough, custodial solutions in the bitcoin space mimicked the solutions that existed in traditional finance. Centralized custodians like Coinbase, BitGo, and Anchorage secure the majority of institutions’, exchanges’, and individuals’ Bitcoin similar to custodial giants in traditional finance like Bank of New York Melon and State Street. Unlike traditional finance which has government-created guardrails, the ability to reverse errors (often in the form of bailouts), and protections like FDIC insurance, Bitcoin introduces unforgiving finality. Once private keys are mismanaged or funds are stolen, those funds are gone forever.

I spent the last year and a half at BitGo building reliable infrastructure for those impacted by the FTX fallout and providing safe harbor for clients leaving the collapsing custodian Prime Trust. When these events happen in our industry, individuals get hurt and trust erodes, ultimately slowing adoption and bitcoin’s chance of success.

When you zoom out, all centralized institutions are prone to failure, from corporations to governments – it’s a matter of when, not if. It’s one of the core reasons Satoshi invented Bitcoin in the first place. It’s time for Bitcoin’s web2 moment, where solutions are built that were not previously possible. With multi-sig, we have the ability to break away from reliance on one centralized custodian and eliminate single counterparty risk. We can do better and make this industry more resilient, we just haven’t leveraged the technology properly yet.

Onramp was built to combat this issue and pioneered multi-institution custody, which distributes bitcoin private keys across three entities, eliminating single-party points of failure. If one party becomes compromised, the remaining two parties can send funds to a new wallet with another 3rd partner. This custodial arrangement provides resilience and counterparty risk reduction that was never possible before bitcoin.

No compromise was made in building the foundation of Onramp’s multi-institution custody solution. Onramp holds the first key and provides the best verification of the client as they have the closest relationship with the client. BitGo provides the best bitcoin wallet technology in the industry and true cold storage to hold the second key. Lastly, Coincover provides best-in-class recovery services, having built their business as being the last line of defense in securing cryptographic material. Both BitGo and Coincover have cultivated their reputations by powering the industry for the last 10 years and their core competencies serve as the bedrock of our product.

Multi-institution custody will change this industry. I couldn’t sit on the sidelines having helped build the Onramp solution at BitGo knowing what was now possible. I needed to be a part of making multi-institution custody the standard, reducing counterparty risk and the associated fallout that can impact the Bitcoin ecosystem.

My job will be telling the world that a better solution for securing Bitcoin now exists and putting it in the most hands possible, ensuring everyone from the smallest retail participant to the largest ETF products are protected by better infrastructure. We have the opportunity to change the future of money and multi-institution custody will be the way we keep it safe. I couldn’t imagine anything I’d rather be working on.