TL;DR: A BCG report commissioned by Ripple says custody buyers increasingly judge governance, interoperability and operational integration alongside asset security.
Institutional custody is becoming a question of how assets can be used, not just where keys are stored. Ripple’s October 21 discussion of a Boston Consulting Group research report argues that security is now a baseline requirement for banks and investment firms evaluating digital asset providers.
The report highlights policy controls, interoperability and the ability to connect custody with settlement, payments and treasury systems. BCG estimates that more than 30% of digital assets outside centralised exchanges are held through institutional custody models. That is an estimate from the commissioned research, rather than a directly observed count of every wallet in the market.
The shift matters for stablecoins and tokenised securities. Institutions may be comfortable with a technically secure wallet yet unable to deploy an asset if approval procedures, reporting or compatibility with existing systems are missing. Some firms could choose multiple custodians behind a shared orchestration layer; others may prefer integrated services.
Ripple sells custody infrastructure, so its framing is commercially interested and should be read as such. Nevertheless, the underlying question is pertinent across the industry. The winning custody model may be the one that makes conventional institutional controls possible without taking away the settlement advantages that attracted the bank to blockchain in the first place.
More from NewsBTC: Cryptocurrency news · Ethereum coverage · Crypto research and categories
California has secured a $500,000 settlement with Fidelity Digital Asset Services over restrictions that previously prevented some crypto customers from moving purchased coins to their own wallets.
TL;DR: Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the settlement on October 16. California challenged historical withdrawal restrictions; Fidelity disputes that its conduct breached state law, and transfers were enabled after a 2025 regulatory approval.
The issue is a straightforward one for anyone accustomed to self-custody: buying crypto through an app is not necessarily the same as being able to withdraw it. California’s commodity rules require certain transactions to involve physical delivery within a defined period. The state’s position is that delivery of cryptocurrency requires the buyer to be able to transfer the asset away from the dealer.
Fidelity told investigators that it had been waiting for permission from the New York Department of Financial Services before allowing external withdrawals. That permission arrived in April 2025, at which point the company enabled the functionality. The state says the earlier restrictions were unlawful; Fidelity disputes that conclusion.
The California Department of Justice linked its investigation to an earlier case concerning Robinhood Crypto. The announcement is therefore part of a wider regulatory argument over what rights buyers should receive when crypto is sold through a conventional financial services interface.
The dollar amount is relatively small for a company of Fidelity’s size. The principle is larger. Regulators are examining whether customers who pay for cryptocurrencies receive meaningful control over their holdings or only an internal account balance. Investors should still check withdrawal availability and the terms of their specific account rather than assume every Fidelity product works identically.
Written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.
Login