Fireblocks: custody technology and stablecoin payments

Fireblocks provides stablecoin payment infrastructure for PSPs, fintechs and banks. Its network connects more than 2,500 participants in more than 100 countries, and Fireblocks states that more than 325 of the world's largest payments companies run on it. A payment can be accepted in one asset and settled in stablecoins, routed across chains and counterparties, and compliance checks run before the funds move. Fireblocks names Western Union, which scaled crypto payments for more than 20,000 merchants, Worldpay, MoneyGram and Stripe's Bridge among its users, and adds that it provides technology infrastructure only.

Fireblocks also offers an Agentic Payments Suite for payments that an AI agent starts on behalf of a PSP or fintech client. Agentic payments explains how such payments work, and stablecoin settlement covers what happens between the two ends of a stablecoin transfer.

In its principles, Fireblocks calls itself a direct custody platform delivering a specific implementation of self-custody. Every customer has its own set of keys on its own onchain addresses, funds are never held in an omnibus account, and Fireblocks states that it does not manage customer funds. The keys are protected with MPC-CMP, an open-source and peer-reviewed algorithm for multi-party computation, combined with chip isolation. MPC wallet explains how a key split into shares can sign without the full key ever existing.

For clients that need a regulated custodian, Fireblocks Trust Company is chartered as a limited-purpose trust company by the New York State Department of Financial Services and offers qualified custody for ETF issuers, banks and asset managers. Fireblocks names its mission as enabling every business to support digital assets and cryptocurrencies easily and securely; its founders started the company after investigating a 2017 hack while working at Check Point.

A bank or fintech that adds digital assets has to decide whether to build the wallet engine, key management, blockchain nodes and transaction policies itself or to integrate a provider such as Fireblocks. DashDevs sets out that choice and the reasons some firms build their own: regulatory control, custom transaction logic and independence from one vendor. In Germany the license question stays with the institution in both cases; crypto custody in Germany explains which license applies.

Finance Loop is a media partner of Capital & Code in Frankfurt, a conference on stablecoins, tokenized funds, payments by AI agents and faster settlement. Custody is a topic of Finance Loop's own Digital Finance Night for banks, asset managers and regulated service providers.

Fireblocks describes its platform as direct custody, a form of self-custody in which each client holds its own segregated keys and Fireblocks does not manage the funds. For clients that need a qualified custodian, Fireblocks Trust Company holds a limited-purpose trust charter from the New York State Department of Financial Services.

Payment service providers, fintechs and banks use Fireblocks to accept and settle payments in stablecoins, route them across blockchains and counterparties, run compliance checks before funds move, and reach more than 2,500 participants of the Fireblocks network.

Fireblocks protects keys with MPC-CMP, an algorithm for multi-party computation: the key exists only as shares held in different places, and the shares sign a transaction together without the full key ever being assembled.