Institutional buyers of digital-asset custody are increasingly weighing governance, interoperability and operational integration alongside asset security, according to a Boston Consulting Group report commissioned by Ripple.
Ripple’s October 21 discussion of the research argues that security is now a baseline requirement for banks and investment firms assessing custody providers. The report points to policy controls and the ability to connect custody with settlement, payments and treasury systems as key considerations.
Beyond key storage
BCG estimates that more than 30% of digital assets outside centralised exchanges are held through institutional custody models. The figure is an estimate from the commissioned research, not a directly observed count of every wallet in the market.
The distinction matters for stablecoins and tokenised securities. A firm may have a technically secure wallet but still be unable to deploy an asset if approval procedures, reporting or compatibility with existing systems are missing.
Custody models
The report suggests institutions may choose different operating structures. Some could use multiple custodians behind a shared orchestration layer, while others may prefer integrated services.
Ripple sells custody infrastructure, so its framing of the research is commercially interested. Still, the report raises an industry-wide question: whether a custody model can support conventional institutional controls without removing the settlement advantages that attracted the bank to blockchain in the first place.
