Fidelity-backed crypto security startup Fireblocks crosses $30 billion in digital asset transfers, expands in Asia

Crypto security startup Fireblocks says it has conducted $30 billion in digital asset transfers to date, and is now expanding in Asia.

In terms of monthly transfer volume, Fireblocks said it had surpassed more than $7 billion from its more than 40 institutional customers. Fireblocks helps secure crypto assets in transit using multi-party computation (MPC) cryptographic technique.

The New York-based startup is now looking to expand its MPC solutions to Asia. To that end, Fireblocks has opened two new offices in Singapore and Hong Kong.

"With the region's unique eco-system of trading, payment and exchange activities, there has been a surge in demand for Fireblocks in Asia," said Michael Shaulov, co-founder and CEO of Fireblocks.

A number of Asian firms are already using Fireblocks, including market maker Amber Group and crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital.

In multi-signature solutions, a blockchain transaction is only authorized after it is signed by several private keys connecting to the same wallet addresses. These keys can be stored in vaults, or cold storage, to preempt cyberattacks. Meanwhile, MPC generates random key shares instead of a fixed private key. These key shares are stored and computed separately to collectively derive an output that can authorize a transaction.

Both multi-signature and MPC can be used together, especially when companies want to use both cold and hot storage. There have been debates over whether MPC or multi-signature is more secure in storing private keys, as The Block reported last October.

Fireblocks CTO and co-founder Idan Ofrat told The Block at the time that not all crypto protocols support multi-sig and those that do, have "very different" implementations from one another. "This makes it more difficult for multi-sig providers to support new chains," Ofrat said.

Fireblocks is backed by notable firms, including Fidelity's investment arm Eight Roads, Tenaya Capital and Cyberstarts. The firm previously raised $16 million in Series A funding.