Bitcoin custody is the practice and infrastructure for securely holding the private keys that control bitcoin, spanning self-custody, collaborative custody, and qualified institutional custodians. Approaches differ in how they distribute key control and recovery, using techniques such as multi-signature, hardware security modules, and multi-party computation to balance security against operational availability. Custody design is foundational to wallets, federations, and regulated products such as exchange-traded funds.
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- Custody schemes trade off security, recoverability, and convenience. Multi-signature and threshold cryptography spread key control to avoid single points of failure, while qualified custodians add insurance, audits, and regulatory compliance required by institutional and retail investment vehicles.