Anchorage

About

Anchorage is a federal-chartered digital asset bank providing institutional custody, no-password HSM-based key management, quorum approvals, AI/human transaction validation, staking, governance participation, trading, and crypto-banking-as-a-service.

Mission

Anchorage provides an institutional custody solution for large institutions and offers trading, staking and protocol governance capabilities. The company holds a federal banking charter, positioning it as a regulated digital asset bank and differentiating it from many custodians. Following its recent fundraise Anchorage plans to expand product features, add integrations with DeFi and improve offerings for global financial firms and other fintech companies. Anchorage has handled notable client transactions, including processing Visa’s purchase of a CryptoPunk for 49.5 ETH. Over the past year the company grew its client base by 96% and increased headcount by 175%. Anchorage began as a custody solution that secures cryptocurrencies and manages wallets and keys for clients. After receiving a federal banking charter, it has transitioned into a digital asset bank. In addition to custody, Anchorage now offers financial products such as staking and crypto lending. The company aims to be a one-stop shop for institutional investors seeking trusted crypto partners as firms add cryptocurrencies to their cash balances. Anchorage also plans to provide crypto-banking-as-a-service to challenger banks and traditional banks, positioning itself as a preferred partner. The startup raised an $80 million Series C to support this expansion and broader product rollout. Anchorage builds a no-password, omnimetric blockchain custody platform that eliminates usernames and passwords and stores private keys in secure hardware so they are never exposed. Clients whitelist employee devices and require a quorum (two-thirds of designated coworkers) to approve withdrawals, while Anchorage applies AI and human review of biometrics, behavioral and network signals to validate transactions. The service offers end-to-end insurance coverage and is designed to permit online participation with offline assets, enabling staking, on-chain governance participation and other functions that cold storage can inhibit. Anchorage competes with custody firms such as BitGo, Ledger, Coinbase and Gemini. Founders Diogo Mónica and Nathan McCauley have backgrounds building Docker containers, Square’s first encrypted card reader, and anti-reverse-engineering work for the U.S. military, which inform the company’s security engineering approach. Anchorage is also a founding member of the Libra Association and says it will support securing Libra in the future. Anchorage is a San Francisco-based provider of a cryptocurrency custody service aimed at institutional investors. Co-founded by Diogo Mónica and Nathan McCauley, the company markets a digital asset custodian engineered primarily to solve digital asset security. Its service is also designed to extend asset accessibility, including capturing yield from staking and inflation, voting, auditing proof of existence, and fast transactions. The custody system uses quorum-based approvals so no single individual can move assets, behavioral analytics to flag outliers and abnormalities, and hardware security modules (HSMs) to ensure keys are processed only after approvals and review. Anchorage raised $17M in a Series A and will use the funds to expand operations and develop its solution. The company emphasizes protecting against collusion or compromised devices through its multi-step transaction review process.

Quick Facts