Today BitGo CEO Mike Belshe appeared on Fortune's Balancing The Ledger talking crypto security and custody, institutional investment, and adding multi-signature wallet support for two more digital currencies: Dash, available immediately, and Stellar Lumen forthcoming.
Our mission is to build trust in cryptocurrency, and reliable security is the way to do that. Just last month we announced the launch of BitGo Trust Company, the first qualified custodian purpose-built for storing digital assets and delivering the highest levels of both security and regulatory compliance.
"Custody has been much talked about lately," Mike said in conversation with Jen Wieczner, host of Balancing The Ledger. "In our view it has actually been the missing piece of infrastructure for digital currency technology."
"We're building custodianship for institutional investors, and in a very different way [than what's been done to date]. We're now a qualified custodianthrough the Division of Banking in South Dakota. This allows us to help [institutional] customers meet the custody rule of the 1940 Investment Advisers Act; if you're a hedge fund or a registered investment advisor with fiduciary responsibility for somebody else's money, when you hold their money, or their asset, you're required to use a qualified custodian," he explained.
The industry around digital currencies is still nascent. While regulation is still unclear, we believe the industry will follow a traditional framework for regulatory compliance, and qualified custodianship ensures institutional clients are prepared as those changes come into effect.
Exchanges that double as custodians can present a conflict of interest and raise regulatory concerns around potential for investor risk.
"Exchanges sometimes offer custodianship, but they're not qualified custodians themselves. They're holding funds so that you'll use their exchange. In other asset classes you don't have the exchange hold the funds - it's just not allowed," Mike explained, pointing to the differences between regulatory infrastructure for traditional assets and cryptocurrencies.
"[This is] because we know that there's been a number of abuses when you put these things together. You need separation and checks and balances between the different parties that are involved in trading," he added.
Security isn't about speed, it's about ensuring there are no easy back doors to access your assets, and a platform designed for easy flow of assets across it may not be fully focused on that.
"Exchanges are primarily focused on retail investors, with a small team dedicated to security. BitGo has the largest dedicated research and development team, solely purposed toward security of any company in the world. This is because [security] is all that we do," he said.
Our focus on providing the best wallet experience for our clients doesn't stop at security; we continue to add multi-signature support for new coins and tokens. Dash has just been added, and Stellar Lumens are up next.
This makes BitGo the first multi-signature wallet and custodial solution on the market today that supports Dash.
Dash, short for digital cash, is a fork of the Bitcoin protocol designed to allow users to make instant, private payments online or in-store. The Dash protocol uses a secure open-source platform (a form of decentralized autonomous organization (DAO)), hosted by thousands of users around the world.
The addition of Dash pushes BitGo multi-signature wallet and custody for digital currencies over 85. We're on pace for that number to exceed 100 by the end of the year - a milestone event we've been working towards since January.
Support for Stellar is coming very soon, look for our announcement in the coming weeks.
Read our press release announcing support for Dash here, and learn more about BitGo Custody here.
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BitGo is the digital asset infrastructure company, delivering custody, wallets, staking, trading, financing, and settlement services from regulated cold storage. Since our founding in 2013, we have been focused on accelerating the transition of the financial system to a digital asset economy. With a global presence and multiple regulated entities, BitGo serves thousands of institutions, including many of the industry's top brands, exchanges, and platforms, and millions of retail investors worldwide. For more information, visit www.bitgo.com.
(c)2026 BitGo, Inc. (collectively with its parent, affiliates, and subsidiaries, "BitGo"). All rights reserved. BitGo Bank & Trust, National Association ("BitGo Bank & Trust") is a national trust bank chartered and regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). BitGo Bank & Trust is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BitGo Holdings, Inc., a Delaware corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California. Other BitGo entities include BitGo, Inc. and BitGo Prime LLC, each of which is a separately operated affiliate of BitGo Bank & Trust.
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