UPDATED 22:06 EDT / OCTOBER 18 2018

BLOCKCHAIN

Cryptocurrency wallet and custody startup BitGo raises $57.5M

Enterprise cryptocurrency wallet and custodial services startup BitGo Inc. Thursday said it has raised $57.5 million in new funding to support the development of its “$1 trillion crypto wallet.”

The Series B round included Goldman Sachs, Galaxy Digital Ventures, Valor Equity Partners, Craft Ventures, DRW and Redpoint Ventures. BitGo last raised $42.5 million in a December 2017 round.

Founded in 2013, BitGo offers an enterprise-grade multiuser cryptocurrency wallets as well as application programming interface access to its underlying security platform. Its wallets are “multisig,” an abbreviated form of multisignature. They require a transaction to have two or more signatures before it can be executed, a security layer that reduces the risk of fraud.

Working off its core cryptocurrency wallet service, BitGo now offers institutional investors with security, compliance and custodial solutions for blockchain-based currencies. The provision of custodial services is notable. A custody service is where a brokerage or other financial institution holds securities on behalf of the client to reduce the risk of the client losing assets or having them stolen.

Financial services firm Fidelity Investments Inc. was the latest to enter the market earlier this week and it’s seen as an area with rapid growth opportunities as institutional investors continue to take interest in cryptocurrencies as an asset class.

BitGo’s numbers are impressive. The company claims to be the largest processor of on-chain bitcoin transactions, accounting for 15 percent of worldwide bitcoin transactions. Along with supporting more than 95 coins and tokens, BitGo customers transact $15 billion per month across all cryptocurrencies, with more than $2 billion worth of assets held in BitGo wallets.

The company’s $1 trillion crypto wallet plan may sound like a spurious number, particularly given that the combined market value of all cryptocurrencies has yet to hit that mark, but BitGo is serious about it.

First floated publicly in September, the goal is BitGo’s way of building the infrastructure of tomorrow. “Now we are really thinking, what’s it going to take to secure a trillion dollars?” Chief Executive Officer Mike Belshe told CoinDesk. “It may be a little far away, but we have to start thinking about it now; we have to start designing it now in order to get there.”

Image: BitGo

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