The SEC’s Crypto Custody Roundtable: A Tipping Point for Regulatory Clarity or More Questions?
The Securities and Exchange Commission has released the full agenda and panel lineup for its April 25 roundtable, “Know Your Custodian: Key Considerations for Crypto Custody.” The speaker list is impressive—though, perhaps, it might have been even stronger had they invited me (a guy can dream, right?).
Scheduled to take place at SEC headquarters in Washington, D.C., the event will bring together regulators, law firm partners, academics, and crypto-native custodians for what may prove to be the most consequential public dialogue on digital asset custody to date.
Commissioner Hester Peirce, who leads the agency’s Crypto Task Force, emphasized the importance of the moment:
“Custody issues are some of the most challenging as we seek to integrate crypto assets into our regulatory structure.”
She’s not wrong. And the stakes have never been higher.
Why Custody Matters—Now More Than Ever
The SEC’s heightened focus on crypto custody comes at a pivotal moment. In the wake of President Trump’s March 6 Executive Order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile, questions of who holds the keys, how assets are safeguarded, and what obligations attach to custodians are no longer limited to private funds and fintech startups. They now apply to governments, public markets, and potentially the financial system itself.
Custody is where technical complexity collides with fiduciary duty. Unlike traditional financial assets, digital assets are self-contained and bearer-based, meaning control equals ownership. If you lose the private key, you lose the asset—period. That risk profile has prompted the SEC and other agencies to revisit the very definition of “custody” and whether existing frameworks under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, Investment Company Act, and Exchange Act are fit for purpose.
The Two Panels: Broker-Dealers First, Investment Advisers Second
The roundtable will feature two back-to-back discussions moderated by Zach Zweihorn of Davis Polk, a seasoned voice in regulatory affairs.
Panel One: Broker-Dealer Custody and Infrastructure (1:20 – 3:00 PM)
This session brings together some of the most prominent crypto custodians and service providers:
Jason Allegrante (Fireblocks) and Rachel Anderika (Anchorage Digital Bank)—two institutions at the cutting edge of institutional crypto custody.
Terrence Dempsey (Fidelity Digital) and Mark Greenberg (Kraken)—firms straddling traditional finance and the crypto frontier.
Veronica McGregor (Exodus), Brandon Russell (Etana), Tammy Weinrib (Copper)—platforms with differentiated approaches to key management and compliance.
This panel will likely tackle core infrastructure issues:
What qualifies as “possession or control” under SEC rules when custody is mediated by private keys?
Can broker-dealers hold digital assets directly, or only through qualified custodians?
How do multi-sig wallets, hardware security modules (HSMs), and smart contract escrow arrangements fit into the regulatory perimeter?
Expect a rigorous debate around whether the Customer Protection Rule (Rule 15c3-3) can accommodate bearer-form assets without substantial reinterpretation.
Panel Two: Investment Advisers and Investment Companies (3:30 – 5:00 PM)
The second half brings in heavy regulatory and academic firepower:
Susan Gault-Brown (Allen Overy Shearman Sterling), Justin Browder (Simpson Thacher), and Neel Maitra (Dechert)—counsel who have shaped much of the institutional legal thinking in this space.
Adam Levitin (Georgetown Law) and Charles Mooney (UPenn Law)—two of the nation’s top scholars in secured transactions and financial regulation.
Ryan Louvar (WisdomTree) and Eliott Frank (Distributed Global)—firms navigating SEC scrutiny in real time.
Key issues here will likely include:
Whether investment advisers can safely comply with the Custody Rule (Rule 206(4)-2) while using non-traditional custodians;
The implications of staking or protocol-based liquidity provision under the definition of “custody”;
And how custody rules should treat DeFi assets, wrapped tokens, and smart contract-managed reserves.
Looking Ahead: Codifying, Clarifying, or Complicating?
The SEC’s roundtable may move the industry one step closer to clarity—or it may underscore just how ill-fitting legacy frameworks are when applied to decentralized systems. At minimum, it will provide a roadmap of the questions the Commission believes are most urgent and a preview of where regulatory enforcement or rulemaking may follow.
It also raises the deeper question of whether the existing legal architecture, built on the premise of intermediated finance, can accommodate a world where code, not contracts, enforces custody.
And with the U.S. government itself now acquiring and holding digital assets, subject to the same key management and compliance risks as everyone else, the urgency of these answers has never been greater.
Until next time,
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