Qredo

Qredo was a London-based crypto infrastructure company founded in 2018 that built institutional-grade digital asset custody using decentralized multi-party computation (dMPC). The company entered UK administration in February 2024 after exhausting its capital runway, and its official domain now returns a parked registrar page. The QRDO token was subsequently migrated to a new token ticker (OPEN) under a successor project in April 2024. Qredo no longer operates as an independent entity.

What Qredo Built

Qredo's core thesis was that traditional crypto custody — where a single private key controls access to assets — created an unacceptable single point of failure for institutions. The company replaced this model with a distributed MPC architecture in which no single party ever held a complete private key.

The Qredo Network operated as a layer 2 blockchain built on the Cosmos framework and layered a three-tier system on top of layer 1 chains:

• Layer 2: A fast-finality blockchain that tracked digital asset ownership and settlements.
• Layer 3: An end-to-end encrypted, decentralized communication network for machine-to-machine messages and auditable transaction trails.
• CD-MPC: A Consensus-Driven Multi-Party Computation protocol that signed outbound transactions across participating nodes, so no individual node — and no Qredo employee — ever had unilateral signing authority.

When a user deposited a layer 1 asset such as Bitcoin or SOL into the Qredo Network, the protocol issued a corresponding synthetic token (a "qToken," e.g., qBTC) representing a one-to-one claim on the underlying asset held in the MPC custody layer. Transfers and settlements between counterparties occurred at the Qredo layer 2 level, avoiding the cost and latency of settling every transaction on the underlying chain.

Supported Networks and Assets

Qredo was designed as a multi-chain custody layer. At its peak the platform supported custody and settlement across Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Cardano, Algorand, Binance Smart Chain, and Polkadot. Solana assets held in Qredo custody were subject to the same minimum balance and minimum withdrawal requirements that applied to all non-EVM chains on the network.

Key Products and Features

Beyond basic custody, Qredo offered a suite of capabilities targeting institutional trading desks and asset managers:

• Policy-driven transaction governance: Multi-person approval workflows so institutions could enforce internal controls — for example, requiring two or more authorized signers for transfers above a threshold — without surrendering custody to a third party.
• Compliance automation: Built-in audit trails and reporting features designed to satisfy the internal control and reporting requirements of regulated financial institutions.
• Atomic cross-chain settlement: Near-instant settlement between counterparties on the Qredo network, including OTC dark-pool functionality and the ability to connect to centralized exchange liquidity.
• Secure enclave protection: MPC node infrastructure deployed across Tier 4 data centers in multiple global financial hubs.

QRDO Token

QRDO was the native utility and governance token of the Qredo Network, with a hard cap of 2 billion tokens. Token holders could participate in network governance and use QRDO to pay for custody services and staking within the ecosystem. At its peak in November 2021, QRDO traded near $9.81; by late 2023 the token had collapsed to approximately $0.039 — a decline of roughly 99 percent — as the company's financial position deteriorated.

Funding and Backers

Qredo raised approximately $80 million in a Series A round in February 2022, valuing the company at $460 million. That round was led by 10T Holdings, the growth equity firm founded by hedge fund manager Dan Tapiero. Strategic investors included Coinbase Ventures, the Avalanche Foundation, Terra, and Kingsway Capital. Total venture capital raised reached approximately $120 million by early 2022.

At the time of the Series A, the company cited its selection by Banco Hipotecario de El Salvador to help the country operationalize Bitcoin as legal tender as a notable early institutional deployment.

Decline and Administration

Qredo built its growth thesis against a backdrop of institutional crypto adoption that accelerated through 2021. The collapse of major crypto projects in 2022 — including Terra/LUNA, Celsius, and FTX — froze institutional activity broadly. Qredo reported average monthly transaction volumes of $2.5 billion across the second half of 2022 and into early 2023, but said that activity fell materially as the year progressed.

By September 2023, Qredo had cut roughly 50 staff members in the first in a series of reductions. A second round of approximately 50 percent workforce cuts followed in November 2023, leaving headcount at roughly 50 from a peak of over 200. At that point the company disclosed it had approximately six months of financial runway remaining and was pursuing emergency funding and acquisition offers.

In February 2024, Qredo formally entered UK administration under insolvency practitioners from FRP Advisory. The company terminated 44 employees immediately and transferred 23 to a successor entity. Dan Tapiero's 10T Holdings and 1RoundTable Partners acquired substantial assets of Qredo through a new UK entity, Fusion Laboratories, along with key technical personnel including the CTO and chief cryptographer. The custody platform remained operational during the transition to protect customer assets.

Token Migration and Successor

In April 2024, exchanges including KuCoin and WazirX supported the migration of QRDO to a new ticker, OPEN, for the Open Custody Protocol — a rebranded token under the successor entity's revised tokenomics. The Qredo Network was restructured into Fusionchain, an updated Cosmos-based chain, under Fusion Labs' new leadership. Randy Little, a 10T Holdings partner, became CEO of the successor entity, with Dan Tapiero serving as chairman.

The original Qredo company, its website, documentation portals, and developer resources are no longer accessible; both qredo.com and developers.qredo.com now return parked domain pages. Qredo as an independent operating entity ceased to exist in early 2024.