Qredo

Qredo was a digital asset custody platform founded in 2018 and aimed primarily at institutional clients including funds, market makers, and exchanges. Its core proposition was self-custody at institutional scale: clients would never surrender control of their private keys to a centralized custodian, yet still benefit from enterprise-grade security, compliance tooling, and cross-chain settlement. The company raised approximately $95 million from investors including Coinbase Ventures before entering administration in February 2024.

Note: Qredo is no longer operational as an independent platform. The company filed for administration in February 2024, its assets were partially acquired by 10T Holdings and 1RoundTable Partners through a new entity called Fusion Laboratories, and the technology was subsequently relaunched under the Zenrock brand. The qredo.com domain now returns a 402 error and the developer documentation site (developers.qredo.com) is offline. The description below reflects what the platform was prior to its closure.

The Problem Qredo Addressed

Conventional institutional custody has a fundamental tension: centralized custodians hold private keys on behalf of clients, introducing counterparty risk and creating single points of failure. Self-custody on-chain, meanwhile, is operationally complex for institutions and scales poorly across multiple blockchains and trading desks. Qredo argued that neither model was adequate for large-scale institutional adoption and positioned its decentralized MPC approach as a third path.

Core Technology: Decentralized MPC and the Qredochain

Qredo's principal innovation was what it called Consensus-Driven Multi-Party Computation (CD-MPC). Rather than storing a private key in a hardware security module (HSM) controlled by a single party, Qredo replaced the key entirely with cryptographic key shares distributed across a network of independent MPC nodes. No individual node ever held a complete key. To authorize a transaction, a threshold of nodes had to participate in the MPC protocol, computing a valid signature without any single node learning the full secret.

The MPC nodes operated in Tier 4 data centers distributed across global financial hubs and were coordinated by a Layer 2 blockchain Qredo called the Qredochain. The Qredochain served as the settlement and audit layer: digital asset ownership rights were tracked and transferred on this Layer 2, and transfers could be executed synthetically off the underlying Layer 1 chains by consensus among Qredochain validators, enabling near-instant, low-cost settlement without on-chain gas fees for every internal transfer. Only final net withdrawals to Layer 1 required an actual on-chain transaction.

A third layer handled machine-to-machine communication and audit logging using a decentralized, end-to-end encrypted messaging network.

Key Products and Features

Qredo's platform offered several components bundled into its custody service:

Institutional MPC Wallet: Multi-asset, multi-chain wallet with role-based access controls, approval workflows requiring multiple signers to authorize withdrawals, and a full audit trail.

Cross-Chain Settlement: The Qredochain's synthetic transfer layer allowed clients to move assets between internal accounts or between Qredo counterparties without settling on Layer 1 each time, reducing cost and time to settlement.

Compliance and Governance Tools: Policy engines allowed organizations to set transaction limits, mandatory co-signers, time delays, and whitelist/blacklist controls, supporting regulatory requirements for custody.

APIs and Developer Integrations: Qredo provided APIs for exchanges, DeFi protocols, and trading desks to integrate custodied assets into their workflows, with developer documentation at developers.qredo.com, which is now offline.

Ankex Exchange: In 2023, Qredo launched Ankex, a hybrid exchange combining a central limit order book with non-custodial DeFi-style self-custody. Ankex shut down in December 2023 before reaching public beta, with CEO Michael Moro, the former CEO of Genesis Trading, departing at the same time.

Token: QRDO

QRDO was the native utility and governance token of the Qredo Network. Validators and market makers were required to stake QRDO to participate in the network, and the token was used to pay platform fees. In April 2024, following the administration, QRDO was rebranded to Open Custody Protocol (OPEN) at a 1:1 ratio. The OPEN token subsequently migrated again and was rebranded to Levva (LVVA).

Supported Chains and Assets

Qredo's custody platform supported multiple Layer 1 blockchains, primarily targeting EVM-compatible chains including Ethereum and major EVM networks, as well as Bitcoin. No specific Solana integration was documented in the company's primary sources prior to its closure.

Team and Funding

Qredo was co-founded by Joshua Goodbody and Anthony Foy. The company raised $95 million across its funding rounds, with backers including Coinbase Ventures, Ten31, and other institutional investors. Michael Moro (former CEO of Genesis Trading) joined as CEO of the Ankex product in mid-2023 but departed in December 2023 when Ankex was shuttered. Randy Little became CEO of Fusion Laboratories, the entity that acquired Qredo's assets, with Dan Tapiero (founder of 10T Holdings) serving as board chairman.

Closure and Aftermath

Qredo's decline stemmed from a combination of market timing and competitive pressure. The 2022-2023 crypto winter froze institutional onboarding, while established competitors such as Fireblocks, BitGo, and Anchorage had deeper enterprise relationships and regulatory approvals. Qredo's decision to build a full-stack proprietary blockchain layer added complexity without clear differentiation from competitors.

In February 2024, FRP Advisory was appointed joint administrator. Fusion Laboratories (controlled by 10T Holdings and 1RoundTable Partners) acquired substantial Qredo assets, retaining 23 employees while 44 others were terminated. The technology was repurposed for the Zenrock relaunch, announced in August 2024, which positioned itself as a decentralized, permissionless MPC protocol for DeFi applications rather than an institutional custody service.

The qredo.com website now returns an HTTP 402 error and the developer documentation is no longer available, confirming the original platform is inactive.