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Blockchain security service provider receives $16 million investment from venture capital firms like Fidelity

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Blockchain security service provider receives $16 million investment from venture capital firms like Fidelity

Fireblocks is a startup company founded in New York, USA in 2018. It is a blockchain security service provider and a cryptographic asset platform that protects fund transfers, focusing on safeguarding clients' cryptocurrency assets during transfers between exchanges, over-the-counter (OTC) traders, and cold and hot wallets.

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While many cryptocurrency custodial institutions and exchanges are busy building secure wallets to store digital assets, few companies realize the need for secure transfers of cryptocurrency between wallets. Fireblocks claims to be the "secure highway" for cryptocurrencies, consolidating multiple digital wallets and exchange accounts under one roof, allowing traders to freely transfer funds between these wallets.

On June 11, Fireblocks announced a $16 million Series A funding round from Tenaya Capital, Fidelity's Eight Roads division, venture capital firm Cyber​​starts, among others. Fireblocks, which has been operating under the radar, now counts cryptocurrency investment bank Galaxy Digital and over-the-counter trading institution Genesis Global Trading as clients, aiming to expand strategic partnerships.

Fireblocks CEO Michael Shaulov stated:

While companies like Ledger, Bakkt, and Coinbase are working to strengthen custodial services, institutional traders still struggle with efficiently transferring cryptocurrencies. Despite the existence of many cold storage solutions, they are not related to fund transfers and still pose risks during Bitcoin transfers.

Fireblocks' solution targets institutional traders, especially over-the-counter trading institutions, as OTC typically involves managing multiple digital wallets simultaneously. Shaulov pointed out that these institutions previously had a fragmented way of transferring funds, often requiring traders to log into different wallets and exchanges to transfer currencies.

Genesis Trading's Head of Sales, Martin Garcia, mentioned regarding the partnership:

Now we can leverage Fireblocks' technology directly without the need for more complex steps, "it promises to truly simplify things."

The core of Fireblocks' product is security, and the company has successfully implemented secure multiparty computation (MPC), which was once considered an unattainable cryptographic holy grail. Unlike controlling potentially stolen private keys, MPC allows multiple parties to jointly calculate and derive private keys.

Research on secure multiparty computation primarily focuses on securely computing a collaborative function in the absence of a trusted third party.

Uri Stav, Chief Information Security Officer at Genesis Global Trading, stated:

This technology proves that there is no attempt by hackers to steal private keys in the cryptocurrency field. The implementation of MPC is an important concept that Fireblocks brings to the market and us, bringing many cryptographers' dream of MPC as a product to the market.

Fireblocks stated in a release that it has integrated with 15 cryptocurrency exchanges to date, supporting over 180 cryptocurrencies, including stablecoin transfers. The company plans to expand engineering and sales operations with the newly raised funds.

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