Google previews MPC crypto custody service for early 2027

At a glance

Google Multi-Party Compute, a custody service for crypto and tokenized assets, is in private preview and is due to be commercially available in early 2027, Google told CoinDesk.

Alphabet already relies on the service for its own holdings on Ethereum and Solana, the company said, without naming the assets or the institutions testing it.

Google is showing financial institutions a service that spreads control of crypto signing keys across separate systems, with commercial availability planned for early 2027, the company told CoinDesk.

The product, Google Multi-Party Compute, is still in private preview, open only to selected users. A handful of design partners and large financial firms are trying it out, Google said, without identifying them. Pricing has not been disclosed.

Multi-party computation, or MPC, splits a private key into fragments held in different environments, so no single machine holds the whole key. Google’s service adds checks on each transaction before signing, such as limits on amounts and destination wallets or extra approvals, plus key recovery, TokenPost reported.

“As regulated financial institutions begin adopting blockchains and tokenization, they need scalable, proven infrastructure to secure their clients’ assets,” Rich Widmann, director of digital assets strategy at Google Cloud, told CoinDesk.

Google Cloud updated its documentation for the service on Monday and has published release notes since August, Cointelegraph reported. On 1 Oct, Google extended its bitcoin security rules to check transaction amounts, destination address types and change outputs, according to the same report.

Why now

Compromised private keys accounted for 43.8% of crypto stolen in 2024, CoinDesk said, citing Chainalysis. Google says the design could later be extended to post-quantum signature schemes, but it has given no timetable.

Google is not new to the technique.

In 2023, it published guidance on building MPC-based digital-asset systems on its Confidential Space infrastructure, CoinDesk noted. Until now it had not offered a dedicated MPC custody product, the company said. For background, see how crypto custody works.

The service is being shown at Google Cloud’s first MPC symposium in New York on Wednesday, where the listed speakers include people from Morgan Stanley, OKX, Citi and Wells Fargo, according to the event description cited by Cointelegraph.

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This article is for information only and is not investment advice.