About Fireblocks
Fireblocks was founded in 2018 by Michael Shaulov, Idan Ofrat, and Pavel Berengoltz, Israeli cybersecurity veterans, based on the recognition that securely storing and transferring cryptocurrency and other digital assets at institutional scale presented distinctive security challenges that traditional cybersecurity or financial infrastructure approaches were not well suited to address, since digital assets are bearer instruments controlled entirely by cryptographic private keys, meaning that if those keys are stolen or compromised, the underlying assets can be irreversibly transferred out of an institution's control with no recourse comparable to reversing a fraudulent traditional bank wire transfer.
Fireblocks's core technology uses a combination of multi-party computation (MPC), a cryptographic technique that splits private keys into multiple pieces held separately so no single point of compromise can expose a complete key, along with secure hardware enclaves and extensive policy controls, to let institutions custody, transfer, and settle digital assets with security and operational controls appropriate for institutional finance, addressing a foundational infrastructure gap that has historically made many traditional banks and financial institutions hesitant to engage directly with cryptocurrency given the catastrophic and irreversible nature of digital asset theft relative to traditional financial fraud. The company's platform has been adopted by a very large number of banks, cryptocurrency exchanges, payment companies, and other financial institutions as foundational infrastructure for their own digital asset custody, transfer, and settlement operations, positioning Fireblocks as critical, if often invisible, plumbing underlying much of the institutional cryptocurrency industry rather than a consumer-facing product itself. Fireblocks has expanded its platform to support an increasingly broad range of digital asset types, including traditional cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, and tokenized real-world assets, as institutional interest in tokenization of traditional financial assets has grown. The company has raised very substantial venture funding from investors including Sequoia Capital, Coatue, and Spark Capital, reaching a valuation exceeding $8 billion.
