Once you have enough in digital assets to qualify on your own, you don’t strictly need help getting institutional custody. Anchorage Digital and a handful of other regulated custodians will work directly with anyone who clears their minimum, typically somewhere in the tens of millions of dollars. So why would someone at that level still choose an aggregator instead of going direct?
Access versus advantage
Custody by itself is just storage. Once you clear the minimum threshold, any qualifying institution or high-net-worth individual can open an account and hold assets in cold, insured, regulated custody. That part isn’t exclusive; it’s a function of meeting a number. The real differentiator isn’t whether you can get custody. It’s what comes with it.
What aggregation actually changes
Aggregators pool client assets to negotiate volume-based custody pricing, which can mean lower basis-point fees than an individual would get negotiating alone. On a large portfolio, that fee difference compounds meaningfully over years. Beyond pricing, some aggregators build infrastructure on top of custody, structured products, IRA partnerships that allow tax-deferred holding, or relationships with counterparties that aren’t available to someone opening a standalone custody account. These are business relationships built over time, not something replicated by opening an account at a custodian directly.
Read the fine print before assuming yield
Any strategy that claims to generate additional return on top of custody, whether through a trading algorithm, a fund structure, or a lending arrangement, carries risk and should be evaluated the way you’d evaluate any investment product: understand the fee structure, the counterparty risk, and the track record before committing capital. Past performance of any strategy doesn’t guarantee future results, and nobody should treat “proprietary” as a synonym for “safe” or “guaranteed.”
The actual decision
If all you need is a secure place to hold assets, direct custody at a regulated custodian may be all you need, and there’s nothing wrong with that. If you’re trying to put assets to work through tax-advantaged structures or negotiated access to products you can’t get on your own, that’s a different conversation. Either way, it’s worth asking any aggregator exactly what you’re paying for, in fees and in trust, before signing on.
Educational only, not tax, legal, or investment advice. Check primary sources and speak with a qualified professional before making financial decisions.
