The custody layer is where the keys and the underlying assets sit. For tokenised money market funds, tokenised deposits, and tokenised securities, custody is two-sided: the underlying off-chain assets need a regulated custodian (a Section 17(f) custodian for US-regulated funds, a MAS-licensed trustee for Singapore VCCs, the equivalent under each jurisdiction's regime), and the on-chain instruments need a digital-asset custodian that can hold the keys, manage transfers, and provide the institutional-grade controls regulators require. For institutional tokenisation in Asia, the custody question is the bottleneck that decides which products get to market and which do not.

What this layer does

A digital-asset custodian for institutional tokenisation operates at a different bar than a retail crypto custodian. Required: segregation of client assets, qualified-custodian status (or the local-regime equivalent), insurance or capital backing, audit-grade controls on key management, integration with the tokenisation platform's transfer flow, and the operational ability to handle corporate actions on the underlying asset. Required to compete in APAC: a SOC 2 Type II at minimum, ideally a relationship with one of the major audit firms, and licensing in the jurisdictions where the issuer wants to distribute.

The custody-platform pairing is the load-bearing partnership pattern in the stack. Kinexys reportedly working with Zodia for institutional custody. Securitize working with Zerohash for back-end settlement and with multiple custodians for client-facing custody. Centrifuge working with Anchorage and a rotating set of others. The pairings are not exclusive in most cases, but they are sticky: once a custodian is integrated into a platform's transfer flow, switching is painful.

Why it matters

Custody is the institutional credibility lever for tokenisation. An APAC asset manager evaluating whether to launch a tokenised product asks first: who holds the assets? The answer needs to be a name the manager's risk committee, the manager's auditor, and the manager's regulator can all sign off on. That filter is why the Zodia / BNY Digital Assets / State Street Digital / Anchorage tier matters more than the broader crypto-custody universe: these are names with the institutional pedigree (BNY and State Street as established global custodians; Zodia as SC Ventures incubated; Anchorage as the only federally chartered digital-asset bank in the US) that get past the risk-committee filter.

The APAC angle is significant. Zodia is the only major institutional digital-asset custodian with a Singapore licence, an Ireland MiCA-route entity, and the SC Ventures backing that gives APAC banks a familiar counterparty. The Hong Kong-licensed VATP universe (HashKey, OSL, others) sits adjacent but with a different supervisory profile. The Japanese custodians (Mitsui Sumitomo Trust, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust, MUFG Trust) operate within the Japanese trust-bank framework and are increasingly part of Progmat deployments.

Named entities in this layer

Custodians and custody-tech vendors with material institutional tokenisation activity tracked in the wiki:

• Zodia Custody. SC Ventures incubated. Singapore-licensed, Ireland MiCA-route entity. The default APAC institutional custodian for several tokenisation programmes.
• Zerohash. Settlement and custody infrastructure. Back-end partner for Securitize and many tradfi-facing tokenisation flows.
• BNY. BNY Digital Assets. Global custodian with established institutional credibility, increasing tokenisation involvement.
• State Street Digital. State Street's digital-asset division. Custody plus sub-custody. Project Agorá participant.
• Anchorage. Federally chartered digital-asset bank (OCC). Custody for institutional crypto plus tokenisation custody work.
• Broadridge. Operates the DLR (Distributed Ledger Repo) platform. Custody-adjacent for repo flows.
• Digital Asset (Holdings). Custody-tech vendor for Canton-deployed institutional applications.

Open questions

• What is the right capital treatment for tokenised assets held in digital-asset custody? Basel SCO60 (here) treats tokenised traditional assets favourably but the operational specifics for custodians are still being worked through nationally.
• How does the custody layer handle multi-network products? A tokenised fund issued on three networks (Ethereum, Base, Canton) needs a custodian that can hold keys for all three and reconcile across them. Few custodians today can do this natively.
• What share of APAC tokenised-asset custody flows ends up at Zodia versus regional alternatives (Hong Kong VATPs, Japanese trust banks, Singapore-licensed custodians like Anchorage Singapore once it is fully scaled)? The market is still consolidating.