Cryptocurrency storage firm Kingdom Trust has secured insurance from Lloyd’s of London for the digital asset investments such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, held on its qualified custody platform.

Kingdom Trust

Image: Kingdom Trust secures insurance from Lloyd’s of London for its cryptocurrencies’ custodian platform. Photo: Courtesy of Kingdom Trust.

The insurance will cover against theft of the cryptocurrencies handled by Kingdom Trust. The insurance was placed by broker Safe Deposit Box Insurance Coverage (SDBIC).

This has been considered as a quite move by Lloyd’s of London into the realm of cryptocurrency.

Kingdom Trust is a qualified custodian of nearly 30 cryptocurrencies and tokens such as Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Litecoin, Ripple and recent additions of ZCash and Stellar Lumens. It has $12bn of assets under custody from nearly 100,000 clients.

As a custodian it guards the private keys of troves of cryptocurrencies to a standard that is deemed acceptable to regulated financial institutions.

Kingdom Trust CEO Matt Jennings said: “Qualified custody by a regulated, insured financial institution is a top priority and critical hurdle for institutions to invest in the digital asset markets.

“By adding another trusted specialist like Lloyd’s to our platform, we’re ensuring that current and future clients will have access to a highly-secure, complete safekeeping solution tailored to meet the challenges of institutional finance.”

This move from cryptcurrency custodian is expected to bring confidence among institutional investors who plan to enter the crypto marketplace.

In a statement, SDBIC said that the ultra-conservative world of insurance is now slowly becoming interested in offering cover for properly custodied digital assets. And Lloyd’s is also treading carefully. It did not comment whether managing agents might be offering crypto theft cover and the syndicates offering the cover have not been named.

SDBIC continued saying that Lloyd’s of London had issued a directive to all of its syndicates, to proceed with caution with regards to crypto assets and to ensure that the managing agents have the required expertise in dealing with the underlying risks. Nevertheless, presently there are 10 syndicates in Lloyd’s which are willing to and active in evaluating crypto exposures.