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Google is running a private preview of an institutional crypto custody service that splits private-key control across separate computing environments, with commercial availability targeted for early 2027, according to AMBCrypto. The product is called Google Multi-Party Computation, or Google MPC, and the company presented it at its first digital assets symposium in New York on October 28.
AMBCrypto reported that Nalin Mittla, Google Cloud’s digital assets lead, described it as the company’s biggest launch in the digital assets space to date and said it offers custody at scale without trading performance. Rich Widmann, head of strategy for Web3 at Google, framed custody as where every digital asset transaction begins and ends, and said the company wants to extend its work to trust.
Also read: Google Cloud Previews MPC Custody Service for Banks
Key facts
- Google MPC distributes key shares among a customer’s on-premises hardware, Google Cloud and a third party such as AWS, so no single system holds the entire key.
- crypto.news reported the private preview is under way with several major financial institutions, while Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is already using the technology to secure its own digital assets on Ethereum and Solana.
- AMBCrypto reported that wallet key compromise accounts for more than half of crypto hacks, and that these losses exceeded $8 billion over the past two years.
- Chainalysis estimated private-key compromises made up 43.8% of cryptocurrency stolen during 2024, per crypto.news and CoinCentral.
- Pricing, the identities of the testing institutions and a precise release date beyond early 2027 have not been disclosed.
How the signing works
MPC custody is not a new design. Coinbase Custody, BitGo and Fireblocks already use it, and Google’s version places it inside Google Cloud’s Confidential Space environment. Signed approvals can be conditioned on policies that restrict destination addresses, set transfer limits or require extra sign-offs from a threshold of participants, such as two of three or five of seven.
Google says it cannot access key shares in unencrypted form even when they sit on its infrastructure. The company has said the service will support ECDSA and Ed25519 signing at general availability and that the architecture is intended to accommodate future post-quantum upgrades, though no timetable for those signing methods has been announced. AMBCrypto reported 100-microsecond signing support and described cloud outages as a shortcoming of the approach.
Also read: Standard Chartered Signs Definitive Deal to Buy Zodia Custody
Why it matters
Compromised credentials have been a persistent source of crypto losses, and Google’s offering lands next to a market already served by specialized custody firms including Fireblocks, Fordefi and BitGo. The pitch is aimed at banks that want to keep direct control of their custody operations while relying on outside technology for signing infrastructure.
The reports differ in detail. AMBCrypto framed several recent incidents as the backdrop, citing Bybit’s $1.5 billion exploit in 2025 that involved its Safe{Wallet} cold-storage infrastructure, more than $100 million in losses tied to a Coldcard firmware vulnerability, a Fireblocks bug affecting its MPC design, and a Ledger supply-chain attack with victims losing more than $100 million. crypto.news cited a June incident at Humanity Protocol in which an attacker took seven private keys from a developer’s computer and used them for unauthorized transactions and contract changes on Ethereum and BNB Smart Chain. CoinCentral noted that no quantum computer capable of breaking Bitcoin keys exists yet and that Google’s current service focuses on stolen credentials and unauthorized transactions.
What to watch
The commercial launch depends on completing the preview program, so the next concrete signals are the completion of private testing, the naming of participating institutions and pricing. AMBCrypto also noted that Google last year announced plans for its own blockchain designed for payments and tokenized assets.
Reported by AMBCrypto.
Sources: AMBCrypto, crypto.news, CoinCentral