Fireblocks and Thales Expand Partnership to Deliver Bank-Grade Digital Asset Security
Fireblocks says it has expanded its collaboration with Thales to deliver an institutional security architecture that lets banks and regulated financial institutions run digital asset services using customer-owned, certified hardware—without reworking their existing security models.
At the center of the announcement is a tighter integration between the Fireblocks platform and Thales Luna Hardware Security Modules (HSMs), which the companies position as a way for institutions to extend familiar, certified infrastructure into crypto operations while maintaining established compliance and audit processes.
What the joint setup is designed to support
The expanded architecture is pitched as covering a wide set of institutional use cases, including:
- Custody
- Trading
- Tokenization
- On-chain settlement
Fireblocks says the system is intended to support the secure management of cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, security tokens, and tokenized real-world assets across major blockchain networks. It also highlights support for multiple elliptic curves, framed as enabling broader cross-chain coverage and access to deeper liquidity.
The core message: “customer-owned keys, customer-owned control”
A big part of the positioning here is governance and accountability. Fireblocks argues that, unlike “opaque” security models, this approach gives banks and financial institutions complete policy control and final authority over transactions—a structure designed to align with regulatory expectations around clear governance.
The control layer is described as being operationalized via Fireblocks KeyLink, which is intended to ensure private keys (or key shares) are generated, stored, and operated entirely within customer-owned Luna HSMs. In that setup, cryptographic operations happen inside institution-controlled infrastructure, and Fireblocks says it cannot unilaterally sign transactions or move assets.
Fireblocks frames its role as providing policy enforcement, orchestration, and enterprise-grade governance across hot, warm, and cold operating models—while the underlying key authority remains with the customer’s certified hardware.
What the executives are emphasizing
Thales’ Todd Moore said institutional adoption will depend on a “foundation of trust,” pointing to Luna HSMs as protecting and controlling the cryptographic keys that underpin ownership and transaction authority, while positioning the combined solution as a way to reduce key exposure risk and strengthen governance at scale.
Fireblocks’ Adam Levine said banks moving from proofs-of-concept to production need digital asset infrastructure that aligns with the governance, audit, and risk principles of traditional finance—arguing the expanded partnership enables digital asset deployments on customer-owned certified hardware “without compromising on control, compliance, or operational integrity.”
Scale claims and adoption signal
Fireblocks describes its platform as securing more than $5 trillion in digital asset transfers annually, and says over 95 banks already use the platform in live environments—positioning this collaboration as a path to “mission-critical” resilience and continuous availability.
Industry takeaway: why this matters for crypto (especially institutional custody and settlement)
This is less about a new feature and more about removing the biggest institutional blocker: who controls the keys, and can regulators audit that control?
If the architecture works as described, it has real implications for the institutional segment:
- Custody and settlement can fit inside existing compliance frameworks. “Customer-owned certified HSMs” is a language risk teams and regulators already understand.
- Clearer accountability for regulated institutions. If the platform can’t unilaterally move assets and policies are enforced within institution-controlled infrastructure, it strengthens the governance story for auditors and supervisors.
- A more realistic bridge from pilots to production. Many banks get stuck at PoC because security models don’t map cleanly to enterprise controls. This partnership is explicitly aimed at that gap.
Bottom line: in the race to bring tokenization, stablecoin payments, and on-chain settlement into regulated finance, “bank-grade” doesn’t mean marketing—it means verifiable key control, auditable policies, and operational resilience. This announcement is Fireblocks and Thales betting that those are the deciding factors.