Google Cloud Crypto Custody Service Is in Private Preview

Google Cloud’s Multi-Party Compute service for protecting and transferring cryptocurrency and tokenized assets is in private preview, offering financial institutions a way to manage signing keys and transaction approvals.

Testing includes several design partners and major financial institutions, but the companies have not been identified. Alphabet uses the service to secure digital assets on Ethereum and Solana. The assets and amounts involved have not been disclosed.

Commercial availability is planned for early 2027. Google Cloud has not disclosed a specific commercial availability date or pricing.

Multi-party computation (MPC) lets separate participants use key shares to approve a transaction without keeping the complete private key in one place. The service distributes signing-key control across separate systems, checks transactions against institutional rules before signing and includes key recovery.

Those rules can limit transfer amounts, restrict destination wallets or require additional approvals. The checks are designed to help institutions address compromised credentials and unauthorized transfers. Confidential Space can be used to build MPC-based digital-asset systems. The current preview packages signing controls, transaction checks and key recovery in a dedicated service.

Private-key compromises accounted for 43.8% of cryptocurrency stolen in 2024. In 2025, scam operations with on-chain links to AI vendors averaged $3.2 million per operation, compared with $719,000 for operations without those links. The figures show an association; they do not establish that AI caused the difference. The scam figures describe a different risk from custody breaches.

Google says the architecture could support post-quantum cryptography in the future, but it has not given a timetable.

“As regulated financial institutions begin adopting blockchains and tokenization, they need scalable, proven infrastructure to secure their clients’ assets,” said Rich Widmann, Google Cloud’s director of digital assets strategy.