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Google is reportedly launching Google Multi-Party Compute, a crypto custody system that distributes signing keys across separate systems, at its first digital assets symposium in New York today. The product is currently in private preview with several financial institutions. Alphabet has begun using the system to secure its own assets, according to CoinDesk reporting.
Google plans to make the service commercially available in early 2027 and has not yet disclosed pricing details.
The system utilizes multi-party computation (MPC) applied to a signing key. The key is divided into fragments held by separate parties or machines, and a transaction requires a specific number of fragments to be signed.
The full key is never assembled in a single location. A bank could hold one share on its own hardware, another in Google Cloud, and a third with a rival cloud provider. Institutions can configure thresholds such as two-of-three or five-of-seven. Before any signature is generated, a policy engine running inside Google’s Confidential Space checks the transfer against limits, destination restrictions, and approval rules.
Google states that it has no access to key shares in unencrypted form, per CoinDesk.
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The pitch addresses a persistent problem. Chainalysis attributed 43.8% of cryptocurrency stolen in 2024 to compromised private keys. Data from DeFiLlama shows that roughly 40% of the $16.69 billion lost to hacks through June came from key compromises. In June, an attacker stole seven keys from one developer’s computer during the Humanity Protocol breach and drained wallets across two networks.
Such incidents demonstrate how concentrated signing authority creates a single point of failure. The industry has responded by recommending multi-vendor multisignature setups that spread control across hardware and software providers.
Google also positions the product against AI-enabled fraud. Chainalysis found that scams linked to AI tool vendors averaged $3.2 million per operation in 2025, compared with $719,000 for other scams. The report links the two figures but does not prove that AI caused the difference.
Ethereum researcher Justin Drake has warned that AI could eventually find mathematical shortcuts that weaken wallet signatures. No AI system has demonstrated that capability yet. Google’s MPC design targets stolen credentials and unauthorized transfers, not a break in the underlying cryptography.
Quantum computing presents a separate, longer-term risk. Google researchers estimated that a sufficiently powerful future machine could derive a bitcoin private key from an exposed public key in about nine minutes. Roughly 6.9 million bitcoin have exposed public keys. Google says its architecture can adopt post-quantum signatures later without forcing institutions to rebuild their systems, but it has set no timetable. Background on how quantum machines threaten bitcoin explains which addresses are most exposed.
Google enters a market led by Fireblocks, Fordefi, and BitGo. Google argued to CoinDesk that its banking relationships and security expertise give it an advantage. It also positions itself as a neutral supplier for banks that do not want to rely on competitors.
Banks already use specialized platforms, such as BNP Paribas’s custody work with Metaco, and multi-institution vaults built with BitGo.
