Cold storage custody provider Vo1t is offering clients secure data servers from IBM to hold and encrypt their private keys.

The new option, which comes from IBM Hyper Protect Virtual Servers, ensures clients’ keys are safe even if Vo1t’s data centers are compromised. Vo1t's data centers can be installed on the premises or accessed remotely from a client’s computer, and IBM’s enclave keeps client’s key exchange data encrypted, regardless of whether it's in transit or in memory.

“Having this means our clients get to sign with their key in a separate transaction with IBM,” said Sebastian Higgs, general manager at Vo1t. 

The London-based firm, whose name is supposed to remind customers of a bank vault, provides custody, lending, staking and trading products for 35 digital assets. Since 2017, Vo1t has been offering cold storage to firms listed on the Financial Times Stock Exchange, Trust companies and other financial institutions around the world. It advertises a 45-minute withdrawal time for assets held in cold storage. 

While custody was once only the purview of wallet providers and crypto exchanges, banks and other large firms are pursuing the institutional investors who are becoming increasingly interested investing in cryptocurrency. 

“We’ve been looking at the digital custody space and how we could make our servers and our cloud platform be a killer value proposition for this specific market,” said Rohit Badlaney, director of IBM Z as-a-Service. 

CORRECTION (19:12 UTC): This story has been updated to clarify that IBM is offering secure data servers for clients to sign transactions in a different system, not providing data centers or holding client’s private keys.