How we review

Scored category

How Pledge reviews Bitcoin control models

Custody risk is different from loan pricing or stablecoin backing. This page explains how we check who controls the keys, how recovery works, what legal protections exist, and how much counterparty risk remains even when a product sounds self-custody-friendly.

Review rules published May 24, 2026.

What this covers

Control models

This page evaluates control, recovery, and legal structure rather than loan or stablecoin risk.

Coverage state

All scored

All 11 tracked providers carry a published v3.2 8-factor score with a verified or estimated-confidence flag.

Primary goal

Trust the setup

The first question is who controls the Bitcoin and how recovery really works.

Jump to section

Scored factors & weights Review factors Publishing discipline Adjacent reading Updates

Scoring weights · v3.2

The 8 scored factors and how they weight into each Pledge score.

Every tracked provider is graded 0–10 on each factor below; the weighted sum (weights total 100%) is the published overall score. Each launch score carries a verified or estimated-confidence flag and is refined as deeper provider-level verification completes.

FactorWeightWhat it measures

Custody model18%Self-custody / multisig / collaborative / qualified custodian.

Key management16%Single-sig / 2-of-3 / 3-of-5 / institutional MPC.

Insurance & recourse14%Crime policy, segregated cover, Lloyd’s-backed protection.

Regulatory status12%Trust company / qualified custodian / chartered bank framework.

Recovery story12%Seed phrase backup, inheritance trigger, co-signer paths.

Transparency & audits10%SOC-2 audits, proof-of-reserves, public disclosure cadence.

Track record10%Years operating, public incident history.

Loss history8%Client-asset loss events disclosed or implicated.

Total100%Overall score = weighted sum across all 8 factors.

The full scoring rubric — including what a top score looks like on each factor — lives on the custody scoring methodology page.

Review lenses

The qualitative questions behind those grades.

These are the evidence questions we work through when grading each scored factor — they keep the numbers anchored to control, recovery, and legal reality instead of brand familiarity.

Review factor

Control and key structure

We start with who can move coins, how signatures are distributed, and whether the user keeps meaningful control or is trusting a pure custodian.

Review factor

Legal segregation and bankruptcy posture

Custody quality depends on whether assets appear clearly segregated, what the customer agreement says, and how the structure is meant to behave under stress.

Review factor

Operational transparency

We care about what the provider publishes on setup, approvals, recovery, outages, personnel controls, and custody workflow rather than vague “secure by design” copy.

Review factor

Insurance and loss handling

Insurance only matters if the policy scope, exclusions, and claims story are understandable. We will not treat the word “insured” as a complete answer.

Review factor

Recovery and inheritance design

A custody product is not complete if the recovery path is brittle, obscure, or impossible to explain to a family office, executor, or successor.

Review factor

Service fit and user profile

Some providers are built for institutions, some for high-net-worth households, and some for self-custody-first users. Fit matters as much as brand familiarity.

Review factor

Jurisdiction and compliance posture

We look at where the provider operates, what oversight actually applies, and whether the compliance posture matches the user segment it serves.

Review factor

Counterparty concentration

Even collaborative models can hide concentration in vendors, insurers, co-signers, or service dependencies. We want those dependencies visible.

Source map

The source set shaping control-model reviews

Control-model research only works if it can compare collaborative custody, self-custody support, and institutional custody without pretending they are the same product. These references anchor that spread.

Collaborative multisig reference

Unchained custody materials

Unchained keeps shared-control custody concrete. The right question is not just whether there is a custodian, but how user participation and recovery actually work.

Why it matters

Without a collaborative-custody reference, methodology drifts toward ranking everything as if it were either a pure wallet or a pure third-party vault.

Unchained official site

Self-custody support reference

Casa self-custody positioning

Casa keeps recovery design, inheritance, and user operating burden in the main trust picture rather than tucked away as side notes.

Why it matters

That prevents custody research from confusing software-assisted self-custody with outsourced institutional storage.

Casa official site

Institutional custody reference

BitGo institutional materials

Institutional custody surfaces a different set of questions: legal segregation, insurance language, service boundary, and vendor concentration.

Why it matters

A credible control-model methodology needs an institutional reference point so bank-grade marketing copy is not mistaken for evidence.

BitGo official site

Internal bridge

Control-model explainer

The guide translates the review rules into plain-English tradeoffs so readers can map multisig, self-custody support, and institutional custody to the right decision.

Why it matters

That bridge keeps methodology from becoming isolated trust copy and makes the scored reviews easier to act on.

Read the control-model guide

Fit guidance

Who should use this page

This page is for readers trying to sort control-model jobs correctly before they put too much weight on a brand name. It is less useful if you already know the exact provider relationship you want.

Who this is for

Good fit

Use this path when these signals match.

Readers deciding between collaborative custody, self-custody support, and institutional custody.
Users who want to understand how the published v3.2 scores are graded and what deeper verification still tightens.
Households and operators who care about recovery, inheritance, and service-boundary clarity as much as the headline security story.

Who should pass

Wrong fit

Switch paths when these signals match.

Users who already know they want a BTC-backed loan and mainly need pricing or liquidation comparisons.
Readers looking for the ranked provider scores themselves — those live on the custody hub, not this page.
Anyone who wants a quick provider snapshot without reading how custody trust gets underwritten first.

Publishing discipline

Do not publish a custody review until the recovery model and key-control structure are clearly explained.

Do not rank collaborative custody, self-custody tooling, and institutional qualified custody as if they solve the same job.

Do not let brand familiarity substitute for legal clarity, operational transparency, or service fit.

Adjacent reading

While control-model research is still expanding, the best context lives in the loan methodology, the control-model guides, and the stablecoin review rules that already keep unlike products separate.

Provider profiles Control-model guide Stablecoin review rules Loan review rules

Control-model updates

Follow control-model updates from the hub instead of signing up again here.

This page should build trust, not ask for a second category-specific signup. The control-model hub is the single place where we keep provider-review launches, review-rule updates, and coverage notes.

Open control-model updates Back to control-model hub

Disclosure policy

Custody coverage is scored — and the disclosure standard came first

Custody coverage exists because key control, recovery, and legal segregation deserve their own scored research. It is not monetized today, and any future provider referrals or sponsorships will be disclosed separately from loan relationships.

No provider ranking is being shaped by an active referral program today.

If Pledge later adds provider referrals or sponsorships here, those relationships will be disclosed separately from loan programs and labeled on the relevant control-model pages.

Future control-model compensation should identify whether it is per-lead, sponsorship, or another arrangement instead of hiding under a generic affiliate label.

Any provider listed without a full ranked score is waiting on the evidence threshold — never on a commercial consideration.

Rankings, methodology, and evidence standards stay independent either way. Read the full disclosure policy.

How Pledge reviews Bitcoin control models

Review rules published May 24, 2026.

What this covers

Control models

This page evaluates control, recovery, and legal structure rather than loan or stablecoin risk.

Coverage state

All scored

All 11 tracked providers carry a published v3.2 8-factor score with a verified or estimated-confidence flag.

Primary goal

Trust the setup

The first question is who controls the Bitcoin and how recovery really works.

The 8 scored factors and how they weight into each Pledge score.

FactorWeightWhat it measures

Custody model18%Self-custody / multisig / collaborative / qualified custodian.

Key management16%Single-sig / 2-of-3 / 3-of-5 / institutional MPC.

Insurance & recourse14%Crime policy, segregated cover, Lloyd’s-backed protection.

Regulatory status12%Trust company / qualified custodian / chartered bank framework.

Recovery story12%Seed phrase backup, inheritance trigger, co-signer paths.

Transparency & audits10%SOC-2 audits, proof-of-reserves, public disclosure cadence.

Track record10%Years operating, public incident history.

Loss history8%Client-asset loss events disclosed or implicated.

Total100%Overall score = weighted sum across all 8 factors.

The full scoring rubric — including what a top score looks like on each factor — lives on the .

The qualitative questions behind those grades.

These are the evidence questions we work through when grading each scored factor — they keep the numbers anchored to control, recovery, and legal reality instead of brand familiarity.

Review factor

Control and key structure

We start with who can move coins, how signatures are distributed, and whether the user keeps meaningful control or is trusting a pure custodian.

Review factor

Legal segregation and bankruptcy posture

Custody quality depends on whether assets appear clearly segregated, what the customer agreement says, and how the structure is meant to behave under stress.

Review factor

Operational transparency

We care about what the provider publishes on setup, approvals, recovery, outages, personnel controls, and custody workflow rather than vague “secure by design” copy.

Review factor

Insurance and loss handling

Insurance only matters if the policy scope, exclusions, and claims story are understandable. We will not treat the word “insured” as a complete answer.

Review factor

Recovery and inheritance design

A custody product is not complete if the recovery path is brittle, obscure, or impossible to explain to a family office, executor, or successor.

Review factor

Service fit and user profile

Some providers are built for institutions, some for high-net-worth households, and some for self-custody-first users. Fit matters as much as brand familiarity.

Review factor

Jurisdiction and compliance posture

We look at where the provider operates, what oversight actually applies, and whether the compliance posture matches the user segment it serves.

Review factor

Counterparty concentration

Even collaborative models can hide concentration in vendors, insurers, co-signers, or service dependencies. We want those dependencies visible.