Digital assets increasingly live within institutional custody environments. At the same time, their utility, liquidity, and yield opportunities increasingly live on-chain.

The challenge has been connecting the two.

For institutions, accessing DeFi opportunities often introduces operational complexities across custody, wallet management, protocol interaction, execution, accounting, and risk. For asset issuers in particular, this can leave a meaningful portion of assets disconnected from the markets where those assets can be borrowed, lent, used as collateral, or deployed in yield strategies.

Concrete and Ceffu are working together to close that gap through Concrete’s AssetCX Framework.

The collaboration combines Ceffu’s institutional custody infrastructure with Concrete’s AssetCX and vault infrastructure, expanding the ways in which eligible assets held in custody can interact with opportunities across DeFi.

Bringing Custodied Assets On-Chain

AssetCX is built around a simple idea: institutional custody and on-chain utility can co-exist.

An asset held by an institution may have significant utility across DeFi. But accessing those opportunities isn’t as simple as moving assets into a wallet and interacting with a protocol.

Institutions require controls around custody, permissions, execution, risk, accounting, and reporting.

AssetCX provides the infrastructure to connect those requirements to on-chain strategies.

Through Ceffu's custody infrastructure, arrangements can be structured in which assets remain securely held in segregated custody while their existence and value are attested on-chain.. This allows on-chain infrastructure to recognize collateral held in custody without necessarily requiring the underlying assets themselves to enter a smart contract.

Combined with Concrete’s vault infrastructure, this collaboration creates a new design space for institutional assets across DeFi while meeting and maintaining the infrastructure and controls required by institutional capital.

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Unlocking More Utility for Institutionally Held Assets

The impact extends beyond yield.

As institutional ownership grows, it poses an important challenge: institutional adoption can expand even as a meaningful pool of assets remains disconnected from the on-chain markets that drive utility.

AssetCX creates infrastructure to bridge that divide.

By connecting institutional custody assets with DeFi, Institutions gain more ways to put eligible holdings to work. Asset issuers gain infrastructure to expand the utility of institutionally held supply,and DeFi protocols gain a potential path to new pools of institutional assets and collateral.

Institutional adoption and DeFi participation no longer have to move in opposite directions.

Ceffu + Concrete

Ceffu provides the custody infrastructure that enables these new forms of institutional DeFi participation. Its institutional custody platform combines MPC technology with customizable approval controls designed for institutional digital asset management. Ceffu has demonstrated infrastructure through which collateral can remain in segregated cold storage and be attested on-chain, allowing on-chain markets to recognize that collateral without requiring the underlying assets to be deposited directly into a smart contract.

Concrete provides the infrastructure for what comes next.

Through AssetCX and Concrete’s vault architecture, eligible assets can be connected to defined on-chain strategies, with infrastructure that supports strategy allocation, execution, monitoring, and accounting.

Together, Ceffu and Concrete connect three important layers of the digital asset stack: Custody, Capital, and DeFi.

For institutions, this means a more structured path for putting eligible digital assets to work.

For asset issuers, it creates infrastructure for extending the utility of institutionally held supply into DeFi.

And for DeFi protocols, it creates a potential access to pools of institutional assets and collateral that has historically been difficult to reach on-chain.

As institutional ownership of digital assets continues to grow, the infrastructure connecting custody with on-chain markets will become increasingly important.

Ceffu and Concrete are building that connection through AssetCX.

To learn more about bringing your asset to AssetCX, contact [email protected].

Important Disclosures

This material is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer, solicitation, investment recommendation, or financial, legal, tax, or regulatory advice. Availability of AssetCX, custody services, and associated strategies is subject to applicable eligibility requirements, jurisdictions, technical integrations, compliance review, and definitive agreements.

References to institutional custody, on-chain attestations, and access to DeFi generally describe potential product architectures. Specific custody, attestation, execution, settlement, asset-movement, and control arrangements depend on the applicable custodian, asset, strategy, and governing documentation. Concrete is not a custodian.

Digital asset and DeFi strategies involve risks, including possible loss of principal, smart contract risk, market risk, liquidity risk, counterparty risk, and operational risk. Returns and yields are not guaranteed.

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