Bitget announced the Open Custody Network on November 5, a framework that lets institutions trade its spot, margin and futures markets while their assets stay with an external custodian. The
Bitget announced the Open Custody Network on November 5, a framework that lets institutions trade its spot, margin and futures markets while their assets stay with an external custodian. The press release promises “zero compromise on custody.” Bitget’s own documentation says the model does not remove the risk.
Bitget has spent the year pushing DeFi to 125 million users, and it now applies that logic to custody. Under the standard model, a client wires coins to the venue and accepts that the venue holds the collateral. The network reverses the order. The client keeps the assets with a bank or an institutional custodian and receives a mirrored balance inside Bitget for orders.
Bitget lists spot, margin and futures as supported markets. Eligibility depends on the provider and the settlement arrangement, so two clients of the same exchange may not access the same products.
The company targets market makers, asset managers and other institutions, the firms most exposed to custody concentration. Collateral with a custodian can be mobilized without a second transfer, and risk committees keep a relationship they already audited.
The mechanism itself is described in one word, asset mirroring, and never defined. Bitget does not say whether the mirrored balance is a claim on the custodian, a credit line from Bitget, or a tokenised receipt. That distinction determines who carries the loss if the custodian fails.
Your 1st cryptos with BitgetThis link uses an affiliate program.Gracy Chen, Bitget’s chief executive, framed the launch as a break with industry habit. “We challenge the assumption that users must place their assets in an exchange’s custody to access its trading capabilities,” she said, adding that clients would get liquidity and capital efficiency with “zero compromise on custody.”
The academy page published alongside it is more careful. It states that institutions may keep collateral with an independent custodian “and participate in trading through credit, delegation, or settlement arrangements.” It then adds, in plain language, that this model “does not eliminate trading, market, custody, or settlement risk.”
Those sentences carry more weight than the slogan. If trading runs on credit or delegation, the client has not removed counterparty exposure. It moved that exposure to a structure the client must monitor, with its own collateral rules and default procedures.
Moving gold between vaults does not remove the risk that the second is empty. It changes who checks.
The release says the network serves “all eligible users.” The academy page describes “an open-access framework for institutional clients, custody partners, and asset partners.” Both cannot be true, and the difference matters for anyone reading this as a retail product.
The dates are loose. The announcement carries November 5, 2026, the academy page October 15, three weeks earlier, for a network Bitget presents as new.
Bitget’s release names no custodian. Existing arrangements with Copper, Cactus Custody, Fireblocks, OSL and Sygnum Bank have been reported, but the company does not confirm them. A network built on unnamed partners is a promise about governance before it is a product.
Custody has become a crowded field, and the private key alone no longer settles who controls an asset. Bitget’s proposal is a credible direction. The gap between its slogan and its own documentation is where clients should look.
