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Institutional Custody, Multisig & the War on Cash | Mike Belshe SLP773

Institutional Custody, Multisig & the War on Cash | Mike Belshe SLP773

Stephan Livera Podcast vor 1 Monat

0:00

1:07:00

Mike Belshe, co-founder and CEO of BitGo, walks through how
institutional Bitcoin custody actually works in 2026: qualified
custody, self-custody co-signing, and why BitGo still centers a
2-of-3 model after pioneering P2SH multisig in 2013.

BitGo now operates as a US-regulated qualified custodian and
public company, while still offering the same wallet stack
individuals can run in self-custody mode. The conversation covers
what “institutional security” means in practice — HSM-backed
co-signing, open-source recovery paths, multi-jurisdictional key
storage (including how BitGo moved WBTC when US regulation looked
hostile), and why on-chain multisig still beats vendor-locked MPC
for cold ops.

They also dig into the political and operational risks around
large Bitcoin holdings: KYC and PII as honeypots, France tying
names to amounts, the war on cash reaching Bitcoin, and whether
an EO 6102-style confiscation risk still belongs in the threat
model. On the institutional side, Belshe pushes back on
multi-custodian setups that add failure modes, explains insurance
limits versus the size of the Bitcoin market, and why splitting
wallets matters after events like Bybit.

Timestamps

00:00 — Intro: Mike Belshe of BitGo

00:59 — Don't Lose Self-Custody's Power

05:41 — Retail Deserves Institutional Security

07:16 — Humans Are Terrible at OpSec

09:56 — 2-of-3 Protects Theft and Loss

14:35 — Retail Pays 160 Basis Points

19:22 — Why People Drift Toward Banks

20:35 — Self-Custody Is Never Trustless

23:39 — Why BitGo Sticks to 2-of-3

30:31 — A Public CEO Holds Zero at Home

31:27 — KYC Leaks Are Government Honeypots

39:28 — France Doxed Bitcoin Holdings

41:30 — War on Cash Reaches Bitcoin

43:45 — Multi-Jurisdictional Key Storage

45:29 — Executive Order 6102 Could Return

47:43 — Quantum-Resistant Wallets Today

49:27 — Multisig Beats MPC

53:33 — Splitting Custodians Adds Failures

58:29 — 2-of-2 MPC Can't Recover Loss

01:00:57 — $5–7B Insurance vs $1.6T Bitcoin

01:03:35 — Bybit Lost 10x by Not Splitting

01:05:21 — Multi-Institution vs Qualified Custody

Links:

https://x.com/mikebelshe

https://x.com/bitgo

Stephan Livera links:

Follow me on X: @stephanlivera

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