A Look Back at the Initiative That Helped Catalyze DACC’s Formation
In 2024, Aegis Custody, in partnership with Hong Kong Cyberport, launched one of the first-of-its-kind Digital Asset Custody Labs in the region. This initiative served as a hands-on experimentation and demonstration environment for banks, brokers, and asset managers to explore digital asset custody in a compliant, controlled setting.
The lab wasn’t just a pilot — it was a signal. A signal that Hong Kong was ready to operationalize regulated digital asset infrastructure, and that institutions needed a safe, guided path to do so.
What Was the Custody Lab?
The Custody Lab brought together over 10 major financial institutions, including licensed brokers, regional banks, and wealth platforms, to:
- Test hot and cold wallet modules under real-world operational conditions
- Experience multi-role authorization flows, biometric verification, and HSM-based signing
- Review integration pathways for API-driven settlements, KYT monitoring, and compliance tooling
- Engage in collaborative sessions with regulators, tech partners, and infrastructure players
This sandbox-style environment allowed participants to build confidence in using regulated digital asset infrastructure — not just for custody, but for broader use cases like stablecoin flows, ETF in-kind settlement, and tokenized product distribution.
From Custody Lab to DACC
The lessons learned and momentum generated through the Custody Lab directly informed the creation of the Digital Asset Clearing Company (DACC).
Where the lab provided experimentation, DACC delivers execution — as a full-service digital asset post-trade platform built specifically for regulated financial institutions.
- Custody modules tested in the lab now power DACC’s production systems
- Broker API patterns explored in the lab were incorporated into DACC’s onboarding framework
- Institutional use cases validated at Cyberport now run on DACC’s infrastructure stack
The Custody Lab was the first step in building the operational trust and technical readiness needed to bring Hong Kong’s digital asset vision to life — and DACC is where that vision is now delivered at scale.
What This Means for the Market
With DACC now live, financial institutions in Hong Kong no longer need to experiment in isolation.
They can deploy real-world custody and settlement infrastructure with the same confidence and clarity that the Custody Lab helped provide — only now, it’s fully integrated, audited, and production-ready.
From sandbox to scale, the journey began at Cyberport — and continues at DACC.
References
- 🔗 Aegis Custody Launches Aegis Prime and Custody & Tokenisation Lab
Announces the formation of Aegis Prime and the launch of the Custody & Tokenisation Lab to promote digital asset adoption across financial service providers.
