Navigating Stablecoins | Interview with Safeheron CEO: How Self-Custody Tech Cracks the “Impossible Triangle” of Stablecoin Security
Introduction: With the implementation of the GENIUS Act in the US and the Stablecoin Bill in Hong Kong, the stablecoin industry is entering a new chapter. The “Navigating Stablecoins” series brings together a collection of exclusive interviews with Safeheron, offering an in-depth analysis from the perspective of a core infrastructure provider. It explores the challenges, security foundations, and future opportunities of the stablecoin industry as we venture into a new era of the stablecoin ecosystem.
As the Hong Kong Monetary Authority officially releases its stablecoin regulatory framework and the US GENIUS Act takes shape, a new parallel financial universe is rapidly permeating reality. Within this value network built on code, Safeheron is quietly emerging as the stealth leader in Asia’s digital asset self-custody security sector.
“We are an infrastructure provider for the stablecoin ecosystem,” said Safeheron co-founder Wade Wang, cutting straight to the company’s positioning. “More specifically, we build the foundational infrastructure layer of the stablecoin industry value chain. On top of this layer sit stablecoin issuers and payment service providers. The core logic is to ensure that the minting, circulation, and custody of every single stablecoin run on an unbreakable security foundation.”
Cracking the “Impossible Triangle” of Stablecoin Security
When traditional financial institutions venture into crypto assets, they often face a little-known reality: 75% of security threats come from insiders, causing losses up to 12 times greater than external attacks. At the same time, international hacker groups are a constant menace, with private key leaks, transaction tampering, and API hijacks hanging over them like a sword of Damocles.
“The industry’s pain point is clear: security, cost, and efficiency form an ‘impossible triangle’,” Wade Wang explained. Safeheron’s breakthrough lies in integrating two core cryptographic technologies: MPC (Secure Multi-Party Computation), which acts like a “distributed safe deposit box,” and whose magic is that the”private key is never fully assembled, and its shards remain securely encrypted.“
“To use an analogy, think of a private key as a master blueprint for a secret martial art,” he said. “The traditional way to hide it would be first to write it down, then tear it into three pieces and hide them in different places. With MPC technology, we can directly generate three encrypted shards. The complete blueprint never exists in one place, yet it can still be used to perform tasks like signing transactions.” The other technology, TEE (Trusted Execution Environment), creates a hardware-level “secure enclave,” ensuring the transaction signing process is impervious to spying and tampering.
Crucially, these technologies are embedded within a defense-in-depth system. By using a zero-trust architecture for dynamic access control and combining it with real-time AML risk management, Safeheron builds a complete chain covering internal governance, operational audits, and external attack prevention. Data shows their solution reduces institutional custody system setup costs by 90% and shortens the deployment time from months to just one week. This technological leap gives enterprises the ability to have 100% control over their own assets for the first time.
“We don’t mythologize technology. We return to the fundamentals: exponentially increasing the cost for attackers. When it costs 3 million USD to steal 10 million USD, the incentive for malicious acts disappears.”
Client Landscape: Co-Building a Global Stablecoin Industry Chain
Currently, Safeheron’s clients span the entire upstream, midstream, and downstream of the stablecoin industry chain. The company collaborates closely with stablecoin issuers, RWA issuers, and public blockchains. It also partners with the payment layer, including cross-border trade platform KUN, dtcpay, and OTC institution HashKey OTC Global, providing secure and efficient self-custody solutions for their digital assets.
“Take cross-border payment platforms, for example. They achieve three major breakthroughs using our tech stack,” Wang noted. “First, they can provide a digital asset account system for their global enterprise clients, supporting second-level cross-border settlement. Second, they can build a multi-layer policy and approval engine to freely configure permissions for executives, finance, risk, compliance, and operations. Third, we provide KYT and AML risk control services, dynamically monitoring on-chain transactions to automatically identify high-risk funds from sources like terrorist financing or coin mixers.”
An even more disruptive innovation is the decentralized custody architecture. “Traditional banks or centralized custodians hold the account permissions and private keys, giving them the power to freeze accounts. We let clients truly ‘take control of their own digital assets’—even if Safeheron were to disappear, users could still access and manage their assets at any time.” This architecture has rapidly earned the trust of a growing number of institutional clients. Safeheron now serves nearly 200 institutions, with over $15 billion in monthly transfer volume on its platform. Centered in Hong Kong and Singapore, its influence radiates across Asia and has won the trust of clients from Latin America, Europe, and the US.
Open-Source Strategy: Earn Global Trust Through Transparency
While Western security firms often keep their technology in a “black box,” Safeheron chose a different path. It became the first custody provider in Asia to open its tech stack, open-sourcing its core MPC algorithm in 2023 and do the same for its TEE framework in 2025. It has invited top-tier audit firms like Switzerland’s Kudelski Security and Germany’s Least Authority to validate its code, achieved SOC 2 certification by one of Big 4 firms to build a bank-grade compliance system, and secured a multi-million dollar insurance policy from Lockton in the UK to establish liability coverage.
“Open source isn’t about sacrificing business secrets; it’s the cornerstone of building trust,” Wang revealed. This strategy of transparency has even spurred industry change—MetaMask proactively sought a technical integration, and Western competitors have been forced to follow suit by opening up their technology. Leveraging its deep expertise in security, Safeheron stays ahead of technological evolution and adheres to the principle of responsible disclosure. When its team discovered a vulnerability in a certain MPC protocol, they notified the relevant parties three months in advance to allow for a fix, earning the respect of the international cryptography community.
“The spirit of blockchain is co-building and sharing. We open-source our technical standards, but our core competency lies in our deep understanding of financial scenarios—a ‘security intuition’ gained from managing billions of dollars in digital assets.”
Anchor the Future: When Stablecoins Reshape Global Payments
As Hong Kong accelerates its rollout of an HKD stablecoin, the global stablecoin market is entering a new phase of development, and Safeheron is continuously updating its technology. The company is deeply involved in ongoing discussions with the Singapore Blockchain Association, the Digital Asset Association of Singapore, and the MPC Alliance to explore the frontiers of cryptography and promote its application in the stablecoin industry. It is also developing quantum-resistant cryptography modules to counter next-generation computing threats.
In Wang’s view, the value of stablecoins extends far beyond cryptocurrency trading. “It’s penetrating the parallel universe: cross-border traders use it to hedge risks, and users in Africa receive payments via stablecoins on their phones. These are the financial blind spots that the traditional banking system cannot cover.”
Data shows that blockchain-based stablecoin payments can save over 50% in fees compared to SWIFT and achieve 24/7, second-level settlement. This also explains why Hong Kong is making an urgent push—a significant portion of the future cross-border payment market may happen on-chain, and financial centers must compete for a voice in this new arena.
“Bitcoin is digital gold, and stablecoins are the new world’s medium of exchange,” said Wang, describing their symbiotic relationship. With the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US and central banks worldwide exploring CBDCs, a multi-layered digital asset ecosystem is taking shape. Safeheron is anchoring itself as the most critical trust hub within it.
When asked about industry cycles, he displayed the conviction of a technologist: “Cycles change prices, but they don’t change the trajectory of technology penetrating reality. When 70% of the world’s assets are tokenized in the future, every dollar invested in security protocols today is participating in rewriting the fundamental grammar of financial civilization.”
At this moment, the “trust engine” built by this technically profound team is driving stablecoins to break through the boundary between the virtual and the real. Its goal is a more tangible future: to let value flow as freely as data, yet remain as solid as a rock.
Looking ahead, Wade Wang emphasized the opportunity for security technology in the global stablecoin wave. He made it clear that Safeheron is ready to empower cross-border payment and financial institutions with its mature technology, product solutions, and deep compliance experience.
“We will provide highly adaptable and efficient industry solutions, a secure foundation, and a compliance pathway to help more outstanding institutions embrace the blue ocean of the stablecoin industry and compete effectively and securely in reshaping the global payment landscape.” This is not just business expansion but a strategic extension of Safeheron’s role as a core infrastructure provider — letting a tech engine rooted in enterprise needs help optimize the global flow of value.
