Module 2 · Chapter 5

Custody, Client Money and the Stablecoin Question

A crypto firm holds its clients' coins and euro. MiCA keeps both apart from the firm's own money, makes the firm pay for keys it loses, and leaves euro tokens to banks and e-money firms.

≈ 11 min read 8-question test

In this chapter

  • How MiCA keeps clients' crypto-assets and euro apart from Halcyon's own
  • Who pays when a key is lost, and how much
  • Why Halcyon may not issue a euro token of its own

5.1Client assets in one paragraph

Halcyon holds two pools for its clients: crypto-assets in custody worth €94,000,000, and clients' euro at a bank of €6,200,000. Halcyon's own funds are €2,100,000 (Chapter 3), so the firm is small next to what it holds for others. The law's answer is that clients' assets never become the firm's: they are kept apart, recorded client by client, and never used by the firm.

Key point

If Halcyon fails, its clients take back what is theirs. None of it ever belonged to the firm, so the firm's creditors cannot reach it.

Also in this chapter

  1. Why clients' coins sit in separate wallets
  2. Clients' euro must reach a bank by the next business day
  3. The register and the daily count
  4. One client's €1,000, from payment to failure
  5. Who pays when a key is lost
  6. Three things that look like a euro
  7. Why the Board said no to HalcyonEUR
  8. Your job

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