In recent months we've seen the revival of discussion around the topic of self-custody in the web3 sector, with both investors and web3 start-ups concerned about recent events witnessing the collapse of cryptocurrency custodian’s such as Celsius and BlockFi, concerns around a growing number of venture capital funds, and accusations of widespread fraud around FTX prior to its collapse. More specifically in relation to Radom the company's defunct cryptocurrency payment gateway offering - FTX Pay.

For veterans of the industry this is nothing new, with the closure of Mt. Gox in 2014 as a result of mismanagement, theft, and fraud. In more recent times with the Canadian exchange Quadriga’s collapse in 2019 with an all too familiar story of an exchange founder gambling with user deposits, the list goes on but the same story gets told again and again.

The legacy solution

Some are calling for additional regulation for both exchanges and companies dealing with cryptocurrency, distasteful in the eyes of those who believe in concepts such as “Code is law” and the benefits of distributed systems and decentralization. Not to mention issues around enforcement as exchanges jump from one off-shore jurisdiction to another committing fraud at the same or even greater levels of the traditional finance industry.

The alternative

‍Self-custody, something discussed amongst the core Ethereum community and even more so by the Bitcoin maxi crowd with their persistent screams of “Not your keys, not your crypto”. Put simply, blockchains allow you to hold your own funds, if you’re choosing to entrust another individual or entity with your own funds you only have yourself to blame.

Where Radom Pay fits in

Radom provides a similar payment gateway experience to the likes of FTX Pay, but with two main differentiating features:- the support for recurring payments which can support complex subscription payment models supported by the likes of Stripe and Adyen in the fiat payments sector, and more importantly the support for self-custody payments which are routed on-chain, remain on-chain until a merchant moves them, and are owned by the merchant’s wallet ensuring that funds never end up locked or disappear due to theft, fraud, and mismanagement.

It is this self-custodial nature that is more important than anything else in the space right now, and our goal is to raise as much awareness about the issues surrounding custodial payment gateways and to promote other self-custodial alternatives.

Interested in learning more about Radom and other self-custody alternatives for your business? Feel free to contact our sales team here.