Blockstream Enterprise has two halves. Custody & Treasury is where an institution holds its bitcoin and digital assets — multi-signature keys protected by hardware security modules, with segregated accounts and reserves anyone can verify on-chain. AMP is an API for issuing and managing tokenized assets — securities, bonds, funds, stablecoins — on the Liquid Network, a Bitcoin sidechain. The custody side holds value; the AMP side creates and administers it. Both settle on Liquid, which is secured by Bitcoin and run by a federation of companies rather than a single operator.
Hold assets without handing your keys to someone who can lend them out
Most institutional custody concentrates assets with a third party that can pool or re-lend them. Blockstream's custody uses multi-signature keys held in isolated hardware security modules, with each client's funds in segregated accounts and reserves that can be checked directly on the blockchain. There is no rehypothecation — the assets aren't being lent against in the background.
This matters because the recent failures institutions remember — commingled funds, reserves that turned out not to exist, one custodian holding a large share of an entire market — are exactly what segregation and on-chain proof of reserves are designed to prevent.
Turn a real financial asset into something you can issue and move on Bitcoin
AMP lets an issuer represent a security, bond, fund share, or stablecoin as a token on Liquid, then issue and distribute it through an API. The asset lives on a Bitcoin-based network instead of a separate blockchain with its own token and its own trust assumptions.
Build the compliance rules into the asset itself
With AMP, the rules travel with the token. Transfer-restricted assets can only move between investors the issuer has approved, using category-based restrictions and whitelists. The issuer keeps an authoritative record of who holds what, and can handle reissuance, burning, vesting, and dividends from the same place. Custom checks can be wired in through third-party authorization APIs.
The practical effect: a regulated issuer doesn't have to bolt a compliance layer on around a token that anyone can freely move. The token cannot be transferred to an unapproved party in the first place.
Keep transactions private to the public, but auditable to those who should see them
Liquid uses Confidential Transactions: the amounts and the asset types in a transaction are hidden on the public ledger. The issuer or an auditor can still be granted a view through a sharing key. So a position can be confirmed by the people who need to confirm it without being broadcast to competitors and the rest of the market.
Settle faster, and settle directly with the counterparty
Liquid produces a block roughly every minute with fast, predictable finality — quicker than waiting on Bitcoin's main chain confirmations. Two parties can also settle directly through trustless atomic swaps on non-custodial orderbooks, where the trade either completes for both sides or not at all, with no intermediary holding the assets mid-trade.
Stay on Bitcoin, with a known set of operators behind the network
Liquid is a Bitcoin sidechain, not a separate Layer 1. Bitcoin is pegged into it — more than 19,000 BTC, around $3.27B in value secured — and the network is operated by a federation of 75+ companies, including exchanges and trading desks such as Bitfinex and BitMEX. Trust rests on that named group rather than on a single company or on a new token's economics.
- Custody — safekeeping of assets on a client's behalf. "Qualified custody" is custody that meets a regulator's standard for holding client assets.
- Rehypothecation — when a custodian or lender re-uses assets it's holding for someone else (for example, lending them out). Segregated, no-rehypothecation custody doesn't do this.
- HSM — hardware security module, a dedicated device that stores private keys and signs transactions without the keys ever leaving it.
- Tokenization — representing a real asset (a bond, a fund share, a T-bill) as a token on a blockchain so it can be issued, transferred, and tracked digitally.
- Security token — a token that represents a regulated financial security, so its transfers must follow securities rules.
- AMP — Blockstream's Asset Management Platform: the API for issuing and managing those tokens on Liquid.
- Liquid Network — a Bitcoin sidechain run by a federation of companies, used for issuing assets, faster settlement, and confidential transfers.
- Confidential Transactions — a Liquid feature that hides transaction amounts and asset types from the public, with optional disclosure to auditors.
- Federation / peg — the group of companies that run Liquid and hold the bitcoin that has been "pegged in" to back the assets on the network.
- Atomic swap — a direct trade between two parties that either fully completes for both or doesn't happen, with no middleman holding the assets.
blockstream.com/enterprise (custody, treasury, AMP, target customers) · blockstream.com/amp (transfer restrictions, whitelisting, issuer tracking, Bermuda & Exordium use cases) · blockstream.com/liquid (Confidential Transactions, federation of 75+, asset issuance, use cases) · Blockstream Mining Note 2 (BMN2) · STOKR offerings incl. MicroStrategy (CMSTR), Metaplanet (CMTPL); NexBridge USTBL · Liquid TVL $3.27B and 19,000+ BTC from the companion Market brief.