Best Bitcoin collaborative custody services: who holds which key

Hand your keys to a custodian and you are trusting it never to fail. Collaborative custody keeps the company in a supporting role: a 2-of-3 multisig where you hold two keys and the company holds the third. The company can help you sign or recover, but it cannot move your bitcoin alone, and you can spend without it.

That is the test I apply to every service below, and AnchorWatch fails it, so it sits in the contrast table instead of the ranking. For how these same companies handle heirs, see how these services handle inheritance. If you would rather hold all three keys yourself, my multisig coordinator rankings cover the free apps.

One more disclosure for this page: Swan Vault is designed for Jade devices, and Blockstream, which makes Jade, is where I work. Unchained also lists Jade as compatible.

Unchained runs a 2-of-3 where you hold two keys, and its own custody comparison marks it Bitcoin-only, with client signing and recovery without the company. A vault costs $250 a year. Guided onboarding runs $1,650 (Strengthen Your Setup) or $1,900 (Hold Your Own Keys), each with two hardware wallets and the first vault year. Unchained Signature is $6,000 the first year, then $4,500.

Hardware is the catch for a Bitcoin-only buyer. Unchained's hardware page says "Trezor and Ledger are fully supported. BitBox and Jade have recently been added as compatible devices," which means they work, but its team may not be able to troubleshoot them. I'd still pick the Bitcoin-only pair. Every hardware action happens on a computer in a browser: the mobile app does not support hardware wallets.

It requires identity checks, including a Social Security number or ITIN, and it only serves accounts with a US residential address. If Unchained disappears, your two keys plus the wallet configuration file still spend; its concierge already handles external recovery with Caravan or Sparrow.

Nunchuk's paid plans add one key it holds, which it calls the Platform Key, to keys you control. Iron Hand is a 2-of-3 assisted wallet for $120 a year. Honey Badger, at $480 a year, gives you two 2-of-4 wallets with a dedicated inheritance key. Premier is $2,100 a year. Nunchuk's home page promises "Strictly no KYC."

Its regular-key list includes Jade, BitBox02, Passport, Krux, and SeedSigner among Bitcoin-only devices. Honey Badger's on-chain timelock is stricter: every key must be Miniscript-compatible, which among those devices leaves Jade and BitBox02. If you pick Passport, read up on the Foundation phishing emails from October and never act on a firmware link in an email.

If Nunchuk shuts down, the BSMS file is what Nunchuk calls the "sovereign backup": import it into another coordinator and sign with your own keys.

Since July 2026, Nunchuk's phone apps can also hold USDT on the Liquid network, which my rule allows.

Swan Vault is a 2-of-3: you hold two keys on hardware, and "you manage the third one, your Cloud Key, through your Swan account." Any withdrawal using the cloud key has a 72-hour hold. It costs $30 a month for vaults up to $150,000 and 0.02% a month above that, up to $500 a month. The Welcome Package is $319 for two Jade Plus devices. Swan says the vault "does not carry insurance coverage."

The exit path is a Swan Vault Recovery Kit you download from the dashboard and import into Specter Desktop or Bitcoin Core with your two Jades. The limit: Swan says the vault is "designed for use with Jade devices," so you cannot mix hardware vendors across your two keys.

Bitkey from Block is a $250 device and app. One key is on your phone, one on the hardware, and one is held on the Bitkey server, and "Bitkey can't move your money without you." Inheritance is built in: your beneficiary needs their own Bitkey, and a claim starts a 6-month waiting period you can cancel. My Bitkey review covers the hardware.

The exit path is the Emergency Exit Kit, a PDF in your cloud account with an encrypted copy of your app key that your Bitkey hardware decrypts so you can spend without Bitkey's servers. The limit: every key you hold runs on Bitkey's own hardware and app.

From each service's own pages: Unchained's hardware list, Nunchuk's plan requirements, the Swan Vault page, and Bitkey. AnchorWatch does not publish a list.

Three services that show up on most collaborative custody lists are missing from mine. Casa and Onramp are not Bitcoin-only. AnchorWatch is Bitcoin-only, but it fails the spend-without-the-company test.

Unchained's hardware page now carries a caution that points to Coinkite's security advisory, and it sends clients using that device to a separate notice. I would replace that key. Unchained lists key replacements among its concierge services, and a Jade Plus or BitBox02 takes its place. My reasons are on the Coldcard warning page.

Everything these services do on-chain, you can do with three hardware wallets and a free coordinator such as Sparrow. You give up the help desk and the recovery partner, and you keep the yearly fee and your privacy. Start with how to set up your own 2-of-3, then pick an app from my multisig coordinator rankings.

Collaborative custody still means buying the keys you hold. Buy two from two vendors where the service allows it.