Key points
- Asset custody rests on three verifiable things: that clients' money is kept separate from the company's, that no one can move assets on their own, and that an independent third party reviews the records.
- At Skipo, the accounting has been handled by PwC since the company's beginnings, and external audits are carried out by RSM, both independently of operations.
- Skipo systematically cross-checks its accounting records, the actual balances in its bank accounts and the crypto assets verifiable on-chain, so that the balance you see in the app corresponds to assets actually held in custody.
The last few weeks have been hard for those who trust the Chilean digital asset industry. People and companies saw their savings compromised, and the blow reaches the whole sector. When something like this happens, the question stops being theoretical: where are your assets, who can move them and who checks that they exist. Here we explain the asset custody mechanism behind Skipo, the same one we described in the statement we sent to our clients. Your account is operating normally, your assets are available and there are no restrictions on trading or withdrawing.
What does it mean for a platform to hold your assets in custody?
When you buy cryptocurrencies on a platform, what you see on screen is a balance in that company's records. Behind that number there have to be two things: pesos in bank accounts and crypto assets in addresses the platform controls.
Good custody means keeping that correspondence intact at all times. The balance in your records and the assets that actually exist have to be the same thing, every day.
The risk appears when a platform treats its clients' assets as its own: it uses them to fund its operations, lends them out or uses them as the counterparty to its trades. That's when the records and the assets start to drift apart, and the mismatch can grow for months without the client seeing it, because the balance on screen still shows the usual number.
That's why custody is evaluated by the structure a platform has in place to make that mismatch impossible and, if it did happen, for someone external to detect it.
How does Skipo keep your money separate from its own?
There is one premise that governs our entire operation: our clients' assets are not ours. We don't fund our operations with them, we don't lend them out and we don't use them as the counterparty to our own trades.
That premise translates into asset segregation. Client funds are held in accounts used exclusively for them, and Skipo's funds are in different accounts. There is no common account where everything is mixed together.
We also operate with banking redundancy at two institutions, Banco BICE and BCI, with the same structure of separate accounts at each. If one institution has an operational problem, operations don't come to a halt in a single place.
Asset segregation is the first line of defense: without it, none of the measures that follow is enough to protect anything.
Who can move crypto assets at Skipo?
No one, on their own. Our crypto asset custody runs on MPC distributed signing (multi-party computation, a scheme in which the private key never exists in full in a single place) on Fireblocks.
In practice, every transfer requires the participation of multiple parties and only allows destinations permitted by policy. There is no single key in the hands of one person, and there is no internal role that can send assets to an arbitrary address.
On top of that, access is segregated: the custody and administration systems separate permissions by role, and each person can only execute what their role allows. It's the same logic as our security measures for users, applied internally.
No movement of crypto assets at Skipo depends on the decision of a single person.
How is it verified that the balance you see exists?
Through ongoing reconciliation, which is the measure that detects a mismatch before it becomes a problem.
We systematically cross-check three sources: our accounting records, the actual balances in our bank accounts and the crypto assets verifiable on-chain. The balance you see in your account has to correspond, at the same time, to money that is in the bank and to crypto assets that are in the addresses we hold in custody.
The three sources are different in nature, and that is precisely the point. The accounting records are kept by a third party, the bank balance is certified by the bank, and the on-chain balance is public and anyone can look it up on the blockchain. For all three to match at the same time, they all have to be right.
If you want to dig deeper into how to assess a platform's risk beyond the asset you buy, we cover it in whether it's safe to invest in cryptocurrencies in Chile.
A mismatch between what is recorded and what is held in custody doesn't survive a reconciliation that cross-checks bank, accounting and blockchain.
Who keeps Skipo's books and who audits Skipo?
Our accounting has been handled by PwC since Skipo's beginnings. That means that from day one we have operated under full accounting standards, with an independent third party recording every movement. No one inside the company can adjust a record to make a balance match.
On top of that foundation, our external audits are carried out by RSM, also independently.
At Skipo we decided to outsource our accounting before the size of the company required it, because records the company itself can edit are no guarantee to anyone. It's a decision that costs more and goes largely unnoticed, until it doesn't.
There are two more layers on top of that:
- Current ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification, the international standard for information security management.
- Corporate governance, with a board of directors, a Compliance Committee and internal audit as the third line, with independent oversight of operations.
External accounting is the difference between saying the balances match and having someone from outside record it every month.
What registrations does Skipo have with the CMF and the UAF?
Skipo Chile SpA is a Financial Services Provider registered in the Registry of Financial Services Providers of the Comisión para el Mercado Financiero (CMF, Chile's Financial Market Commission) under No. 150, since December 2023. It is also registered with the Unidad de Análisis Financiero (UAF, Chile's Financial Analysis Unit) as a reporting entity for the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing.
Both are public, verifiable information: you can look them up in the CMF Registry of Financial Services Providers and in the list of entities registered with the UAF.
Our authorization to operate from the Comisión para el Mercado Financiero is in process, and in the meantime we operate under the transitional regime established by the Fintech Law (Law No. 21.521) itself. That process has taken longer than expected, and we have responded to every request from the regulator.
For context: the transitional period for registering ended on February 3, 2025, and by that date the CMF had received 335 registration applications, 160 of which also requested authorization to operate, according to the summary published by the CMF on February 4, 2025. It is a long process for the whole industry, and the status of each entity can be checked in the registry.
If you're interested in the regulatory framework that already applies to Chilean platforms, we explain it in our post on the Travel Rule in Chile.
A platform's regulatory status is in a public registry, with a name and a number, and you can check it yourself in two minutes.
What can you verify on your own?
The most useful thing you can do, with Skipo and with any platform where you have money, is to ask for concrete answers to these questions:
- Is it registered, and under what number? Look it up in the CMF registry and the UAF list. They are public and free.
- Who keeps the books? A useful answer has a name. Internal accounting and external accounting are not the same thing.
- Who signs the external audits? Same criterion: a name, not a category.
- Are client funds held in accounts separate from the company's? And if so, at which institutions?
- How is a crypto asset transfer authorized, and how many people are involved? If the answer is that a single person can do it, you already know a lot.
- What are the balances reconciled against? Accounting records, bank balances and on-chain assets are three different sources, and the cross-check between all three is what matters.
These questions either have a verifiable answer or they don't, and that difference already tells you something. Complement the exercise with the six criteria for choosing a platform and our guide to investing in cryptocurrencies without falling for scams.
A platform with sound custody can answer these six questions straightforwardly.
Frequently asked questions
Do the events of the last few weeks in the industry affect my Skipo account?
No. Your account is operating normally, your assets are available and there are no restrictions on trading or withdrawing.
Does Skipo use its clients' assets to fund its operations?
No. Our clients' assets don't belong to Skipo. We don't fund our operations with them, we don't lend them out and we don't use them as the counterparty to our own trades.
Where are my pesos while they're at Skipo?
In bank accounts used exclusively for client funds, separate from the company's accounts, with redundancy at two institutions: Banco BICE and BCI.
Who keeps Skipo's books and who audits Skipo?
The accounting has been handled by PwC since Skipo's beginnings, and external audits are carried out by RSM. Both firms are independent of operations.
How do I know the balance I see in the app really exists?
Because that balance is systematically reconciled against three sources: our accounting records, the actual balances in our bank accounts and the crypto assets verifiable on-chain.
Can a single person inside Skipo move crypto assets?
No. Custody runs on MPC distributed signing on Fireblocks: every transfer requires the participation of multiple parties and only allows destinations permitted by policy.
How do I check Skipo's regulatory status?
In the CMF Registry of Financial Services Providers, where Skipo Chile SpA is listed under No. 150 since December 2023, and in the UAF's list of registered entities. Our authorization to operate is in process, and we operate under the transitional regime of the Fintech Law.
Your assets are where they should be
The seven measures we describe here are the structure Skipo has been operating with since its beginnings: asset segregation, distributed signing, ongoing reconciliation, segregated access, external accounting and audits, ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification and corporate governance with independent oversight.
We believe the serious response to what happened in the industry is to give you information you can use to evaluate us yourself, and that information is here and in public registries you can check whenever you want.
If you have questions about your account, write to us. And if you don't have one yet, you can create your Skipo account or download the app from skipo.com.
This article is for information only and does not constitute financial advice. Asset prices can go up or down, and all investing involves risk. Before investing, assess your personal financial situation.
