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A registered investment adviser (RIA) should not recommend, trade, stake, lend, refer, account for, or custody a crypto asset until it has mapped the activity, classified the asset, approved custody and vendors, tested AML and cybersecurity controls, documented valuation and execution, delivered tailored disclosures, and preserved evidence for examination. This checklist is a federal baseline for U.S. RIAs; state law, tax treatment, client suitability, final rule text, and the adviser’s exact services require separate review.
The regulatory position is still developing. The SEC’s Crypto@SEC materials list an October 1, 2026 custody proposal covering adviser and regulated-fund custody, possible self-custody conditions, state trust-company custody, modernization of custody requirements, and related records and disclosures. It is a proposal, not a final rule. A separate SEC and FinCEN customer-identification-program proposal announced in 2024 is also not final.
How to use this checklist
Assign an owner to every control, record the evidence that proves it operated, and maintain a regulatory-change log. Reperform the review at least annually and whenever the adviser adds an asset, service, wallet, custodian, vendor, or network. Escalate legal, state, tax, and suitability questions to qualified counsel rather than treating this federal baseline as a complete answer.
1. Define scope, authority, and accountability
Start with an inventory of what the adviser actually does. “Crypto exposure” is not one activity: each service creates different custody, conflicts, operational, and regulatory questions.
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- List advice, discretionary management, trading, referrals, staking, lending, portfolio accounting, custody, self-custody, and use of exchanges, brokers, wallets, or virtual-asset service providers.
- Name the legal entity, supervised persons, vendors, and committees responsible for approval, execution, reconciliation, disclosures, incident response, and annual review.
- Record the states, investor types, account types, and distribution channels involved. Route state securities, money-transmitter, privacy, tax, and custody questions to jurisdiction-specific counsel.
- Maintain a change log for proposals, final rules, enforcement developments, network events, and vendor changes. The SEC’s 2026 custody work remains subject to change.
2. Classify every asset and transaction
Do not approve a token because it is called a “coin,” “stablecoin,” or “utility token.” Prepare an asset-and-activity memorandum for each product or material transaction.
- Analyze whether the asset or transaction could involve a security, commodity, fund interest, stablecoin, or another regulated instrument under the facts at issue.
- For an offering or sale of a crypto-asset security, document the registration statement or exemption analysis and the persons responsible for that conclusion.
- Describe the network, issuer or sponsor, holder rights, supply mechanics, transfer restrictions, liquidity, valuation source, governance, and operational dependencies.
- Record client eligibility and suitability considerations, including concentration, liquidity needs, risk tolerance, investment objective, and ability to bear a total loss.
FINRA’s crypto-oversight examples call for reasonable security-classification determinations, confirmation of registration or an exemption, and fair, balanced risk communications. Those controls are useful benchmarks even when an RIA is not a broker-dealer.
3. Review fiduciary duty, conflicts, and incentives
Crypto arrangements can create compensation and control conflicts that are easy to miss when a provider bundles execution, custody, lending, staking, and reporting.
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- Identify referral fees, custody fees, spread revenue, staking rewards, lending income, token or governance interests, market-making relationships, vendor ownership, and personal holdings.
- State who benefits from routing a trade or custody relationship to a particular provider and how alternatives are evaluated.
- Document best-execution factors: price, liquidity, spread, speed, settlement, counterparty exposure, market fragmentation, fees, and operational resilience.
- Update the code of ethics, personal-trading controls, outside-activity disclosures, gifts-and-entertainment procedures, and committee minutes for crypto-specific conflicts.
- Explain conflict mitigation to clients when the adviser or an affiliate receives compensation, controls a token, or has a relationship with a venue or custodian.
4. Approve custody and safeguarding
Custody is a legal and operational conclusion, not a hardware purchase. The SEC Commissioner Mark T. Uyeda said on April 25, 2025, that “Proper custody of client and customer assets have been a key protection under the federal securities laws.”
Third-party custody versus self-custody
| Control area | Third-party qualified custody | Self-custody |
|---|---|---|
| Legal eligibility | Confirm the provider qualifies for the assets and arrangement under current law; status is not automatic. | Document legal authority and satisfy any conditions that ultimately apply; the SEC’s 2026 proposal specifically contemplates risk assessment before self-custody. |
| Key control | Review who controls keys, withdrawal rights, segregation, address allowlists, and approval procedures. | The adviser bears responsibility for wallet architecture, signing devices, remote key holders, insider threats, recovery, and access revocation. |
| Insolvency and liens | Analyze contractual rights, segregation, liens, bankruptcy treatment, and asset-return procedures. | Analyze loss, theft, estate, succession, and legal-control risks without assuming possession equals ownership. |
| Security and recovery | Obtain SOC reports, penetration-test summaries, incident history, insurance, subcontractor information, and continuity evidence. | Operate multi-party approval, secure backups, recovery drills, incident playbooks, and documented key ceremonies. |
| Operations and auditability | Test reconciliations, statements, transfer records, service levels, and vendor reporting. | Reconcile wallet and chain data directly and preserve signing, approval, and exception evidence. |
| Cost and concentration | Assess fees, withdrawal limits, liquidity support, vendor concentration, and provider failure scenarios. | Assess staffing, technology, insurance, monitoring, and the total cost of running controls internally. |
Minimum custody file
- Identify the exact assets covered and how they are segregated and controlled.
- Review contractual rights, liens, insolvency treatment, insurance, subcontractors, and termination assistance.
- Document private-key control, address whitelisting, withdrawal authorization, multi-signature or multi-party approval, transaction limits, and emergency recovery.
- Obtain current financial-condition and business-continuity evidence from critical providers.
- If self-custody is contemplated, complete a crypto-asset and network risk assessment before taking custody and repeat it periodically. The SEC proposal discusses wallet architecture, remote key holders, insider and external threats, and prior provider breaches, with a written annual review of safeguarding and cybersecurity controls.
A state-chartered limited-purpose trust company may be discussed as a potential fiduciary and qualified custodian, but the custody roundtable does not make every such provider qualified automatically. Make a current, fact-specific determination.
5. Build AML, CIP, sanctions, and transaction monitoring
Write procedures proportionate to the adviser’s activities and risk profile, then test that they work. Do not rely on a vendor’s dashboard without documented ownership, alert handling, and escalation.
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- Verify identity, beneficial ownership, source of funds or wealth where required by the risk assessment, sanctions status, geographic exposure, and high-risk customer indicators.
- Define escalation for mixer or darknet exposure, sanctioned addresses, ransomware indicators, rapid layering, wash trading, and unexplained transfers when relevant to the service.
- Decide who reviews alerts, what evidence supports disposition, when activity is escalated for suspicious-activity analysis, and how investigations are closed.
- Keep training records, independent-testing results, alert logs, investigation files, management reports, and retention schedules.
- Include crypto orders and activity in the AML program where applicable, and test cybersecurity controls for crypto business lines and third-party intermediaries.
The SEC and FinCEN announced a 2024 proposal that would require SEC-registered advisers and exempt reporting advisers to establish, document, and maintain written customer-identification programs. Treat that initiative as proposed until finalized.
6. Test cybersecurity and private-key governance
Create a complete inventory of wallets, keys, signing devices, cloud systems, exchange accounts, application-programming interfaces, and third parties. Controls should reflect the particular asset and network rather than a generic information-security policy.
- Use least privilege, phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication where feasible, hardened devices, segregation of approval duties, transaction limits, address allowlists, dual control, encrypted backups, and recovery drills.
- Test phishing resistance, insider-threat controls, key-compromise response, vendor breach notification, blockchain reorganization or network-outage procedures, and restoration from backups.
- Define incident thresholds, escalation contacts, evidence preservation, client-notification criteria, regulator-notification analysis, and post-incident remediation.
- Assess hot and cold wallet exposure, remote or international key holders, insider and external threats, and each critical provider’s prior breaches.
- Evaluate cybersecurity incidents for materiality using available information, including severity and frequency, when preparing disclosures and regulatory filings.
7. Value, price, trade, and reconcile
Write a valuation and transaction-control standard before buying an asset. Thin markets and fragmented venues make an apparently precise price unreliable.
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- Approve pricing sources and a hierarchy, and record timestamps, stale-price rules, forks, airdrops, stablecoin depegs, and valuation overrides.
- Preserve trade authorization, order routing, execution quality, spread, fees, slippage, settlement, failed-transfer handling, and chain or custodian reconciliation.
- Separate portfolio valuation from client reporting and require review of exceptions.
- Escalate before purchase, valuation, or redemption when liquidity is inadequate or no defensible price exists.
8. Prepare client disclosures and marketing review
Disclosures should be specific to the asset and service, not a generic statement that crypto is risky. Explain, as material:
- Volatility, possible total loss, concentration, valuation limits, liquidity and redemption constraints.
- Technology, protocol, governance, smart-contract, network-congestion, fork, airdrop, and dependency risks.
- Cybersecurity, private-key, operational, counterparty, insolvency, insurance, and recovery limits.
- Legal, regulatory, tax, classification, and enforcement uncertainty.
- Fees, conflicts, referral compensation, staking or lending economics, custody arrangements, and limits on recovering assets after an error or incident.
Review websites, advertisements, pitch books, social posts, testimonials, performance claims, and referral arrangements under the adviser’s marketing and books-and-records procedures. Communications must be fair and balanced and must not imply that registration, custody, insurance, or a vendor relationship guarantees safety.
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9. Retain records and evidence
Organize records so an examiner can trace a decision from approval through execution, reporting, and review. Retain, as applicable:
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- Activity inventories, approvals, asset-classification memoranda, suitability analyses, and legal advice.
- Custody contracts, wallet and address inventories, transfer authorizations, key-governance records, and reconciliations.
- Pricing files, trade and execution records, failed-transfer logs, valuation exceptions, and client reports.
- Conflict, compensation, referral, personal-trading, and vendor-diligence reviews.
- AML and CIP evidence, sanctions and monitoring alerts, investigations, training, and independent testing.
- Cybersecurity tests, incidents, notification decisions, remediation, business-continuity exercises, marketing approvals, complaints, exceptions, and annual-review minutes.
The SEC’s 2026 custody proposal discusses adviser recordkeeping changes and a written annual review; FINRA’s oversight examples likewise emphasize written policies, procedures, and controls for crypto activity.
10. Review annually and after change
At least once each year, test whether policies operated as designed, review exceptions and incidents, reassess custody and vendors, refresh risk ratings, confirm disclosures, and obtain documented management and compliance sign-off.
Trigger an interim review after a new asset or service, custody or key-management change, wallet or key incident, material vendor change, enforcement development, final rule, or significant network event. Record the decision, evidence reviewed, deficiencies, owner, deadline, and closure verification.
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This checklist is designed for U.S. RIAs and does not determine whether a particular token is a security, whether a provider is a qualified custodian, or whether a client may lawfully receive a service. State requirements, tax treatment, investor eligibility, privacy obligations, money-transmission rules, and final versions of the SEC custody and SEC/FinCEN CIP proposals can change the answer. Obtain current, activity-specific legal and compliance review before launch and whenever the facts change.
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