# Introduction

Ripple Custody is a mission-critical custody and orchestration platform designed for institutions to build and scale blockchain-agnostic use cases and manage their digital asset operations.

With the highest possible security and agility, the platform enables institutions to:

- Secure, transfer, settle, and manage all types of financial and non-financial digital asset.
- Manage tokenized assets such as regulated securities, real-world assets, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
- Explore new Web3 use cases by connecting to decentralized finance (DeFi).


Built on an institutional-grade security architecture, underpinned by asset-agnostic compliance frameworks, the platform enables banks, custodians, exchanges, fintech, and crypto-native scale-ups to create long-lasting competitive advantage in the digital asset economy.

## Platform features

The main features of the Ripple Custody platform are:

- Custody wallets to transact with all key blockchain ledgers
- Fully configurable governance
- Token and smart contract management
- Orchestration and connectivity capabilities


### Custody wallets

Ripple Custody offers key management up to FIPS 140-2 Level 4 certified encryption, underpinned by a zone-based security model with hot, warm, and institutional air-gapped cold wallets.

### Fully configurable governance

Governance in Ripple Custody includes:

- Entirely customizable risk and compliance controls allowing institutions to own their own policies with granular parameters, conditions, and workflows configurable through a policy builder.
- A centralized four-eye framework, ensuring multiple controls for all critical operations and elimination of all threat vectors.
- Group-wide oversight with unique multi-domain model with full segregation of users, policies, and accounts across business units, with guaranteed isolation.


### Token and smart contract management

Ripple Custody supports smart contract deployment and end-to-end management, with full support for any type of smart contract and asset servicing activity, including integration with industry-leading tokenization engines.

### Orchestration and connectivity capabilities

The platform acts as a single source of truth and unified hub to connect, secure, and govern all transactions and operations across various blockchains, DeFi protocols, Web3 apps, tokenization engines, and other digital asset backends.
It also includes multi-protocol support and connectivity to all major public ledgers, with extensive coverage for cryptocurrencies, DeFi tokens, and smart contracts, and self-sovereign token and coin integration where required.

## Use cases

The following example use cases were built by financial institutions on the Ripple Custody platform:

- Custody wallets, trading, and brokerage services for cryptocurrencies in retail and institutional scenarios.
- Tokenization and custody of financial securities on behalf of institutional clients, for example, equities, bonds, certificates, and other financial instruments.
- Tokenization and custody of non-financial assets, for example, real-world assets such as real estate, luxury goods, art, and collectibles.
- Tokenization and custody of commodity-backed tokens.
- Tokenization and custody of payment instruments, such as tokenized commercial bank deposits.
- Issuance and custody of stablecoins, which are pegged to gold or national currencies, for cross-border transactions.
- Issuance and custody of utility tokens to govern loyalty and engagement of customer base.


## Get started with Ripple Custody

To get started with Ripple Custody:

- Familiarize yourself with the product by reading the topics in this overview.
- Get your environment installed and set up. For more information, see [Deploy Ripple Custody](/products/custody/v1.19/get-started/deploy).
- Start using the Ripple Custody API with the [API Get started](/products/custody/v1.19/api/get-started) guide.
- Start using the Ripple Custody UI with the [UI Get started](/products/custody/v1.19/ui/get-started) guide.