Case Study — AstraFi
Building Institutional-Grade Digital Asset Infrastructure for a $2B Fund
SOC 2 Type II digital asset custody and settlement for institutional allocators
Industry
Institutional Finance / Digital Assets
Timeline
20 weeks
Team
7 engineers
Tech
Solidity + Node.js + HSM
The Challenge
A $2B institutional fund needed custody, settlement, and reporting infrastructure for digital assets that met the same institutional standards as their traditional asset operations — including SOC 2 Type II compliance, complete audit trails, and multi-signature authorization. Off-the-shelf crypto custody solutions failed compliance requirements.
Our Approach
How We Solved It
Multi-Signature Custody Architecture
Implemented HSM-backed multi-signature wallet infrastructure requiring M-of-N authorization for all transactions above configurable thresholds — matching the institutional approval workflows required by the fund's investment policy.
Multi-Chain Settlement Layer
Built a unified settlement layer abstracting 12 blockchain networks behind a single API, handling gas optimization, transaction batching, and settlement confirmation across each network's unique finality model.
Real-Time Portfolio Attribution
Developed a real-time NAV calculation engine that prices digital asset positions using multiple independent price feeds with outlier detection and weighted averaging — meeting fund administrator requirements for verifiable pricing.
Compliance Reporting Automation
Built automated reporting modules for Form 1099-DA, FBAR digital asset schedules, and fund administrator reconciliation reports — reducing compliance reporting from 2 weeks to same-day.
Engineering Process
How We Built It
HSM Integration for Key Security
All private key material is stored exclusively in FIPS 140-2 Level 3 validated Hardware Security Modules. No private key ever exists in plaintext outside an HSM boundary.
Transaction Simulation Before Execution
Every transaction is simulated against a local node fork before submission to the blockchain, catching gas estimation failures, contract state dependencies, and revert conditions before they cost gas or fail on-chain.
Independent Price Feed Aggregation
NAV pricing aggregates 4 independent price feeds (Chainlink, Pyth, CEX APIs, on-chain DEX) with outlier detection that excludes stale or manipulated prices from the weighted average.
Architecture Decisions
Key Technical Choices
MPC Over Single-Sig for Institutional Authorization
Multi-Party Computation (MPC) wallet architecture rather than traditional multisig smart contracts — MPC provides equivalent security without on-chain execution costs and works natively across all chains.
Event-Sourced Transaction History
Every custody event (initiation, authorization, broadcast, confirmation) is recorded in an immutable event log that provides a complete, auditable chain of custody for every asset movement.
Blockchain-Agnostic Abstraction Layer
The custody and settlement logic is implemented in a chain-agnostic layer with pluggable chain adapters — adding a new blockchain network requires only a new adapter, not changes to core business logic.
Results
What We Delivered
Solution Blueprint
How It All Fits Together
- HSM-backed MPC wallets
- M-of-N authorization
- 12 chain adapters
- Unified settlement API
- Gas optimization engine
- 4-feed NAV pricing
- Immutable event log
- Regulatory report automation
- Fund administrator integration
Lessons Learned
What We Improved
Compliance Requirements Precede Architecture Decisions
We spent 3 weeks with the fund's compliance and legal teams defining the compliance requirements before any architecture decisions. The multi-sig authorization model was driven entirely by the fund's investment policy statement.
Gas Optimization Is Product Quality
A 15% gas overestimation bug in week 6 cost the fund $40K in unnecessary gas. Gas optimization and simulation are core product quality metrics, not infrastructure details.
Independent Price Validation Is Non-Negotiable
On day 14, a flash crash caused one price feed to report ETH at $0.01 for 4 minutes. Our outlier detection excluded it automatically. A single-feed design would have catastrophically mispriced the portfolio.
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