Case Study — AstraFi

Digital Asset Operations Platform

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

$2B

AUM Under Management

Blockchain Networks Integrated

Sub-sec

Settlement Confirmation

SOC 2 II

Compliant

Solution Blueprint

How It All Fits Together

Custody Layer

HSM-backed MPC wallets
M-of-N authorization
12 chain adapters

Settlement & Pricing Layer

Unified settlement API
Gas optimization engine
4-feed NAV pricing

Compliance Layer

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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