Trade Republic's Cryptocurrency Custody Riddled with Unsettling Details

Trade Republic, Germany's largest neobroker, offers its users the opportunity to buy and sell over 50 cryptocurrencies. However, a closer look at the company's terms reveals some unexpected surprises.

The company's press release states that customers can send crypto-assets to their own wallets and receive them from external sources without incurring any transaction fees. This is in line with Trade Republic's customer agreement, which explicitly states that there are no fees for providing crypto custody services.

However, things get more complicated when it comes to custody itself. According to the company's policy, customers do not receive their own public or private keys, and individual wallet addresses exist only on request and for transfers.

Trade Republic holds all customers' balances in a single digital omnibus account per supported crypto-asset, which means that the assets of different customers are not segregated from one another. This raises questions about asset protection and insolvency law, as deposit protection does not apply to crypto-assets.