LastingAsset, a pioneering crypto asset security project led by researchers at Edinburgh Napier University, has secured £74,948 in funding from Scottish Enterprise.

Awarded as part of the organisation’s High Growth Spin Out Programme, the funding will allow the team at LastingAsset to build an initial proof of concept for their decentralised institutional custody solution.

The solution aims to help users securely store digital assets, such as cryptocurrencies or NFTs.

The team working on the solution has been led by Dr Zakwan Jaroucheh, and is supported by Professor Bill Buchanan OBE and Dr Baraq Ghaleb.

Commenting on the funding, Dr Jaroucheh at LastingAsset said: “Crypto assets are popularized by cryptocurrencies but there are other assets also available, for example – NFTs, stablecoins, and security tokens.

“I believe that secure custodial solutions are a core building block for the development of an overall crypto assets’ ecosystem for the future tokenized economy.”

Custody plays a critical role for organisations seeking to access crypto assets and decentralised finance (DeFi) applications. Custodians store private keys – which are used to access crypto assets – and approve and sign transactions.

Dr Jaroucheh added that “one of the main challenges” crypto asset custodians face is to strike the “correct balance between usability and safety”.

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With this in mind, the team at LastingAsset believe they can substantially improve safety without sacrificing crucial aspects, such as cost, scalability, and convenience.

Professor Buchanan commented: “Around three years ago, we created the first identity lab in the world (the Blockpass ID Lab), and which has attracted some of the best talent around.

“The work in the lab has generally focused on creating more trustworthy systems, and which has a strong focus on creating systems which move towards a tokenized economy.

“This new potential spin-out highlights this drive, and, especially in building trust, privacy and security into our digital world.”

This latest funding for LastingAsset follows previous awards of £29,516 and £59,958 from Phase 1 and Phase 2 of Innovate UK’s highly competitive CyberASAP programme.

Notably, the team said the cash boost will pave the way for the first patent to be submitted later this year.

Leah Pape, Head of High Growth Services at Scottish Enterprise, said: “LastingAsset is an innovative spinout breaking new ground in the growing field of digital asset security. It’s great to see this young company taking its next steps towards proof of concept with our support.

“We look forward to working more with LastingAsset as the company develops.”

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