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Unchained Capital

“Can a bitcoin-native financial services company replace the bank, broker, and custodian for long-term bitcoin holders — without ever rehypothecating their collateral?”

Founded2016
HQAustin, TX
FoundersJoseph Kelly, Dhruv Bansal
Latest roundDebt
IndustryFintech / Crypto
The story

Founded in 2016 as a bitcoin-backed lending platform, Unchained Capital pioneered collaborative custody — a model where the borrower, Unchained, and a third-party key agent each hold one key in a 2-of-3 multisig arrangement, eliminating rehypothecation risk. Over time, the company evolved from pure lending into a broader bitcoin financial-services platform, adding vault custody, a trading desk, and IRA products. The business deliberately positions itself as an alternative to exchanges and ETFs, targeting long-term bitcoin holders who want real ownership with institutional-grade security.

Last 12 months
—
Product timeline
2016
Founded by Joseph Kelly and Dhruv Bansal to offer bitcoin-backed loans and collaborative custody.· lending
2018
Launched enhanced multi-signature, multi-institution security model with Trezor and Ledger hardware wallet support; raised $3M seed round.· banking
2022
Partnered with Kingdom Trust as key agent, replacing Citadel SPV, for multisig loan collateral custody.· banking
2023
Expanded regulatory entities to include Unchained Trading LLC, B&C Lending LLC, and Bitcoin Collateral Services LLC under NMLS licensing.· pivot
Regulated entities
4
regulatory licences held by Unchained Capital
Licence types, jurisdictions and registered entities are in the Embedded Finance Index report.
The stack
4 layers disclosed in Unchained Capital’s embedded-finance stack
Banking / BaaS
Lead Bank
Lending
in the full report
Sponsor bank
in the full report
Crypto
in the full report
Accounting gap: minor
5 more providers across 3 layers, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.