A custodian is a financial institution that hold securities or other financial assets on behalf of individuals. This is usually a bank.
The main premise is to protect the assets from being stolen or lost.
Custodians are approved and monitored by different government agencies who are tasked with ensuring the entities are in compliance.
Within cryptocurrency, we see custodians as going against the central tenets of what is being developed. This does not keep with not your keys, not your crypto.
The building of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is seeking to create a financial system that removes the need for custodial institutions.
