DFNS
DFNS Technical Briefing
Published November 15, 2022
Supported by Modern Treasury , IowaEDA and Brale
Overview
Clarisse (co-founder, CEO) and Josh (product) of Dfns introduce Dfns — a developer-first wallet-as-a-service platform that separates the security of the private key from the governance of the assets. Dfns operates a decentralized MPC signer network in secure enclaves so private keys never materialize in memory or on disk — no single point of failure like seed-phrase or multi-sig-HSM setups. The API is chain-agnostic (25 blockchains, 9,000 tokens, new chains in ~3 weeks, new tokens in ~half a day) and built to scale to millions of segregated wallets per customer. A customer demo with Nilos (treasury management) shows how a user signs in and gets a fully functioning EVM wallet in seconds via createAssetAccount (distributed key generation) and initiatePayment, with every transaction subject to Dfns's programmable, API-first policy engine — including 2-of-3-style approvals defined in code rather than in a vendor UI. Pricing is unusual for the custody space: Dfns charges per wallet, per authorized signer, and per policy-engine access — never on AUM or AUC.
0:00 Introduction to Dfns
Clarisse, co-founder of Dfns, introduces the company — 30 people across Europe and the US, $14M seed, founded more than two years ago. Leadership combines experience from BitGo (security), Google (product), and Robinhood (research) to build wallet infrastructure for developers.
1:30 Contrarian view of digital custody
Dfns separates the security of the private key from the governance of the assets, operating a decentralized MPC signer network that signs transactions in response to authenticated API calls — so no single party ever holds the full key.
3:00 Developer-first API — 25 chains, 9,000 tokens
Dfns ships an API-first wallet infrastructure. Chain-agnostic integration: new blockchains in ~3 weeks, new tokens in ~half a day — today 25 blockchains and 9,000 tokens. Built to scale to millions of segregated wallets, not just derived addresses from a single keypair.
4:30 Programmable policy engine and compliance
Dfns is the only wallet API that lets developers define compliance policies at the API level, down to assigning specific smart-contract details. 60% of use cases are crypto (wallets, exchanges, staking apps), 40% are NFTs, with security tokens an emerging segment.
5:00 Pricing — per wallet, per signer, not per AUC
Unlike Fireblocks and most custody vendors, Dfns does not price based on AUM or AUC. The monthly fee is based on the number of wallets created, the number of authorized signers, and policy-engine access — an annual commitment that decouples cost from asset growth.
6:00 Customer demo — Nilos treasury platform
Josh walks through Nilos, a treasury management platform. Instead of the 30-step MetaMask seed-phrase flow, a user signs in and gets a Nilos wallet — a Dfns wallet on the back end — with Ethereum and Polygon support ready to go.
7:30 createAssetAccount → distributed key generation
When the user clicks create, Nilos calls Dfns' createAssetAccount with MATIC for Polygon. Dfns' signer network runs a distributed key-generation ceremony inside secure enclaves — the private key never materializes in memory or on disk, eliminating a single point of failure.
9:30 High-level API — initiatePayment and transaction status
Nilos uses Dfns' high-level API to get balances and initiate payments — posting an origin asset-account ID, symbol, amount, and receiver (any arbitrary blockchain address or Dfns wallet). Dfns returns a payment ID, signs, broadcasts, and hands back a transaction hash.
11:30 Policy engine and API-first approvals
All transactions are subject to Dfns' programmable policy engine. Because the engine is fully exposed via API (unlike Fireblocks' app-driven approvals), customers can build their own approval UX on top — including multi-sig-style "2-of-3" approvals on individual transactions.
12:30 Levels of abstraction — raw signing → smart-contract ABI → NFTs
Dfns offers a raw signing API (create key, ECDSA/EdDSA, sign as HSM), a smart-contract API (import ABI, call function with parameters, Dfns encodes and broadcasts), and a high-level NFT API with ERC-721 metadata built in — all governed by the same policy engine.
Presented by Clarisse Hagege and Josh Siegel — DFNS · website
Topics: Wallets, Custody, Developer Tools
