As more businesses hold digital assets such as Bitcoin, Ether and stablecoins, finance leaders want to know how to manage them safely, stay compliant and account for them accurately. According to a 2025 survey of North American CFOs, 23% expect their treasury departments to work with crypto for either payments or investments within the next two years. At organisations with revenues at or over $10 billion, the number rises to nearly 40% of CFOs. Enterprises integrating crypto must understand the difference between managing crypto and traditional currency. Crypto treasury management applies traditional treasury discipline (e.g. liquidity, risk management and governance) to this new class of digital assets while adapting to crypto's distinct characteristics.

Below, we'll explain how organisations can successfully build crypto treasury strategies and fit digital assets into corporate finance.

What's in this article?

• What is crypto treasury management?
  
• What tools support crypto treasury operations?
  
• How can organisations secure crypto assets?
  
• How does a crypto treasury affect accounting and financial reporting?
  
• What are some risks associated with crypto treasuries?
  
• How can finance leaders build controls for crypto treasuries?
  
• How Stripe can help
  

What is crypto treasury management?

Crypto treasury management is the practice of managing a company's digital assets. This requires the same precision and discipline used for cash and traditional investments. But instead of bank accounts and bonds, treasurers are dealing with blockchain networks, digital wallets and markets that never close.

Teams need to decide which crypto assets fit their goals, how much to hold and how to keep those assets secure and compliant. A treasury might use crypto for strategic investment, as a hedge against inflation or as working capital if the business accepts or pays in digital currency. With the right expertise and controls, crypto can offer diversification, liquidity and a more direct way to move value globally.

Companies can hold crypto themselves or rely on institutional custodians. Self-custody means managing private keys directly through secure hardware or software wallets. Institutional custodians handle storage, often with insurance and independent audits. Many organisations take a hybrid route and keep some assets in-house and the rest with a regulated custodian.

What tools support crypto treasury operations?

Finance teams have a variety of options for managing crypto holdings.

Here are the main tools:

• Enterprise wallets: Modern wallets often come with governance features designed for businesses – multisignature (multisig) or multiparty computation (MPC) setups that require multiple approvals, role-based permissions and transaction whitelists. Every action is logged and auditable, which reduces risk while maintaining flexibility for day-to-day use.

• Treasury management platforms: These tools can track balances in real time, automate reporting and integrate directly with accounting or enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Some include rebalancing so treasurers can maintain defined asset allocations (e.g. mix of Bitcoin, Ether and stablecoins) without manual effort.

• Conversion tools: Infrastructure from providers such as Stripe enables businesses to accept or send stablecoin payments while receiving or paying out in local currencies. This lets finance teams tap into crypto's flexibility without building custom conversion processes.

• Third-party custodians: Some companies use regulated custodians that specialise in crypto storage. These firms often hold assets in insured, institution-grade cold storage and provide independent attestations of balances. Choosing one requires careful due diligence on compliance, security certifications and financial stability.

How can organisations secure crypto assets?

Businesses need protection, redundancy and process discipline to secure crypto assets. Because crypto lives entirely on the blockchain, whoever controls the private keys controls the assets.

Here's what you need to consider:

• Private key management: A private key is the digital credential that allows access to crypto funds. Losing it often means losing the asset. Many treasuries safeguard keys with hardware wallets (devices kept offline) or specialised software wallets protected by institutional-grade encryption and layered access controls.

• Cold vs. hot storage: Many organisations keep their long-term holdings in cold storage, which means that it's completely offline, while keeping a smaller amount in hot wallets connected to the internet for daily transactions or liquidity. This balance minimises exposure while keeping funds available for business use.

• Multisig and MPC setups: Multisig wallets require multiple keys to approve a transaction before funds move. MPC achieves the same goal cryptographically: splitting key control across multiple parties so no one person can act alone. Both methods build accountability into the system and help prevent it from being compromised.

• Access controls and segregation of duties: Good governance means separating who can initiate, approve and record transactions. Role-based permissions and dual-approval requirements mirror traditional treasury protocols but are enforced by smart cryptographic design.

• Audits and reconciliations: Treasury teams should periodically reconcile blockchain transactions with internal records to improve accuracy and spot anomalies early.

How does a crypto treasury affect accounting and financial reporting?

A main challenge of crypto asset management is fitting a new kind of asset into accounting systems built for traditional cash and securities.

Here are a few areas to consider in your financial reporting:

• Internal controls and audit readiness: Because crypto doesn't come with monthly bank statements, finance teams must create their own audit trail. Auditors often verify ownership by reviewing onchain wallet addresses or custodian attestations. Strong internal controls, such as documented approvals, reconciliations and segregation of duties, are essential for compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) or similar regulations in other regions.

• Reporting and disclosure: Transparent reporting builds trust. Many companies disclose their accounting method, quantity of tokens held and fair market value in financial statements. Quarterly earnings will move with crypto prices under fair-value rules, so investor communication becomes even more important.

• Tax implications: Selling or exchanging crypto often triggers taxable gains or losses. Accurate cost-basis tracking and integrated accounting tools keep financial and tax reporting in sync.

What are some risks associated with crypto treasuries?

Holding assets in crypto treasuries comes with some risks. Prices of certain types of crypto can swing within hours, and regulations differ across jurisdictions and change relatively often.

Here are some common risks:

Market volatility: A corporate treasury that allocates even 5%–10% of reserves to Bitcoin or Ether must be ready for those holdings to fluctuate dramatically month to month. Many companies cap their crypto exposure at a small percentage of total liquid assets, which keeps the potential upside without threatening core liquidity. Some treasuries use stablecoins for more predictability. Stablecoins retain crypto's speed without the price swings, though they rely on the issuer's credibility and reserves to maintain their peg.

Liquidity risk: Even large crypto assets can face liquidity crunches in extreme markets. Exchange outages, collapsing trading volumes or counterparties freezing withdrawals can temporarily trap funds. Smaller tokens can be hard to sell without moving the market. Treasury teams often work with over-the-counter (OTC) desks or liquidity providers to handle big transactions and maintain access to multiple conversion channels.

Asset-liability mismatch: If liabilities are in fiat but assets are in crypto, a sudden price drop can leave a shortfall. Treasuries can manage this by converting crypto into cash ahead of obligations, maintaining sufficient cash reserves or using hedging tools such as futures to lock in prices.

Counterparty and regulatory risk: Using exchanges, lenders or decentralised finance (DeFi) platforms introduces exposure to failures or regulatory actions. Assets can be frozen or lost in the case of bankruptcy or hacking. Diversifying platforms and monitoring compliance help limit disruptions.

How can finance leaders build controls for crypto treasuries?

Good governance is what turns a crypto experiment into a sustainable treasury strategy.

Here's how to get started:

Establish a crypto treasury policy: This should define why the company holds crypto, how much it's allowed to hold and who's authorised to make decisions. It sets the framework for asset allocation, approved exchanges or custodians and rules for converting crypto into fiat. A formal policy turns intent into a structure everyone can follow.

Build internal controls: Segregate duties so no one person can initiate and approve a transaction. Require multiapproval workflows, record every action and audit regularly. These controls mirror traditional cash management but are enforced through cryptographic systems and detailed checklists.

Define management procedures: Specify how private keys are created, stored and backed up, and who can access them. Use multisig or MPC arrangements so that access is shared, not concentrated. Establish recovery protocols for emergencies, such as personnel changes or security breaches.

Ensure compliance and oversight: Follow evolving crypto regulations, Anti-Money Laundering (AML) rules, and sanctions lists. Finance leaders should coordinate with legal and compliance teams to make sure every crypto transaction meets local and international requirements. Regular board reporting on crypto exposure and risk is part of that accountability.

Train staff and plan for incidents: Treasury and accounting staff should understand blockchain basics, crypto risks and how internal systems work. Independent reviews help test and strengthen these processes. Have a documented response plan for potential security failures: who to notify, how to freeze accounts and how to recover.

How Stripe can help

Stripe Payments provides a unified, global payments solution that helps any business – from scaling startups to global enterprises – accept payments online, in person and around the world. Businesses can accept stablecoin payments from almost anywhere in the world that settle as fiat in their Stripe balance.

Stripe Payments can help you:

• Optimise your checkout experience: Create a frictionless customer experience and save thousands of engineering hours with prebuilt payment UIs, access to 125+ payment methods, including stablecoins and crypto.

• Expand to new markets faster: Reach customers worldwide and reduce the complexity and cost of multicurrency management with cross-border payment options, available in 195 countries across 135+ currencies.

• Unify payments in person and online: Build a unified commerce experience across online and in-person channels to personalise interactions, reward loyalty and grow revenue.

• Improve payments performance: Increase revenue with a range of customisable, easy-to-configure payment tools, including no-code fraud protection and advanced capabilities to improve authorisation rates.

• Move faster with a flexible, reliable platform for growth: Build on a platform designed to scale with you, with 99.999% historical uptime and industry-leading reliability.

Learn more about how Stripe Payments can power your online and in-person payments or get started today.