The word “Custody” is a term that means “the protective care or guardianship of someone or something”. In finance, it means who is holding onto your funds.
Traditional financial institutions like E-Trade, Chase, and even Coinbase, are all custodians of your money and hold control over your funds while they are held with them.
Ember has a “self-custody” setting, which means that only you have access and ownership over your money on this setting of the app. Blockchain has enabled the ability to fully control and hold their own assets in the digital space. Think of this as a vault in your home vs. a safety deposit box at a bank.
When you invest in the self-custody version of the app, all transactions are completely transparent, censorship-resistant, and verifiable on public blockchains. Self-custody investing is a feature unique to crypto, and is available to all users. On this version of Ember, only you have access to your login credentials, private keys and funds on-chain.