CoinShares Builds a Second Asset Management Channel With Safe

• CoinShares launches its first commercial OnChain Strategies deployment.
• Safe provides access to an established enterprise stablecoin ecosystem.
• Railnet connects managed DeFi and tokenized asset investments.
• CoinShares can earn management fees without taking custody of client assets.

CoinShares has launched its OnChain Strategies business through a partnership with Safe Labs and Railnet, bringing professionally managed stablecoin investments directly into the blockchain wallets used by institutional clients.

The October 14 announcement marks the first commercial deployment of the Nasdaq-listed asset manager’s onchain investment platform. Eligible Safe enterprise users can allocate stablecoins to strategies combining decentralized finance (DeFi) returns with yields from tokenized real-world assets (RWAs).

The arrangement creates a new distribution channel for CoinShares without requiring the company to hold customer assets or finance the investments from its own balance sheet.

It also gives Safe users access to professional investment management through accounts they already operate, rather than requiring a separate custodial relationship.

For CoinShares, the opportunity extends beyond stablecoin yields. The company is testing whether blockchain infrastructure can distribute investment products more efficiently than the traditional network of brokers, exchanges and financial intermediaries.

A New Revenue Model Built Around Existing Wallets

CoinShares has historically earned recurring fees primarily through listed investment products, including cryptocurrency exchange-traded products (ETPs).

Those products rely on established securities-market infrastructure. Investors access them through brokers and exchanges, while the asset manager receives fees linked to the products it manages.

OnChain Strategies introduces a different arrangement.

CoinShares earns fees on capital allocated to smart-contract-based investment strategies. Safe supplies access to existing wallet users, reducing the need for CoinShares to develop its own custody and distribution infrastructure.

Chief Executive Jean-Marie Mognetti described the initiative as adding a second distribution engine to the company’s business.

The commercial appeal is particularly evident in Safe’s existing asset base.

According to CoinShares, Safe smart accounts collectively hold more than $60 billion in self-custodied digital assets across over 63 million accounts. Approximately $7.5 billion is held in stablecoins, equivalent to roughly 2.5% of the estimated $300 billion global stablecoin market cited in the announcement.

Those figures indicate the scale of the potential distribution network, not immediate investment inflows.

CoinShares has not disclosed how much capital has been allocated to its strategies through Safe. The number of smart accounts also should not be interpreted as an equivalent number of individual investors.

The distinction is important for evaluating the new business. A large pool of accessible assets can lower customer-acquisition barriers, but management fees depend on actual investment allocations.

How CoinShares, Railnet and Safe Divide the Work

The partnership separates investment decisions, technical execution and account control.

Each participant has a specific responsibility:

• CoinShares manages the investments. It designs the strategies, determines the allocation framework and oversees investment risks.
• Railnet provides the operating infrastructure. Developed by Kiln, it connects the investment strategies to blockchain-based financial markets and coordinates processes involving different settlement and liquidity requirements.
• Safe supplies the account infrastructure. Enterprise users authorize allocations from their existing smart accounts while retaining control of their wallets.

This separation is central to the non-custodial model.

Clients do not need to transfer their private keys or establish a conventional custody relationship with CoinShares. Instead, they authorize capital allocations through their Safe accounts, with the strategies operating through connected smart contracts.

However, self-custody does not mean that invested capital remains immediately available.

Once stablecoins are deployed, withdrawals depend on the liquidity of the underlying investments and their settlement arrangements. CoinShares explicitly acknowledges that redemptions are subject to those conditions.

An investment involving tokenized financial instruments may have different settlement requirements from a DeFi lending position. Railnet’s role is to coordinate these activities within a managed framework.

The arrangement preserves a distinction between who controls the wallet and who determines how allocated capital is invested.

The Investment Strategy Was Developed Earlier This Year

The Safe partnership is a commercial distribution milestone rather than the initial creation of CoinShares’ onchain investment strategy.

In March 2026, CoinShares announced its partnership with Kiln, outlining a managed investment approach that combines DeFi activity with tokenized traditional financial assets.

The strategy framework includes several potential return sources, such as DeFi lending, institutional secured financing, tokenized bond funds and market-neutral basis trading.

These investments produce returns through different economic mechanisms.

DeFi lending generates interest from borrowers using blockchain protocols. Secured financing introduces exposure to borrower creditworthiness and the quality of pledged collateral.

Tokenized bond products derive their returns from underlying financial instruments, while basis trading seeks to capture price differences between related markets.

Combining these activities may reduce reliance on any single source of yield, but the risks do not disappear when positions are managed within one portfolio.

CoinShares previously stated that its asset-management operations hold authorizations covering traditional financial instruments and crypto-assets under applicable European frameworks, including AIFMD, MiFID and MiCA.

Those permissions provide a regulatory foundation for the business, although the precise protections available to investors depend on the product structure, legal entity and jurisdiction.

The October announcement does not identify the complete portfolio composition of the initial Safe offering. Nor does it disclose a target yield or confirmed investment performance.

The broader strategy described in March should therefore not be treated as a verified breakdown of every investment currently available through the new integration.

What Enterprise Investors Need to Examine

For corporate treasuries, foundations and other organizations holding stablecoins, the partnership introduces an alternative to leaving digital assets uninvested or managing DeFi positions independently.

Professional investment management may simplify portfolio construction and oversight, but investors still need to understand the underlying exposures.

Three areas deserve particular attention:

1. Liquidity and redemptions. The ability to request a withdrawal does not guarantee immediate settlement, especially when strategies include tokenized assets or secured lending arrangements.
2. Counterparty and smart-contract exposure. Losses may arise from borrower defaults, protocol failures, collateral shortfalls or vulnerabilities in connected contracts.
3. Net investment returns. Headline yields are less informative than realized returns after management fees, transaction costs and any losses incurred by the portfolio.

Stablecoin holdings also carry risks associated with their issuers, reserve arrangements and redemption mechanisms.

Retaining control of a Safe account does not transform an investment strategy into an insured bank deposit or guarantee the return of principal.

For institutions, the practical question is whether the managed approach provides sufficient transparency, risk controls and liquidity to justify its fees compared with direct investment alternatives.

Distribution Growth Will Be the Commercial Test

CoinShares says the platform was developed by a small internal team without substantial additional capital expenditure or staffing.

That matters because the company intends to extend the model beyond Safe to other wallets, exchanges, fintech platforms and institutional infrastructure providers.

A common investment-management system distributed through multiple existing platforms could allow CoinShares to increase fee-generating assets without building separate custody operations for each partner.

The economics remain unproven, however.

The company has not published the initial assets under management, management-fee rates or revenue attributable to OnChain Strategies. It has also not provided a timetable for additional distribution agreements.

Future disclosures on invested capital, net performance and recurring fee income will offer a clearer measure of adoption than wallet balances or account numbers.

Safe establishes the first commercial channel for the business. The next challenge for CoinShares is converting that access into sustained investment allocations while demonstrating that its multi-asset yield strategies can operate reliably across different market and settlement conditions.