# Hex Trust

*Six years of co-building, from custody integration to AI credit intelligence*

**Authors:** [Vadim Zolotokrylin](https://holdex.io/c/people/vadim-zolotokrylin)

---

In April 2019, Hex Trust and Holdex announced their first partnership.
Both companies were young.
[Hex Trust](https://hextrust.com/) was a Hong Kong-based digital-asset custodian
using its proprietary ZeroKey technology to serve institutions, and Holdex ran
Asia's leading token-sale platform with KYC, due diligence, and eSignature
verification baked in.
The integration was operational plumbing
(Hex Trust would custody backers' funds and issuers' tokens for sales running on
Holdex), but it was also the start of what is now Holdex's longest-running
portfolio relationship.

Six years later, Hex Trust is licensed across Hong Kong, Singapore, Italy,
France, and Dubai, custodies digital assets
for over 450 institutional clients with more than
$5B under custody, and has raised over $104M across multiple rounds.
Holdex's role across that arc has evolved from integration partner to embedded
product team across the Hex Trust orbit, most visibly in 2023 to 2025 with USDX,
Synnax, and Ozean.

## The story so far

The first joint announcement was framed at the time
as token-sale custody plumbing for Holdex's fundraising platform.
The structural anchor of what would become a six-year partnership wasn't the
integration, though.
It was a person.

A Holdex co-founder joined Hex Trust as Head of Custody in November 2020
and was promoted to Chief Product Officer in October 2025,
while remaining connected to Holdex as an advisor and co-founder.
That kind of product-and-custody link is the deepest possible form of
integration, and it predates everything else in the story.

The relationship widened with the network.
Alessio Quaglini, Hex Trust's CEO and co-founder,
is also a co-founder of Clearpool and Synnax, both Holdex portfolio companies.
Hex Trust was a Clearpool seed investor in 2021.
Hex Trust and Clearpool went on to jointly build Ozean.

By 2023, the original 2019 partnership had become an embedded product
engagement.
Holdex led the design and product development for Synnax,
the AI credit-intelligence platform Quaglini co-founded with Robert Alcorn
and Dario Capodici.
The team was described internally as "an extension of their in-house team."
Synnax's V1 Beta went live in October 2024,
and in January 2025 Hex Trust formalised the loop,
integrating Synnax's predictive credit-intelligence tools into its own
counterparty risk assessment.

Across the same period, USDX
(Hex Trust's regulated stablecoin)
launched on Flare in May 2024 in collaboration with Clearpool,
and became the native settlement asset of [Ozean](https://ozean.finance/) when
that L2 was announced in October 2024.

The cap table widened alongside the product surface.
Beyond the Series B leads Animoca Brands and Liberty City Ventures,
Hex Trust's backers include BlockFi, HashKey, Fenbushi Capital, Morgan Creek,
Ripple, Protocol Labs, Wintermute, Borderless Capital, CoinList, and Cyberport,
alongside BCW, Cell Rising, Double Peak, Eterna Capital, Genesis Block, Kenetic,
LeadBlock Partners, MantraDAO, MindFund, Primavera Capital, Pulsar Trading,
QBN Capital, Radiant Ventures, Ryze Labs, Topaz, Tessera Capital,
and Token Bay Capital.
The roster spans market makers, exchanges,
custody-adjacent infrastructure backers, and strategic ecosystem partners.

Six years in, the partnership has gone from custody integration to co-built
credit intelligence to shared RWA infrastructure.
Each chapter sat on top of the last.

## Products

### USDX

[USDX](https://www.htdigitalassets.com/) is a 1:
1 USD stablecoin issued by HT Digital Assets, Hex Trust's tokenisation arm.
Reserves are primarily short-duration US T-Bills held at tier-1 financial
institutions, with regular attestation reports.
Audits by Halborn (August 2024) and Hacken
(December 2023)
covered the contracts, and the token launched on Flare Network on 21 May 2024 in
collaboration with Clearpool.
USDX became the native stablecoin and gas token of Ozean,
the Clearpool and Hex Trust RWA Layer 2 announced in October 2024.

Reserves backing USDX stand at over $30.5M.
Holdex's contribution to USDX flows through Clearpool.
The integrations across Clearpool's products
(the T-Pool on Flare and USDX as Ozean's native settlement asset)
are built by the Holdex squad that runs Clearpool's product and engineering.

### [Synnax](https://synnax.ai/)

![Synnax — AI-powered credit intelligence for institutional credit desks](/build-stories/hex-trust/synnax.png)

Synnax is the substantive product co-build of the modern era.
Founded in Dubai in 2023 by Robert Alcorn, Dario Capodici, and Alessio Quaglini,
the platform delivers AI-powered credit intelligence.
It uses consensus-based machine-learning aggregation,
homomorphic encryption to protect private company data,
and probability-of-default scoring to give institutional credit desks a
forward-looking, decentralised rating standard for on-chain markets.

The product exists because of a gap that opened
as institutions began tapping into DeFi.
A new digital credit market emerged,
but institutions borrowing from these markets often need more transparency,
which makes them hard for lenders to assess.
The market severely needs a credit-rating standard,
and its absence raises the overhead for both the institutions
and the applications that depend on that information.
Synnax answers that with transparent,
data-driven credit intelligence powered by AI.

Holdex led the design and product development.
To the Synnax team, Holdex was not just a choice but a strategic partner,
spearheading the design and product development launch
and effectively becoming an extension of their in-house team.
That work has been built on a close-knit relationship with stakeholders
that keeps everyone on the same page while shipping new product updates.
The team described the engagement as "an extension of their in-house team,
" the literal meaning of the *extensions* category in Holdex's contribution
taxonomy.
Pre-seed of $1M closed in March 2024 with Hex Trust as one of twelve investors.
Synnax V1 Beta went live in October 2024.
In January 2025 Hex Trust formalised the loop,
announcing a strategic integration of Synnax's predictive credit-intelligence
tools into its own counterparty risk assessment.

## Partnership depth

| Metric                | Snapshot                                                                                                                           |
| --------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Institutional clients | 450+                                                                                                                               |
| Assets under custody  | $5B+                                                                                                                               |
| Capital raised        | ~$104M total ($88M Series B in March 2022 co-led by Animoca Brands and Liberty City Ventures; $10M strategic with Animoca; $6M Series A) |
| Licensed jurisdictions| Hong Kong (TCSP), Singapore (MAS MPI), Italy (OAM), France (AMF), Dubai (VARA)                                                     |
| Certifications        | SOC 1/2 Type I and II, ISO 9001, ISO/IEC 27001, ISO 22301, FIPS 140-3 Level 3, CSA STAR Level 2                                    |
| Ecosystem products    | USDX (stablecoin), Synnax (AI credit intelligence), Ozean (RWA L2 with Clearpool)                                                  |

## In the founder's words

The very first joint Hex Trust
and Holdex press release captured the original framing, and reads,
six years later, like a thesis statement for everything that came after.

> At Hex Trust, our digital custody platform is designed to instill a sense of trust and enable new business models for all blockchain participants. Now Holdex platform users have the assurances of security and segregation of assets they need to move forward with confidence.
>
> — **Alessio Quaglini**, CEO and Co-Founder, Hex Trust

[Learn more](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alessioquaglini/)


Ozean is the venue, USDX is the unit of account,
Synnax is the credit-intelligence layer,
and Hex Trust is the regulated custodian behind it.
Holdex sits inside that stack, co-building Clearpool, leading product at Synnax,
and connecting through a long-running product relationship at the heart of Hex
Trust's organisation.
The longest-running Holdex partnership has become the most architecturally
integrated.

## Links

- Site: [hextrust.com](https://hextrust.com/)
- USDX (HT Digital Assets):
  [htdigitalassets.com](https://www.htdigitalassets.com/)
- Synnax (AI credit intelligence): [synnax.ai](https://synnax.ai/)
- Synnax app (Alpha): [synnax.app](https://synnax.app)
- Ozean (RWA Layer 2 with Clearpool): [ozean.finance](https://ozean.finance/)
- X/Twitter: [@HexTrust](https://twitter.com/HexTrust)