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Who holds what at BitSave: the entities, the custody and what happens if one fails
BitSave runs through three entities, and none holds investor assets. A third-party custodian does, off the company's books, and each investor holds unit tokens issued to them. If BitSave shuts down, investors choose: redeem to rupees, or move the assets to their wallets.
In this article we cover:
- What are signs of a credible, well-run crypto platform for Indian investors who value governance and compliance?
- Which BitSave entity does what, and which one owes you what?
- Which Indian crypto apps are most transparent about where and how customer funds are held?
- What happens to your holdings if one of these entities fails?
- Which Indian crypto investment companies share details about their investors, board, and team in a transparent way?
- What recourse do you have, and under which law?
Nine governance checks, and how BitSave answers each
Most of these checks can be verified today from BitSave's own pages, its Terms and Conditions and the blockchain. Where an answer is incomplete, the Status column says so.
What are signs of a credible, well-run crypto platform for Indian investors who value governance and compliance?
A credible platform lets you check eight things for yourself:
- Its registration
- Its legal entity
- Its KYC
- Tax reporting
- Who holds the assets
- Whether they are lent out its reserves against liabilities
- What happens if it fails, and
- Who runs it?
Each needs a written answer.
Crypto platform governance in India starts with FIU-IND. The Financial Intelligence Unit is where crypto service providers register for KYC and AML/CFT. Next comes a named Indian legal entity, so that you know who you are dealing with. Then KYC, and tax deducted and reported on each transaction. Then custody: who holds the assets, whether they sit on the platform's own books, and whether they are lent or pledged. Then proof of reserves, and whether it includes liabilities. Last come the questions that are hardest to find answers to: what happens on the day the business fails, who runs and funds it, and where you can take a complaint.
Measured against that list, BitSave's FIU-IND registration is in process, and the cybersecurity audit FIU-IND requires of applicants is complete. BitSave's three entities each have a separate job, none of them holds investor assets, and each investor's share is recorded as a unit token issued to them, backed by assets held off the company's balance sheet. The table above answers every check, including the ones that are not yet complete. For BitSave's regulatory status in detail, see Is BitSave legal in India?.
Which BitSave entity does what, and which one owes you what?
BitSave is a platform, not a legal entity. Casper Wealth Holdings Ltd, incorporated in Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), is the group holding company. BitPe Digital LLP operates the platform for users in India. Casper Wealth Inc, incorporated in Panama, designs the index token products. Investor assets are held by a third party institutional custodian in cold storage with geographically distributed keys, not by any group entity.
BitSave's Terms and Conditions set this out in legal terms. The platform's technology belongs to the group holding company, which has licensed the platform to BitPe Digital LLP to serve Indian resident users. Casper Wealth Inc develops the index tokens that make up the BitSave products and has appointed BitPe Digital LLP as the authorised broker that distributes them in India.
For the purpose of the Terms, the three entities together are "the Company". That matters for one clause in particular, covered in the section on failure below: it applies to all three.
Why the holding company and the product entity are separate. A fund is normally run through two entities, a holding company and a fund entity, so that the fund's books and the company's books never mix. Take a firm with ₹10 crore of its own funding that manages ₹10 crore for investors. On one balance sheet it would look like a ₹20 crore business, which describes neither the firm nor the investors' money. Kept apart, investor money is never counted as the company's own.
The structure above is the current one. For the regulatory side of it, including where each entity operates from, the legality guide covers it in full; the trust page lists the same three entities.
Which Indian crypto apps are most transparent about where and how customer funds are held?
At BitSave, investor assets sit with a third-party institutional custodian, in cold storage, off the company's balance sheet. BitSave holds none of the keys. Each investor holds unit tokens recording their share of a pooled holding, and proof of reserves and liabilities can be checked on-chain at any time.
A custodian is a specialist firm that holds assets on behalf of others. At BitSave the underlying assets are held together, in pooled wallets, at the custodian. What separates one investor's share from another's is the unit token issued to each of them, which records how much of the pool they own. Two layers, then: the assets at the custodian, and the record of ownership in the unit token. The unit-tokens guide explains why BitSave chose units rather than coins.
The keys to those wallets are held by the custodian, offline, in separate geographies. Assets move only on an instruction from BitSave that the custodian verifies before the keys are used. Between those windows the wallets stay offline.
Proof of reserves and liabilities is a published reconciliation of the assets held in custody against the units investors hold. BitSave publishes it in the app, with the wallets verifiable on a public blockchain. It lets a reader check two things directly: that the assets exist against the units outstanding, and that they are sitting in custody rather than being lent, staked or traded. It has a limit. It is not an audited financial statement, and on its own it does not settle every legal question about who owns what. The Terms do that, and the next section quotes them.
For how BitSave's custody compares with self-custody and exchange wallets, see the safest way to hold long-term crypto in India.
What happens to your holdings if one of these entities fails?
If the business behind BitSave shuts down, your holdings are not at risk since the underlying assets stay with the custodian. BitPe Digital LLP then contacts every investor and offers a choice: redeem the units and be paid in rupees, or have the underlying assets transferred to a self-custodial wallet.
Insolvency is when a company cannot pay its debts, and its assets are gathered to pay its creditors. The question for an investor is whether their investment would be counted among those assets. On a trading exchange it usually is: the coins in an account belong to the exchange, and the account holder has a claim against it.
At BitSave the answer is written into the Terms. The three entities hold investor assets "in a custodial capacity", with "no ownership rights, title, or interest" in them. The clause continues: the assets "will not form part of the Company's balance sheet, profit and loss account, cash flow, or any other document forming part of the financial statements of the Company and will not be considered the Company's assets in the event of insolvency or liquidation."
Four facts sit underneath that clause:
- The assets are with a third party. The custodian holds them, in cold storage, separate from company funds.
- The record exists outside the app. Each holding is a unit token issued to the investor, and proof of reserves and liabilities reconciles the custodied assets against outstanding units on-chain.
- The assets are not put to work. They are not lent, staked, traded or mixed with company funds.
- BitSave holds none of the keys. The custodian holds them, offline, in separate geographies.
How a wind-down works. The custodian holds the assets but not the investor data: it does not know who owns which units. BitPe Digital LLP does, because it ran KYC on every investor. So if BitSave shuts down, for insolvency or any other reason, BitPe Digital LLP runs a wind-down and contacts each investor with two options. In the first, the units are redeemed and the investor is paid in rupees. In the second, the investor's share of the underlying assets is transferred to a self-custodial wallet, a crypto wallet where the investor alone holds the keys.
On tax, the first option is a redemption, which is a sale of a virtual digital asset and is taxed under Schedule VDA at 30% on gains, with TDS deducted. The tax treatment of the second option depends on how the transfer is characterised; take advice before choosing it.
One limit applies to every crypto platform in India, BitSave included. No Indian regulator guarantees a payout if a crypto platform fails. BitSave's own site says there may be no regulatory recourse for any loss.
Which Indian crypto investment companies share details about their investors, board, and team in a transparent way?
BitSave names its founders and its lead investor. Zakhil Suresh, Sajal Sarwar, Asif Kattakath and Vishnu Karthikeyan are Co-Founders. The company is institutionally backed by Leo Capital. Its legal entities, with where each is registered, are listed in its Terms and Conditions and on its trust page.
What recourse do you have, and under which law?
BitSave's terms are governed by Indian law. A dispute goes first to mediation in India and, if that fails, to arbitration in India. Complaints go to a named grievance officer.
Governing law is the country's law that decides how a contract is read and enforced. For BitSave, that is the law of India, and both stages of a dispute, mediation and arbitration, take place in India. This answers a concern raised often about platforms with entities outside India: the investor's relationship with BitSave is decided under Indian law.
The complaint route set out in the Terms runs in five steps: the grievance is received and acknowledged, assessed, investigated, resolved with a proposal to the investor, and tracked until closed. The grievance officer can be reached at gro@casperwealth.com or on WhatsApp at +91 8590 112 320. General questions go to hello@bitsave.club, and account closure requests to support@bitsave.club.
What this route cannot give you is regulatory recourse. Investing in crypto is currently not regulated by SEBI in India, and BitSave's footer states that there may be no regulatory recourse for any loss from such transactions.
FAQs
Who owns BitSave?
BitSave is a crypto investment platform. Its technology is owned by the group holding company, Casper Wealth Holdings Limited, registered in Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), and licensed to BitPe Digital LLP to serve Indian residents. The products are developed by Casper Wealth Inc, in Panama. The company is backed by Leo Capital.
Does BitSave hold my crypto?
No. A third-party institutional custodian holds the underlying assets in cold storage, off the company's balance sheet. Investors hold unit tokens issued to them that record their share. The unit-tokens guide explains why.
What happens to my investment if BitSave shuts down?
The underlying assets are held by the custodian and are not counted as the company's in an insolvency. BitPe Digital LLP runs a wind-down and each investor chooses: redeem and be paid in rupees, or have the underlying assets transferred to a self-custodial wallet they control.
Is BitSave an offshore company?
BitSave's holding company is in Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) and its product entity is in Panama, while BitPe Digital LLP operates it in India and all rupee payments stay in India. The legality guide covers the regulatory side.
Is proof of reserves the same as an audit?
No. Proof of reserves shows that the assets held in custody match the units investors hold, and it can be checked on-chain at any time. An audit examines a company's full financial statements. BitSave's completed audit is a cybersecurity audit, not a financial one.
Can I read the custody agreement?
The custody agreement itself is not a public document. An investor can verify the custody clause in the Terms and Conditions, which keeps investor assets off the company's financial statements, and the proof of reserves and liabilities, which shows the assets against outstanding units.
Who do I contact with a complaint?
Write to BitSave's grievance officer at gro@casperwealth.com or on WhatsApp at +91 8590 112 320. Complaints are acknowledged, investigated and tracked to resolution under the process in the Terms. Unresolved disputes go to mediation, then arbitration, in India.
This article is for information only and is not investment, legal or tax advice. Crypto assets are unregulated in India and can be highly volatile, and there may be no regulatory recourse for any loss. Read the Terms and Conditions and consider your own circumstances before investing.