Turnkey

Turnkey is private key management made simple. Create wallets, sign transactions, and automate onchain actions : all with one elegant API.

# Turnkey: Securing Private Key Infrastructure for the Crypto Developer Economy

Turnkey is a private key infrastructure platform that enables developers to build secure, non-custodial wallet experiences at scale[2][3]. Founded by the team behind Coinbase Custody, the company provides an elegant API that abstracts away the complexity of cryptographic key management, allowing builders to create thousands of wallets, sign millions of transactions, and enforce granular security policies without ever touching raw private keys[2][4]. The platform has rapidly gained traction in the crypto ecosystem, raising a $30 million Series B in June 2025 led by Bain Capital Crypto, with backing from Sequoia, Lightspeed Faction, Galaxy Ventures, Wintermute, and Variant[3].

High-Level Overview

What Turnkey Builds: Turnkey is a modular key management platform that simplifies wallet creation, transaction signing, and onchain automation through a unified API[6]. Developers can embed secure wallets directly into applications, automate complex crypto operations, and implement custom security policies without managing cryptographic primitives themselves.

Who It Serves: The platform targets crypto developers, fintech companies, DeFi protocols, payments platforms, consumer applications, and AI agents—essentially any builder needing institutional-grade key management without the operational burden[3][6]. This includes both consumer-facing applications requiring invisible wallets and enterprise treasury systems requiring multi-signature approval workflows.

Problem It Solves: Traditional key management solutions force developers to choose between security and usability. Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) offer strong security but lack cloud-native flexibility and scalability. Multi-Party Computation (MPC) solutions introduce coordination complexity and potential attack surfaces. Turnkey eliminates this tradeoff by leveraging Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) to keep private keys encrypted and isolated within secure hardware enclaves, ensuring keys never exist in unencrypted form outside that boundary[1][4].

Growth Momentum: The company demonstrates strong market validation through its Series B funding round and expanding use cases across DeFi, payments, developer tooling, consumer apps, and emerging AI agent infrastructure[3]. The platform's ability to sign millions of transactions with 50-100ms latency and 99.9% uptime positions it as enterprise-grade infrastructure[3].

Origin Story

Turnkey was founded in 2022 by veterans of Coinbase Custody, bringing over 100 years of combined expertise in cryptography, security, and low-level systems design[3]. The founding team recognized a critical gap in the market: while institutional custody solutions existed, developers lacked accessible, scalable infrastructure for building applications with embedded key management. Rather than forcing developers to become security experts or compromise on control, the founders built Turnkey as a developer-first platform that abstracts cryptographic complexity while maintaining institutional-grade security guarantees.

The company achieved early traction through partnerships established in 2022 and has since become a foundational layer in the crypto developer stack[2]. The June 2025 Series B round, led by prominent crypto investors, signals strong confidence in the company's vision and execution.

Core Differentiators

Trusted Execution Environment Architecture: Unlike competitors mixing MPC with TEEs, Turnkey's all-in-enclave model ensures unencrypted keys never exist outside secure hardware boundaries[1]. Keys are generated, encrypted, and used entirely within the enclave, eliminating coordination paths and reconstruction risks that plague hybrid approaches. This design delivers true non-custodial security—even Turnkey cannot access raw private keys[1].

Policy Enforcement Inside the Enclave: Turnkey bakes policy enforcement directly into the trusted execution environment rather than implementing it in external middleware[1]. This means transaction limits, multisig approvals, and role-based restrictions are cryptographically enforced at the hardware level, not subject to manipulation or compromise through software vulnerabilities[1][5].

Developer Experience at Scale: The platform provides simple, elegant APIs enabling developers to spin up thousands of wallets and sign millions of transactions without managing cryptographic details[2][4]. Low latency (50-100ms) and high availability (99.9% uptime) deliver web2-speed performance for crypto applications[3].

Flexible Authentication and Account Abstraction: Turnkey supports multiple onboarding methods—OAuth, passkeys, email, social logins—enabling fast user acquisition without seed phrase friction[4][6]. Account abstraction support allows developers to design custom wallet experiences tailored to their applications[6].

Multichain and Chain-Agnostic Design: The infrastructure supports arbitrary signing across any blockchain, enabling developers to build truly multichain applications without platform lock-in[4].

Verifiable and Open-Source Security: Turnkey's code can be independently verified, replacing blind trust with cryptographic proof[4]. This transparency is critical for institutional adoption and aligns with crypto's ethos of verifiability.

Role in the Broader Tech Landscape

Turnkey operates at the intersection of three powerful trends reshaping crypto infrastructure:

The Embedded Wallet Revolution: As crypto adoption moves from traders to mainstream consumers, applications increasingly need invisible, frictionless wallet experiences. Turnkey enables this by removing seed phrase complexity while maintaining security—critical for consumer-facing applications in payments, gaming, and social platforms.

Enterprise Adoption of Crypto: Institutions entering crypto require custody and key management solutions meeting regulatory and operational standards. Turnkey, built by Coinbase Custody veterans, brings institutional credibility to developer infrastructure, enabling enterprises to build crypto applications with confidence.

AI Agent Infrastructure: The emergence of autonomous AI agents requiring onchain capabilities creates new demand for programmable, policy-driven key management. Turnkey's policy engine and automation capabilities position it as foundational infrastructure for this emerging category[3].

Developer-First Infrastructure Consolidation: The crypto stack is consolidating around developer-friendly platforms that abstract complexity. Turnkey competes in this space alongside RPC providers, indexing services, and account abstraction platforms—but with a unique focus on the most sensitive layer: key management itself.

The timing is particularly favorable. Regulatory clarity around custody and key management is improving, institutional capital is flowing into crypto infrastructure, and consumer applications are reaching scale. Turnkey's non-custodial model also aligns with regulatory preferences for solutions that don't concentrate custody risk.

Quick Take & Future Outlook

Turnkey has solved a fundamental problem in crypto infrastructure: how to deliver institutional-grade key management with developer-friendly simplicity and true non-custodial control. The company's Series B funding and backing from top-tier crypto investors validate this thesis.

Looking ahead, Turnkey's influence will likely expand as three dynamics unfold. First, embedded wallets will become table stakes for consumer crypto applications, driving adoption of platforms like Turnkey that make invisible wallets practical. Second, regulatory frameworks will increasingly favor non-custodial infrastructure, creating tailwinds for Turnkey's model versus centralized alternatives. Third, AI agents will require programmable, policy-driven key management at scale—a use case Turnkey is uniquely positioned to serve.

The company's challenge will be maintaining security leadership while scaling to millions of developers and billions of transactions. Execution risk exists around TEE supply chain security and the need for continuous cryptographic innovation. However, the founding team's pedigree and the company's architectural choices suggest strong positioning to navigate these challenges.

Ultimately, Turnkey represents a maturing crypto infrastructure layer—moving key management from a DIY problem for developers into a solved, commoditized service. In doing so, it removes a critical friction point for mainstream adoption, enabling the next generation of crypto applications to focus on user experience rather than cryptographic plumbing.