# Cold storage

Cold storage is a custody configuration that precludes automated, programmatic access to signing: keys sit in secure hardware, isolated from networks, and every transaction requires multiple human approvals. A wallet allowing automated API transfers, or lacking secure hardware and air-gapped components, is not cold storage.

## What regulators actually accept as cold

The strictest virtual asset regimes require the large majority of client assets in cold wallets, with Hong Kong requiring at least 98 percent in air-gapped cold wallets with HSMs domestically, and Turkiye at least 95 percent in cold storage with the full custody stack deployed in-country. The test is isolation of the signing device, not of approval tokens.

Taurus-PROTECT provides cold storage with a technical or a physical air gap, both deployed in production under these regimes.

FAQ:

- What disqualifies a wallet from being cold? Automated API access to signing, absence of secure hardware, no air-gapped component, or missing multi-human approval. Any one of these makes the wallet warm or hot regardless of marketing labels.

Related: https://www.taurushq.com/security/air-gapped-custody/ https://www.taurushq.com/glossary/air-gap/ https://www.taurushq.com/glossary/hot-wallet/

Learn more: https://www.taurushq.com/glossary/cold-storage/