Blockchain transactions lost $1.47 billion to scams and errors in 2024, and a UK startup called OpenCover is building real-time insurance to stop those losses from happening at the moment of transfer. Traditional insurance policies cover losses over a year, but blockchain transactions settle in minutes. OpenCover’s system assesses each transaction’s risk via an API, writes a policy for that single transaction, and reuses the same underwriting capital more than 200 times per day. This capital efficiency is critical because over $1 trillion in value moves across blockchain rails every month. If successful, the product would let businesses and institutions transfer blockchain transaction risk at scale for the first time. That matters for the financial infrastructure that quietly underpins payments, supply chains, and asset settlements. Without a way to insure against transaction-time fraud or misconfigured smart contracts, professional adoption of blockchain technology stalls. OpenCover’s regulated product directly supports the UK government’s goal of becoming a global blockchain hub by removing a key barrier: the absence of a robust, capital-efficient risk-transfer mechanism.
View original technical description
OpenCover is a UK-based blockchain insurance SME led by Jeremiah Smith (project lead/product lead), Yury Oparin (technical lead) and Csongor Bokay (blockchain risk specialist). In its pursuit of becoming a global hub for blockchain technology, the UK is providing regulatory clarity. However, blockchain safety issues still hinder broader adoption, with over $450M lost globally at transaction time in 2023 due to scams, misconfigured smart contracts and other transaction-time vulnerabilities. Alarmingly, transaction-time losses are estimated to have tripled in 2024 to $1.47B (State of the Chain, 2025). Without a robust insurance offering, professional and institutional adoption of blockchain technology is virtually impossible, as risk transfer options are crucial in any modern financial system. OpenCover is developing the first real-time, capital-efficient, blockchain transaction insurance, enabling businesses and institutions to transfer blockchain transaction risk at scale. Unlike static insurance (e.g. yearly policies), OpenCover's solution has a very short policy window (minutes) combined with real-time risk and loss assessment of individual blockchain transactions via API. This enables underwriting capital to be reused over 200 times a day thereby delivering unprecedented capital efficiency, which is crucial given over $1T in value is settled on blockchain rails monthly (Token Terminal,2024). OpenCover's innovation will enable businesses to transact on blockchain rails compliantly by offering customers access to the first regulated blockchain transaction risk-transfer product. Furthermore, this project directly supports the government's goal of making the UK a blockchain hub.
Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.
Is something wrong? Let us know