Techniques involve storing digital assets in a distributed digital asset management environment. The techniques includes (a) receiving, by a server from a client, an asset identification tag associated with an original version of a digital asset which is initially created and stored on the client; (b) identifying, by the server and in response to receiving the asset identification tag, a risk-management policy corresponding to the client and the digital asset; (c) executing an action dictated by the risk-management policy; and (d) transmitting, by the server to the client, a transfer command which identifies the digital asset and directs the client to transfer the digital asset from the client to the server. The techniques further include (e) obtaining, by the server from the client, a copy of the digital asset while the client concurrently deletes the original version of the digital asset in response to the transfer command.