Copper Hires BofA Execs to Build Prime Brokerage Platform for Institutional Investors.
London-based crypto custodian Copper is making its services more accessible to institutional investors by building prime brokerage platforms. In line with this, the custodial services provider is hiring executives from the bank of America to help develop the platforms.
The project will be led by Michael Roberts, who will be joining the firm directly from the Bank of America. Other team members will be Adam Groom and Paul Barham (also from the Bank of America), Ben Carr, and Ross Budgen.
Michael Roberts has many years of experience in prime brokerage platforms at the Bank of America. Up until now, he was the “head of the bank’s prime brokerage platform for Europe, Middle East, and Africa region.”
Moving to trade away from exchanges
These days, many crypto firms seek to provide prime brokerage in cryptocurrencies as the number of institutional investors entering the space continues to rise.
“There’s not a single sell-side institution on the planet, or at least in the top 20, that is not working on something in digital assets,” Copper CEO Dmitry Tokarev said.
They are unable to provide real prime brokerages, though, as they still need to buy crypto from exchanges to trade.
Copper intends to set a record by providing a prime brokerage platform that eliminates the need for exchanges. In light of this, the firm launched ClearLoop, a digital asset custodian that “connects the universe of custodians and exchanges in one secure trading loop with real-time settlement across the network” in 2020.
As a digital asset custodian, Copper is relentlessly working on securing full regulatory approval from U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority and Switzerland. It is also working on its subsequent funding round, which will raise its value to about $3 billion if successful.
Making crypto more reliable
Although institutional investors are developing unprecedented appetites for digital assets, not all are comfortable with crypto trading platforms, unlike the traditional exchanges they are used to.
Copper’s efforts to remove the need for such exchanges are likely to secure investors’ confidence and make the crypto space more reliable in the future.
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