According to recent reports, the former chancellor of the exchequer of the United Kingdom, Philip Hammond, would join the crypto custody business Copper as chairman.
In October 2021, Copper recruited Hammond to serve as a special adviser to the board. The company’s income has doubled since then, and its employee count has increased from 50 to over 300.
Copper has signed landmark collaborations with significant financial institutions, including becoming the infrastructure partner of State Street Digital, recruiting hedge funds, and cooperating with several players in the Defi sector.
Copper, which launched in 2018, facilitates communication between established financial institutions and the cryptocurrency sector. It offers risk management services for financial institutions that are investing in digital assets.
There has been a recent influx of conservative personalities into leadership roles at cryptoasset firms, and Hammond’s appointment to Copper in Mayfair is the latest example of this trend. Lord Vaizey, a member of the Conservative Peerage, and Jo Johnson, an MP and Boris Johnson’s brother, both served in advisory roles at Binance, however, Jo Johnson has since left.
According to Hammond, the growing security and regulatory concerns in the crypto industry highlight the need for a robust, regulated trading infrastructure.
In addition, he reiterated his belief that distributed ledger technology must be a central component of the United Kingdom’s financial services sector’s strategy if it is to retain its status as a major global financial center in the wake of Brexit.
He admitted that certain sections of the market were very unregulated. Hammond said that Copper’s platform saw a meteoric rise in demand after FTX brought attention to the counterparty risk inherent in the standard crypto trading paradigm.
