In Brief:
- The UK’s ex-chancellor has decided to join Copper, a crypto startup, as an adviser.
- Copper plans to thrive globally from London headquarters, with Hammond’s expertise adding strength to the company.
Philip Hammond had joined as a senior advisor to the crypto start-up named Copper. He described the company as a “true pioneer”, showing his excitement for the role.
Copper founded in 2018, specialized in cryptocurrency custody and trading, provides services to institutional clients. Hammond will assist Copper on its global expansion and stated this is an “exciting opportunity” for transitioning technology into mainstream financial services.
He also added – “If we can bring together the best of Britain – entrepreneurs, industry, government, and regulators – to create and enable a blockchain-based ecosystem for financial services, we will secure the UK’s global leadership in this field for decades ahead,”
Copper has claimed that it handled more than $50bn in transactions each month of approximately 400 clients.
“We would like to drive growth in our client base within a regulatory framework which will allow us to thrive globally from our London headquarters. With Lord Hammond’s expertise adding to the strength of our team, we look forward to growing Copper and further enhancing the UK’s digital asset technology offering”. said Dmitry Tokarev, Copper’s CEO.
Crypto industries have escalated their onboarding of high-profile influential personalities from the financial and technology domain this year. Recently, Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto team acquired Nassim Eddequiouaq and Riyaz Faizullabhoy, top Facebook digital currency engineers. This clearly indicates the boom of crypto firms in the coming years.
Philip Hammond, who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2016 to 2019, said: : “The Greensill experience is something that I think everybody has taken on board as a cautionary tale. I will certainly work closely with Copper to help them to develop their strategy but there are, quite properly, limits to what I can do, particularly in relation to the UK government and the company understands that.”
However, he has high hopes for this start-up to expand exponentially. The Copper CEO also said the company is keen to grow to thrive globally.
