London Crypto Custodian Onboards Former Bank of America Executives

An executives team from the Bank of America will run a development unit for Cooper Technologies as the latter wants to build prime brokerage platforms focusing on digital assets, citing enhanced demand from institutional investors.

• As reported by Bloomberg, the London-based digital asset custodian hired the former BofA executives to meet the growing demand from institutional investors and banks for “more direct access to cryptocurrencies.”
• Michael Roberts, who joined immediately from the bank, will spearhead the new unit. He was the head of the bank’s prime brokerage platform for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
• Former bank directors – Adam Groom and Paul Berham – will also join the new team.
• Copper CEO Dmitry Tokarev asserted that his company wants to solve a current problem of prime brokerages as they need to purchase cryptocurrencies on an exchange before being able to trade. He believes Copper’s ClearLoop network, launched two years ago, will fix it.
• He also outlined the massive growth of the cryptocurrency industry, saying:

“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.”

• After years of ignoring or bashing the industry, the Bank of America started to change its stance last year. Most recently, the bank’s researchers predicted that digital assets could outperform bonds and stocks amid a potential recession.