Ex-CS commodities head turns to bitcoin
A UK-based bitcoin exchange has tapped the former global head of commodities at Credit Suisse to lead its attempt to promote professional trading of the virtual currency.
Adam Knight, who has been an angel investor in London since leaving Credit Suisse in 2011, has become executive chairman of Coinfloor and taken a stake in the company in a new fundraising round.
“Having spent my career trading commodity markets I understand the exchange, clearing house and storage models well and wanted to find a team with the right skills and approach to build a robust global bitcoin financial services business,” said Mr Knight.
“Bitcoin has survived some pretty significant shocks and proven to be far more robust than I had initially expected.”
A number of entrepreneurs are trying to build a second generation of virtual currency trading platforms, following the bankruptcy in March of the earliest and once largest exchange, Mt Gox.
That collapse, and the apparent loss of millions of dollars worth of the virtual currency, shook confidence among bitcoin users and highlighted the experimental nature of the technology. Bitcoin was created five years ago by an anonymous computer scientist as an alternative to government-controlled currencies.
Coinfloor has said its platform is aimed at professional traders, including high-frequency traders, and aims to overcome institutional scepticism about the safety of bitcoin exchanges by making public the details of its bitcoin holdings.
“Adam’s expertise of regulatory compliance, risk and governance procedures will be invaluable,” said Mark Lamb, Coinfloor’s founder.
Mr Lamb declined to give details of the size of its new fundraising, but said Mr Knight was joined in the round by the company’s existing backers, Passion Capital and Taavet Hinrikus. Passion Capital is an angel investment firm led by Stefan Glaenzer, former chairman of online radio pioneer Last.fm and a founder of auction site Ricardo.de, and Mr Hinrikus was an early employee at Skype.
Coinfloor began registering customers last October and, following technical delays, began trading earlier this year.
Source: ft
