These are the crypto leaders at the UK’s biggest fintechs

With crypto trading thriving and renewed interest in blockchain, it’s no surprise that many leading fintechs are appointing either formal or informal leaders to keep an eye on the technology.

But who are the crypto leaders at the UK’s most prominent (non-crypto) fintechs?

After scouring LinkedIn and asked around, here’s what we found:

Revolut

It’s no surprise that Revolut was among the first to appoint an official Head of Crypto, which it did in 2020, given the popularity of its crypto trading service since 2017.

Edward Cooper was involved in the launch under his previous role as Head of Mobile, before transitioning to the newly-created Head of Crypto role in January 2020.

Cooper describes his current role as to “scale the crypto department and product globally”.

But things might be about to change, as Revolut is currently advertising for a new Head of Crypto to “identify and build strong, lasting strategic relationships with new and existing partners in the cryptocurrency industry”.

eToro

Another crypto trading success story, eToro started with its crypto copyfund way back in 2017, which gave investors exposure to a group six tokens.

Since then things have become a lot more advanced, with eToro launching its own crypto exchange in 2019 and today offering access to 16 tokens as well as a host of crypto trade derivatives.

As you’d expect the fintech has a whole team dedicated to crypto including Johannes Jenson (pictured), Product Manager of Blockchain Product Development and R&D, Omri Ross, Chief Blockchain Scientist, and Simon Peters, Senior Crypto Analyst.

Checkout.com

As well as trading, processing the fiat payments from crypto exchanges has become a big business for fintechs too, and Checkout.com provides the payment processing for eToro as well as Binance, Coinbase and Crypto.com.

Esteban Sadurni is the company’s Director of Digital Assets and Currencies, having only joined Checkout.com in June 2021.

Sadurni described his joining as “an exciting time for the mass adoption of crypto and Checkout playing a leading role serving the industry”.

Curve

Several fintechs have informal in-house leads on the technology, outside of the formal crypto roles already mentioned.

Joseph-Daniel Millwood, Curve’s Head of Product and former Head of Growth at Coinbase, and is also informally the company’s UK expert on crypto, while in the US Amanda Orson (pictured), Curve’s Head of North America, is keeping an eye on the tech.

“Crypto may well be the future stack of finance, finance 3.0 so to speak. If that happens, we may see a multi-decade adoption cycle similar to what we saw with the internet; and a similar wealth creation for businesses, content creators and even consumers,” Millwood told AltFi.

“Crypto also represents even more money options for the customer on top of an already fragmented fintech space and there lies an opportunity for Curve—to unify and simplify money all in one space regardless of whether money is fiat or crypto.”

Monzo, Starling Bank, Wise, etc

While there are no formal crypto or blockchain roles at many UK fintechs, there are undoubtedly executives tasked with keeping an eye on the technology and exploring its implications for the business.

Do you know, or are you, the crypto lead at a (non-crypto) fintech? Get in touch and let us know.