Controversial crypto platform Prometheum continues to sign its seriousness about transferring ahead because the business’s sole U.S. special-purpose crypto broker-dealer, having now employed a chief monetary officer with a Wall Avenue pedigree from the likes of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Albert Meo was Morgan Stanley’s govt director for regulatory coverage and boasts an extended profession in mainstream finance with companies that additionally embody Constancy Investments and Nomura. Prometheum’s new CFO has additionally served on an advisory board on the securities business’s inner requirements group, the Securities Trade and Monetary Markets Affiliation (SIFMA).
He joins Prometheum because it’s making an attempt to navigate the primary days of its crypto custody operations, which the corporate mentioned will quickly begin with holding Ethereum’s ether (ETH) for its prospects, although it hasn’t but disclosed the names of any establishments that’ll do enterprise there. The last word purpose is dealing with custody, buying and selling and clearing of crypto securities in a single place that is already absolutely registered and goals to be compliant with U.S. Securities and Trade Fee (SEC) guidelines.
It is in that theoretical compliance the place Prometheum is at odds with the overwhelming majority of different crypto-native companies, who’ve lengthy claimed the SEC makes it unattainable to legally commerce digital property below the company’s expectation that the sector observe current securities legal guidelines. Many of the main crypto operations have fought or are nonetheless combating the regulator in court docket over these questions, together with the SEC’s insistence that many of the digital property being traded by the business are securities.
Prometheum’s founders began the corporate below the idea that it is attainable and proper to observe the SEC’s commandments and deal with crypto as securities.
“It’s an thrilling juncture in Prometheum’s trajectory to be becoming a member of the agency,” Meo, who’s an authorized public accountant, mentioned in an announcement. “The corporate’s commitments to compliance and innovation are completely suited to my skilled values and abilities alike.”
Meo started his monetary profession as an accountant at Value Waterhouse about 40 years in the past, based on his account on LinkedIn. His prolonged profession has typically put him in regulatory-reporting roles.
His latest employer’s critics have loudly declared that establishments will not do enterprise there and that Prometheum’s buying and selling strategy will not meet regulatory muster, so the approaching weeks might take a look at who is true about how the SEC and the broader securities sector will deal with the crypto startup.
Learn Extra: Prometheum Earns Closing Regulatory Nod to Strive Hand at Totally-Compliant Crypto