Steve was formerly COO of CurveGlobal, the LSE’s interest rate derivatives market, and prior to that was Trading Business Manager at DRW Trading Group and Senior Associate at the Financial Services Authority - the forerunner to the FCA regulator in London.

Archax, which plans to launch its exchange in mid-2019, is focused on providing a venue for institutions and professional investors to trade in security tokens. These take real-world assets, such as equity, debt, property, etc., and tokenise them using a blockchain through STOs (Security Token Offerings). Unlike most other token initiatives, such as ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) which are pure utilities, security tokens have intrinsic value as a result and generally fall under existing regulations. This makes them much more attractive and palatable to institutions.

Graham Rodford, CEO and co-founder of Archax, comments: “Archax is designed to be ‘institutional’ throughout - it’s technology, systems, operations, processes, team, culture and products. Therefore compliance and regulation are at the very forefront of our strategy. We see the tokenisation of assets as the next significant step in the evolution of the crypto world and something that could potentially revolutionise traditional financial markets too. Consequently, Head of Regulation is a vital role for us to fill and we are pleased to have someone like Steve, with all the highly relevant experience he brings, in this pivotal position.”

Commenting on his appointment, Steve Hamilton adds: “I was keen to get into the digital securities space as the interest from institutions increased. Archax, with its highly experienced team from the financial markets and clear institutional strategy and vision, were by far the most credible business that I could find. My extensive experience from working in the fields of compliance and regulation at a number of exchanges, trading firms and regulators means I fully understand what institutions need and expect. I am looking forward to ensuring that the Archax offerings meet their most stringent requirements.”

As well as launching its exchange next year, Archax is also planning its own STO where it will tokenise a potion of its own equity.