Trade.io Hires Finance Veteran to Help with Swiss VQF Licence

Trade.io, a Swiss Blockchain Blockchain Blockchain comprises a digital network of blocks with a comprehensive ledger of transactions made in a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin or other altcoins.One of the signature features of blockchain is that it is maintained across more than one computer. The ledger can be public or private (permissioned.) In this sense, blockchain is immune to the manipulation of data making it not only open but verifiable. Because a blockchain is stored across a network of computers, it is very difficult to tampe Blockchain comprises a digital network of blocks with a comprehensive ledger of transactions made in a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin or other altcoins.One of the signature features of blockchain is that it is maintained across more than one computer. The ledger can be public or private (permissioned.) In this sense, blockchain is immune to the manipulation of data making it not only open but verifiable. Because a blockchain is stored across a network of computers, it is very difficult to tampe Read this Term startup that proclaims itself a "next-generation financial institution", has hired a veteran of the financial industry to its board of directors.

Vorsprung durch Technik

Arnaud Barray has been hired to help Trade.io receive its VQF authorisation. This is a licence awarded by the Verein zur Qualitätssicherung von Finanzdienstleistungen (Financial Services Standards Association), a self-regulatory association for the financial industry in Switzerland. It is approved by the country's official watchdog, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA).

According to the Trade.io press release, this licence will assure people that all Trade.io operations are compliant with Swiss anti-money laundering legislation.

Barray has worked at institutions such as Barclays, BNP Paribas, and Standard Chartered, and is currently employed as a business scout at a consultancy firm in Geneva, according to his LinkedIn profile. He said: "I’m very excited to join trade.io and assist in not only decisions from a board level, but also to assist them in obtaining VQF authorization. Given my experience and contacts in the industry, I’m confident that I can be the difference maker and finally deliver for the trade.io community as I’m fully aware they’ve been waiting quite a while for this."

A storied history

Trade.io was launched in late 2017. In December of that year it integrated with Bancor, and in January 2018 it raised $31 million in its ICO. In July 2018 it launched a cryptocurrency-to-cryptocurrency exchange.

In October, tokens worth millions of dollars were stolen from the company. They were stolen from a cold (offline) wallet which the company kept in a bank safety deposit box, but (interestingly) the company stated that the safety deposit box had not been compromised.

The company managed to track the stolen money and freeze it so that the culprit(s) only got their hands on a small fraction. However, the rest of the money remained stolen - it just couldn't be used by the thieves. Trade.io decided to fork (upgrade) its TIO token to render the stolen ones completely useless. The new version is called TIOx.

Trade.io has still not explained how the money was stolen from the safety deposit box. COO Roy Gutshall said in October that the team had "so far concluded that there was no technical hack on the third party Cold Storage Cold Storage Cold storage is a computer system or mode of operation that is designed for the retention of inactive data, in this case private keys for cryptocurrencies. This helps put up resilient barriers against theft by hackers and malware, and is often a necessary security protocol especially dealing with large amounts of Bitcoin.In order to “own” a cryptocurrency, one must be in control of a cryptocurrency’s private keys. As such, private keys are long strings of random characters that can be used to se Cold storage is a computer system or mode of operation that is designed for the retention of inactive data, in this case private keys for cryptocurrencies. This helps put up resilient barriers against theft by hackers and malware, and is often a necessary security protocol especially dealing with large amounts of Bitcoin.In order to “own” a cryptocurrency, one must be in control of a cryptocurrency’s private keys. As such, private keys are long strings of random characters that can be used to se Read this Term unit".

As a result of the theft, Trade.io was permanently de-listed from Bancor.