Kraken poaches Gemini’s head of UK to run its UK operations
Quick Take
- Kraken has hired Blair Halliday to run its UK operations.
- Halliday has a history of compliance roles and experience in the banking sector.
Crypto exchange Kraken has poached Gemini’s former head of UK, Blair Halliday, to run its own UK operations, a key market for the exchange.
Halliday will focus on expanding the exchange's reach in the region, according to a press release. Prior to Gemini, Halliday has held compliance roles at Circle, Intercontinental Exchange and JPMorgan. Before those roles, he spent 14 years at NatWest.
Curtis Ting, who was previously running Kraken’s UK operations, will now move to a broader role overseeing multiple regions.
Looking ahead, Kraken plans to make more hires across its legal, compliance and operations teams. It also wants to expand to providing a marketplace for trading NFTs (something that other exchanges have struggled with when it comes to attracting market share).
This comes just weeks after Kraken CEO Jesse Powell stepped down and was replaced by former COO David Ripley.
The UK is one of Kraken’s top markets by trading volume. Trading against the pound on crypto exchanges more broadly has also been buoyed in recent weeks, partly due to the collapse of the pound.
Kraken has 3,300 employees with 350 of them based in the UK. It touts more than 10 million traders and institutions.
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