Barclays to pour ‘millions of dollars’ into crypto firm copper
Barclays is investing in Copper, one of the most recognizable companies in the rapidly changing cryptocurrency market, even as the sector continues to be rocked by a series of defaults and insolvencies.
Sky News reports that Barclays has joined the list of notable financiers backing Copper’s $2 billion investment round.
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Big supporters of crypto
According to the report, Barclays is committing to a “small sum in the millions of dollars” in the current funding round for the cryptocurrency company.
Ex-chancellor Philip Hammond is one of the advisers to cryptocurrency firm Copper, which offers custody, premium brokerage and settlement services to investment firms, according to the report.
Image: CryptoNinjas
Dmitry Tokarev launched the company in 2018 and has attracted investors including MMC Ventures, LocalGlobe and Dawn Capital, among others.
Copper recently faced a gridlock as a result of the Financial Conduct Authority’s regulation requiring crypto asset service providers to apply for temporary certification to continue trading following its establishment in the crypto-friendly Swiss region of Zug and its partnership with State Street.
Barclays, the first UK bank to support Bitcoin
The investment round ends more than nine months of delays in the company’s $500 million Series C funding round, in which Copper had hoped to achieve a $3 billion valuation. This amount has been cut to $2 billion due to the dwindling cryptocurrency industry and waning investor enthusiasm.
Sophie Arnold, head of communications for Copper, was quoted by Bloomberg News as saying on WhatsApp:
“As the funding round is ongoing, we cannot comment on this report,”
In 2015, Barclays was the first UK lender to back crypto, specifically Bitcoin (BTC), by convincing charities to accept the emerging asset class as donations.
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BTC total market cap at $417 billion on the daily chart | Source: TradingView.com
The British love of crypto
According to research by Finder, 6 percent of Britons currently hold cryptocurrencies (as of March this year). Nevertheless, this figure is lower compared to the world average of 15.5%.
About 8.4% of men in the UK hold cryptocurrency, compared to 3.9% of women. 68 percent of crypto owners in the UK are men, while 32 percent are women.
Around 20% of Britons had previously bought cryptocurrencies, the Finder survey shows. Since 2018, when only 3% of the population had Bitcoin, this indicates a 103 percent growth in the number of people who had previously acquired crypto.
Barclays is one of the largest banks in the UK, with total assets of more than $1.5 trillion last year. Its involvement in the crypto business so far is limited to a July 2021 decision to prevent users from using their cards to make purchases on Binance.
Featured image from ACFCS, chart from TradingView.com
