Custody technology provider Metaco hires former IBM crypto asset specialists | coindesk JAPAN | Coindesk Japan

Crypto asset (virtual currency) custody technology provider Metaco has hired former IBM crypto asset specialist Peter DeMeo. The company has also made several key hires to weather the tough market conditions and prepare itself to drive the next phase of large-scale crypto adoption.

Reliable custody of crypto assets has become a top priority for banks and other financial institutions in recent years. The failures of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, cryptocurrency lending company Celsius Network, and CoinDesk’s sister company Genesis have brought it back into the spotlight.

DeMeo was appointed chief product officer because IBM, where he was head of infrastructure for digital assets, has quietly built bank-level crypto custody and key management technology. IBM has long been well known in the industry for its forays into supply chain applications and more for permissioned blockchains.

But DeMeo explains that Metaco’s gains aren’t necessarily IBM’s losses. The move strengthens the existing partnership between the two companies.

“Metaco has been IBM’s strongest partner in digital assets for years, and now we have the opportunity to work together to take things to the next level. It’s a win-win,” DeMeo said in an interview. ing. “Metaco is agnostic and will of course work with other cloud and hardware providers, so it’s a mutually beneficial relationship, but not an exclusive one.”

Former IBM Lead Architect Angel Nunez Mencias will also join as Chief Customer Officer. Katrin Koller, formerly of Accenture, is on Advisory; Rebecca Aspler, formerly of PayPal and Unbound Security, is on Product; and Mei Powell, from Citi, on Marketing. Li Powell was hired.

“Last year we focused on increasing the size of our team and bringing in as many skilled talent as possible,” CEO Adrien Treccani said in an interview. “The company has tripled in size and will double again this year. Recruitment is primarily in Europe, Southeast Asia and North America, but as our user base grows, we are expanding into more regions. are doing”

Trecani and DeMeo also mentioned the newly created R&D arm, Metaco Labs. Metaco Lab has developed a technology called Multi-Party Computing (MPC) to introduce it into a hardware security module (HSM) that performs all encryption key generation, storage, and cryptographic processing, which is familiar to major banks. He plans to work on cutting-edge technology development.

“We’re going to run MPC in the safest place on earth: hardware security modules,” DeMeo said. “The HSM creates and stores key shards instead of a single key, so these shards cannot create keys outside of the HSM”

Trecani noted that the technology development is in response to clients wanting to know whether they should choose between MPC and HSM solutions. Furthermore, MPC’s complexity leads many users to “absolute disaster” scenarios due to all key shards being stored in the same data center, he added.

“Our customers are large banks and custodians who want complete control over their keys. ,” Trecani said. “In practice, it is clear that the market will converge on the best of both worlds: MPC decentralization and HSM minimization of the attack surface.”

｜Translation: coindesk JAPAN
｜Editing: Toshihiko Inoue
｜Image: Metaco’s management team (Metaco)
｜Original: Crypto Custody Tech Firm Metaco Taps IBM Execs to Revamp Institutional Push