San Francisco-based digital currency exchange Kraken has brought in Edward Stadum as general counsel. Stadum, who previous worked with Kraken’s Munich-based banking partner Fidor Bank, will be in charge of Kraken’s legal matters in the US and abroad.
Bitcoin-friendly Fidor Bank was one of the first European financial institutions to open its doors to digital currency and blockchain-based startups. In 2015, Fidor partnered with German cryptocurrency exchagne Bitcoin.de, and began providing fiat-to-crypto services and €100,000 deposit guarantees to all clients of the exchange.
According to a CoinDesk report, Edward Stadum acted as US general counsel for Fidor and his legal expertise will be invaluable to Kraken’s efforts to expands its presence within the US.
Stadum told CoinDesk:
“There’s a very important working relationship that involved Fidor providing banking account support to Kraken customers in the EU. And that’s important business for them both.”
The rapid proliferation of bitcoin ransomware has created many victims who have attempted to obtain bitcoin through various online exchanges. Mr Stadum revealed that many of these ransomware victims have been denied service due the potential legal risks posed by such transactions, “A request came into us just today from someone who said he needed bitcoin to pay ransomware and he’s gone to several exchanges and been denied,” said Stadum.
One of Stadum’s first priorities will be to look into the legal ramifications for Kraken, which has received many requests from ransomware victims:
“This is something that’s coming at us right now and is a perfect example of what I’ll be doing as the general counsel.”
Kraken CEO Jesse Powell explained that Edward Stadum decided to join Kraken following an audit of the exchange, “In fact, having a window into how things work at Kraken made him even more interested in joining our exchange.” said Powell.
Edward Stadum isn’t the only former Fidor Bank employee to join a digital currency/blockchain firm. Thomas Labenbacher, who was an executive at Fidor, recently joined Singapore-based blockchain investment fund Life.SREDA.
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