Metaco’s CEO Adrian Treccani has confirmed that he is stepping down from his role as the CEO of the Ripple-owned company and leaving the firm after eight years.
Metaco is a Swiss-based company specializing in providing financial institutions with blockchain technology solutions.
Their primary focus is on digital asset management and providing infrastructure for institutional investors to manage cryptocurrencies and digital assets securely.
The company offers solutions such as wallet management, custody services, and integration with existing banking systems to enable financial institutions to participate in the growing digital asset space.
The blockchain custody firm was purchased by Ripple back in May 2023 for $250 million as part of Ripple’s plans to expand its custody service solution.
Reuters reported the news of Treccani leaving the firm on February 12, where it said that Treccani was no longer the CEO of the company he founded in Switzerland in 2015.
His LinkedIn profile showed that he had already left the company in 2023. A spokesperson for Ripple told a news media outlet that the company appreciates Treccani’s services and that his leadership skills in expanding the company’s role towards providing various blockchain-related solutions have been highly valued.
The statement read: “We appreciate the strong and industry-leading custody business that Adrien and his team built, as well as his leadership in integrating the custody team and solution with Ripple following the acquisition last year.”
Metaco has been considered one of the central European banks’ go-to custody solutions services.
Last year, HSBC announced a strategic partnership with Metaco that marked a pivotal step for the banking giants into the digital asset custody arena.
The service was slated to be launched in 2024, and the move was aimed at responding to soaring demand from institutional clients for secure digital asset management.
HSBC expressed that the move aligned with its existing digital asset platform, HSBC Orion, which tokenized physical gold, and the custody service amplified the bank’s digital infrastructure.
However, recent reports suggested that since Ripple took over the company, the financial institutions have expressed reservations and are pondering whether to proceed with this venture.
Their trepidation might stem from the fact that Ripple is currently embroiled in a legal battle with the SEC, and its implications might hurt the banking institution’s goal of expanding its services into various financial sectors.
In December 2020, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) initiated legal action against Ripple, alleging the sale of unregistered securities.
The move sparked widespread attention within the cryptocurrency community, with many closely monitoring its potential implications for digital asset regulation in the U.S. Ripple’s significant impact was that it was delisted from the Coinbase crypto exchange and viewed as a big blow for the XRP token.
Fast forward to July 2023, a federal judge issued a significant ruling in favor of Ripple, granting summary judgment.
The judge determined that XRP, Ripple’s digital token, should only be classified as a security when sold to institutional investors. The move was hailed as a massive victory by the XRP and crypto communities.
The biggest positive gained from this judgment was that Coinbase decided to relist XRP onto their exchange platform, and the crypto community gained confidence that the SEC is not as invincible as they thought it would be when it comes to regulating crypto in a manner that, in the eyes of the crypto enthusiasts seems unnecessarily harsh.
Despite this ruling, the case will proceed to a jury trial in 2024. As of the latest data from CoinMarketcap, XRP was trading at $0.53 at the time of reporting, reflecting ongoing market activity amidst the legal proceedings.
