Crypto Custody Firm Copper Shelves Enterprise Business: Source

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London-based cryptocurrency custody firm Copper has given up its enterprise business, a software and infrastructure development side of the firm, a source close to the company told CoinDesk. The news was later confirmed in a post from the company.

The reasoning was that focusing on Copper’s Clear Loop custody and settlement business made more economic sense going forward.

Copper's enterprise division was focused on securing digital asset custody and infrastructure solutions for banks and funds. There will be some job losses on Copper's enterprise business, but it's too early to say how many people will be affected, according to the source.

"Given the present challenging conditions in the digital assets space, an uncertain US regulatory environment and a desire to focus on strategic offerings, Copper is streamlining its business, and as a result has announced a redundancy process," Copper said in a statement.

Copper was alerted to a security issue in December of last year involving the company’s GitHub repository, which contains a blueprint for how the firm secures customers’ assets. At the time, a source told CoinDesk the firm’s “entire code base was made vulnerable and downloaded.”

Copper, whose chairman is former U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond, is one of the leading crypto custody providers, securing billions of dollars in digital assets using clever key sharding technology called multi-party computation (MPC), and working with well-known firms such as State Street.

State Street did not immediately return requests for comment.

Will Canny contributed reporting.

UPDATE (March 15, 16:03 UTC): Updated to include confirmation from the company and quote from its post.