Get a demoExplore data

Copper’s Barber: Traditional Financial Players Want to See Regulation in Crypto

Traditional financial players are very accustomed to following strict regulatory guidelines and digital assets pose a challenge, according to Copper’s Barber.

article-image

Glenn Barber, Copper.co, (center) at DAS NYC 2021; Photo by Mike Lawrence

share
  • Glenn Barber recently joined Copper from the traditional financial space
  • Traditional players that are looking to get involved in crypto will probably feel more comfortable with more defined regulations, he said

Glenn Barber, head of sales in the Americas at Copper, sat down with Blockworks during the New York Digital Assets Summit to discuss the state of the cryptocurrency industry and how companies are staying ahead. 

“I’ve found that things move really quickly,” Barber said, speaking about changes in the space. 

“Firms that want to be successful in crypto really do have to say ‘okay, what does the market cycle look like, how are we going to deliver that,’ and that is a big responsibility.” 

Barber started his role in August 2021 after a career in traditional finance. Cryptocurrencies can be intimidating for investors and institutions that are accustomed to strict regulations and protocols. 

“One of the evolving themes of traditional financial players getting into the space is the question of how to maintain fiduciary responsibility,” he said. “I think people from this space not take for granted, but are just so used to the embedded layers of investor protection that the various regulatory regimes over decades have put into place.” 

Newcomers into space are concerned about security and serving clients the best they can and regulatory measures will hopefully help traditional financial players feel more comfortable entering the digital asset space, Barber said. 

Watch the full interview below and all of the panel videos from DAS here. 


Are you a UK or EU reader that can’t get enough investor-focused content on digital assets? Join us in London on November 15th and 16th for the Digital Asset Summit (DAS) London. Use code ARTICLE for £75 off your ticket. Buy it now.


Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Marina Bay Sands Singapore

October 7, 2026

DAS Asia is a a single-day summit at Marina Bay Sands Singapore featuring conversations between the builders, investors, and global leaders are shaping the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in Asia & North America.

Hilton Park Lane, London

November 10-11, 2026

DAS London is a two-day summit at the Hilton Park Lane in London featuring conversations between the builders, allocators, and policy makers who are shaping the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the UK, Europe, and North America.

Javits North

March 30-April 1, 2027

DAS NYC is a three-day summit at Javits North bringing together the builders, allocators, and policymakers shaping the future of digital assets across institutional finance and global markets.

recent research

Sponsored Article Template - DoubleZero White.png

Research

Every distributed system inherits the physical limitations, or advantages, of the network it runs on. Physics-bound systems can optimize their execution layers, compress their state, and parallelize their runtime, and still lose time they cannot recover to the speed of light through fiber and the routing decisions of carriers that are not optimized for consensus. The public internet routes traffic by least cost, not best performance. For a system where the order and timing of messages determine who earns and who loses, that is a structural tax and a measurable networking design flaw for traders.

The daily brief, in your inbox

Markets, protocols, and policy, read by 200K+ professionals.

Blockworks Inc.133 W 19th St., New York, NY 10011

Solutions

InvestorsExchangesEnterprisesOnchain Businesses

© 2026 Blockworks Inc.

TermsPrivacy PolicyPrivacy CenterNews Archive