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After nearly two decades at the Bank of England, Chris Mills is helping shape the next era of institutional digital assets at Sage Capital Management.
At LiquidityFinder, we interview professionals across multiple parts of the industry to gain insight into the workings of each sector and also provide clarity on the industry.
First up, we have Chris Mills, Head of Digital Assets at Sage Capital Management, who is a crypto expert and former FX trader for the Bank of England. With an 18 year career at the Bank of England trading FX and money markets, Chris brings deep market expertise to the world of institutional crypto.
As you will see from the interview below, he has a passion for innovation, and is playing a pivotal role in advancing the institutional adoption of cryptocurrencies.
How did you go from the Bank of England to crypto? How did that happen?
It all started during the COVID-19 lockdown. I was saving 2 hours each day by no longer having to commute to work, and I decided to use this time productively. Firstly, I qualified as a Life Coach, which completely changed my outlook in terms of my ambitions in life and my attitude to risk. Secondly, I went down the ‘crypto rabbit hole.’ I did many University blockchain courses and watched hours of videos on YouTube about blockchain and crypto to gain an in-depth understanding.
When I returned to the office full-time, I suggested setting up a market intelligence team for the Bank of England on Crypto. A small team of us wrote analytical notes based on discussions with crypto firms about key areas such as financial stability risks, the growth of stablecoins, and the impact on monetary policy. The reports were very well received across the MPC and by senior colleagues.
As the world started to unlock post Covid, I went to all the different crypto events to gain further market insight and a greater understanding about who the innovators were, what trad-fi institutions were planning to do in the crypto space, and how the institutional crypto market was going to evolve. I enjoyed building my network, was excited by this new asset class, and I wanted to be part of shaping the institutional crypto market from an early stage. I took my time to assess the opportunities out there before taking the leap to join JB Drax Honore and leave the Bank of England after almost two decades.
What led you to the role at Sage Capital Management?
I had three great years building the crypto desk at JB Drax Honore before joining Sage Capital Management earlier this year. Sage Capital Management was a client of mine and I loved the depth of conversations that I had with Nathan Sage (the firm’s CEO) and his team about liquidity, pricing, connectivity and all things trading.
Nathan offered me an incredible opportunity to help him to build Sage Capital Management into the most trusted, dynamic, institutional crypto prime broker. It is the breadth of the role, pace of innovation, and the vision of the company that attracted me to Sage Capital Management..
As Head of Digital Assets, I am responsible for driving the firm’s continued growth and global expansion. It is a multi-faceted role which covers all aspects of running a prime broker including liquidity provision, borrowing, lending, settlement, regulation, infrastructure, banking, marketing.. and more!
What are your thoughts on the development of the institutional crypto space?
It is growing at a huge pace and is now an asset class that is too big to be ignored. The biggest asset managers in the world are active in the crypto space in some way – and if institutions don’t adopt it, they really will fall behind. It is so much more than just buying and selling Bitcoin. At its core, it’s about understanding how the technology and digital assets can improve processes, efficiency and velocity of business.
The trading infrastructure is evolving rapidly but there is more maturing that needs to happen. In many ways, it is similar to the FX markets of old, when the infrastructure wasn’t as developed as it is now. The crypto world is similar in some ways, but is evolving at a pace far quicker.
Crypto trading undoubtedly delivers an alpha generation opportunity. However, because of the fragmentation, it can be a market that is difficult to access and optimise performance. Sage Capital Management has addressed this by making it easy for large institutions to access crypto markets via one onboarding to our heavily regulated gateway. Through a single API, hedge funds, brokers and family offices can access highly curated liquidity pools from over 40 liquidity providers and venues across spot, perps, CFDs, options and lending. No client will ever use them all and each venue has its own nuance and its own edge. Our role is to understand both sides, the client’s strategy and the venue’s strength, and connect them in ways that drive profitability. This creates value for our clients as well as for our venue partners, building stronger and more profitable relationships across the whole supply chain.
With that at our core, this has led to an explosion of interest in our prime brokerage services from many large institutions.
What is it about crypto that you personally like?
The trader in me likes crypto because it's a similar asset class to FX. The conversations that I would have when I was an FX trader at the Bank of England about liquidity provision, latency, best execution and last look are very similar to those that I discuss in the institutional crypto world at Sage Capital Management. Being able to use that experience working in a central bank and trading FX to play a role in shaping the institutional adoption of this asset class has been extremely rewarding.
Secondly, I became a little disillusioned with the way that the policy makers and politicians were handling the economy. When I became more informed about the benefits of cryptos - such as decentralisation, the transparency, the peer-to-peer exchange of value - I felt it was the way that the financial world should evolve.
Thirdly, and probably most importantly, is the pace of innovation. Things that would have taken me 2 years to introduce at the Bank of England take 2 days at Sage Capital Management. It's incredibly motivating to work at that pace.
How has your experience at the Bank of England shaped your crypto experience?
My experience at the Bank of England has been hugely influential in everything I’ve done in the crypto markets. Working in the front office at the Bank of England not only taught me about trading but also instilled in me the importance of ethics, best practice, and the absolute need to maintain high standards.
Hence, they are the only principles I know when working in crypto markets.
What aspect of institutional adoption of crypto do you find most interesting right now?
It will be interesting to see how the investment banks approach crypto. It’s the biggest kept secret that the “banks are coming”; many of them have been building in the background for a long time - more so on their own blockchains etc. I'm interested to see which ones take the biggest plunge to try and maintain a first mover advantage from a trading perspective.
Tell me about the London Crypto Club
London Crypto Club is a social media brand that focuses on networking and education on macro and crypto markets. I set up London Crypto Club when I left the Bank of England as I wanted to create a brand that people could trust. There were some bad actors and poor content creators that were not acting in the best interests of the people they were producing content for, so I wanted to change that in my own small way. We produce daily market commentary via our X account and write a free weekly newsletter on Substack focusing on macro and the key crypto developments. We have grown our global following to over 23,000 people on X and over 4,200 on Substack.
What made you launch Next Generation?
Next Generation is a career-focused social network for 18–25 year-olds. This is an initiative that I set up because I have always wanted to do something meaningful for young people in the UK.
The aim is to connect them with job opportunities, internships and real conversations with finance professionals and entrepreneurs. There are so many opportunities in the crypto world so we want to bring them to the young people of the UK.
We have recently held the launch event for Next Generation and it was a huge success. The feedback from the young people has been very positive, but just as pleasing has been the support from senior people across the finance and crypto industries that expressed their desire to help.
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