Copper CEO Amar Kuchinad Exits Amid $200 Million Bids for Bitcoin (BTC) Custodian

Copper CEO Departs Mid-Sale

Amar Kuchinad has stepped down as chief executive of crypto custody firm Copper, according to two people familiar with the matter, leaving the digital asset infrastructure company without a named successor as its search for a buyer stretches into a fourth month. Kuchinad took the top job in October 2024, succeeding founder Dmitry Tokarev, after earlier stints at Goldman Sachs and an advisory role with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Neither Copper nor Kuchinad has commented publicly on the exit, and the company has not disclosed a reason, a final working day or an interim leadership arrangement. The departure lands at a sensitive point in the company's history: investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald has been running a sale process since at least May, marketing Copper at a reported $500 million. By August, prospective buyers had emerged with offers near $200 million — $300 million short of the ask and roughly 90% below the valuation the business reached at the peak of the previous market cycle. Founded in 2018, Copper provides custody, collateral management and settlement services for institutional clients, and its ClearLoop network allows trades to be settled with venues such as Coinbase, Bitfinex and Kraken while assets remain under custody, reducing the counterparty exposure institutions take on when pre-funding an exchange. No buyer has been publicly identified, no sale agreement announced, and neither Copper nor Cantor has confirmed the reported figures or said whether the $500 million price tag still stands.

Compliance and Operations Hires Amid Turmoil

Alongside the chief executive's exit, Copper has recently strengthened its senior bench with two appointments announced through the company's official LinkedIn page: Elin Cherry as chief compliance officer and Sean Bowen as chief operating officer. Cherry assumes oversight of compliance while active offers are under consideration, and Bowen takes charge of operations during the same window, though Copper has not said whether either executive will absorb additional duties now that the CEO seat is vacant. Kuchinad's background — markets experience at Goldman Sachs plus time advising the SEC — had positioned Copper with a leader versed in American financial regulation just as custody rules became a central issue for institutional digital asset services, but the available reporting does not establish whether his exit connects to the sale, the valuation or any regulatory matter. The picture on the bid side remains equally opaque: neither the number of bidders, the conditions attached to proposals, nor whether Cantor has revised the asking price has been disclosed, and it is unknown who is leading negotiations or whether the board has named an interim chief. The valuation gap traces back years. During funding discussions in 2021, Copper sought to raise as much as $500 million at a valuation near $2.5 billion, and the company was worth more than $2 billion at its height — meaning even the reported ask is less than a quarter of that level. Without signed terms, the offers in play remain part of an ongoing process rather than a completed transaction. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Gate.

Bank Competition Tightens on Independent Custodians

Read against Copper's own leadership announcements on its official LinkedIn page, the episode is a stress test for the independent institutional custody model. Since December 2025, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has granted conditional national trust bank approvals to Circle, Ripple, Paxos, BitGo and Fidelity Digital Assets — including Ripple, whose cross-border settlement asset XRP anchors its institutional push — and Comptroller Jonathan Gould has said digital asset approval activity rose eightfold under the current administration. COINOTAG's reading: bank entry gives bidders cheaper alternatives, pressuring standalone custodians on price. Unlike a typical bridge protocol moving assets between chains, ClearLoop's off-exchange settlement is precisely the infrastructure banks are now replicating, while retail users lean toward self-custodial options such as Tangem Pay or dapp-based wallets. If bids stay near $200 million, consolidation pressure across the Bitcoin custody market only builds.