Alex Grebnev, CEO and founder of Oxygen, and the firm’s co-founder and COO, Alex Melikhov, have been visiting Gibraltar on business in relation to the establishment of their DLT venture here. While in Gibraltar, they met with Minister for Commerce, Mr Albert Isola. The meeting provided an excellent opportunity to discuss the exciting plans for the development of the Oxygen project and the support provided by HM Government of Gibraltar for this new and burgeoning industry.
The visit to Gibraltar also included a scheduled meeting with the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission, as Oxygen is already in the advanced stages of applying for a license in Gibraltar under the DLT Regulatory Framework, with the GFSC applying its robust scrutiny on the company and its proposals. Accompanying Mr Grebnev and Mr Melikhov at the meeting with the meeting was Olena Clayton together with Patricia Risso and Karan Aswani both of Gibraltar law firm Isola’s LLP as was Gibraltar Finance’s Senior Executive, Paul Astengo.
Alex Grebnev worked at Goldman Sachs for almost a decade in various roles in equities and derivatives structuring before joining Merrill Lynch. He is also working with an existing cryptocurrency exchange called Changelly. He plans to launch a platform, Oxygen, for digital currencies later in 2018 that will allow private or institutional investors to strike so-called repurchase agreements (repos) with one another.
Oxygen will provide an opportunity for investors to generate revenue by lending out their crypto assets, raise liquidity against them or borrow crypto assets to go short. It will initially target Changelly’s existing 2 million clients on the B2C side and leading OTC desks, crypto exchanges and market-makers on the B2B side.
Quoted on the firm’s website, Alex Grebnev said, “Operating under the legislative framework of Gibraltar means giving our customers peace of mind. They can be assured that Oxygen has capital adequacy, a sound business plan and strategy, as well as controls and systems enabling us to look after our clients.”
Of Gibraltar’s regulatory process, Grebnev added: “The requirements of the GFSC are rigorous. We are happy to go through the entire process to provide our customers with the confidence that Oxygen can be trusted. Our technology, business, operational, financial and risk management functions are well thought through. Regulation helps confirm the standard.”
