Thomas Felber Advisory

Regulated digital assets · Independent advisor

Digital-asset infrastructure that holds up in front of the regulator.

I help banks, brokers, exchanges and custodians design, build and de-risk the infrastructure behind regulated digital assets. I have done this twice as the person in charge: the digital-assets business of Tradu (FXCM), a Jefferies-backed broker, and the regulated exchange SMART VALOR. Now I do it as an independent advisor.

Start with a review See the track record
Thomas Felber
  • Custody & asset segregation
  • Client money
  • Settlement & reconciliation
  • Treasury & capital
  • Spot & derivatives
  • Licensing & controls

Approach

The gap most teams underestimate

There is a wide distance between crypto that works in a demo and infrastructure that holds up in front of a regulator, an auditor, a real incident, and an acquirer's due diligence.

I have closed that gap twice, end to end, as the person accountable for product and technology. Most builds do not fail in one function. They fail between custody, trading, settlement, treasury and compliance. That is where I work. Because I understand both the product and the regimes it runs under, I can assess a process and straighten it out with your team. The output is a working process, not a document.

Services

Start with an independent review

Infrastructure review: fixed scope, fixed fee

A review of an existing or planned build across custody and asset segregation, client money, trading and settlement in spot and derivatives, reconciliation, treasury and capital usage, and the compliance controls around them. I look at the processes as much as the systems: how deposits, withdrawals, settlement and reconciliation actually run, and whether they fit the regime you are licensed under. The question is simple: where does it break in front of a regulator, in a real incident or in due diligence, and what has to be fixed first.

  • Scope and fee are fixed before we start.
  • Usually four to six weeks end to end, remote: kickoff, the documents you already have, interviews with technology, operations, treasury and compliance, then the findings. My effort is fixed; the pace depends on how quickly your side can make people and documents available.
  • Result: what breaks, what to fix first and how, worked through with your team in one session. The written version is a few pages, not a hundred.
  • No dependency afterwards. You can fix it with your own team, with anyone else, or with me.

Ask for a review

Further services

Architecture & build

Custody, asset segregation and client-money flows, liquidity, settlement and order management for spot and derivatives, designed as one audit-ready platform. Compliance is part of the architecture from day one, not added at the end.

Regulatory & licensing

Practical guidance on MiCA and DORA, AML and the Travel Rule, and on licensing with the Liechtenstein FMA, CySEC in Cyprus and the Seychelles FSA under the new VASP regime. I have taken platforms through licensing myself.

Fractional leadership

Interim CTO or Head of Product for a build phase, with a planned handover to your own team at the end. You get the senior capacity for the phase, not a permanent hire.

Not a fit: token launches, DeFi protocols and unregulated offshore venues.

Track record

Built, licensed and launched, twice

  • 20+ years across technology and finance; since 2018 focused on regulated trading and custody platforms.
  • Built and launched the digital-assets business of Tradu, a Jefferies-backed institutional broker, to production in around ten months and live across three jurisdictions (EU, Seychelles, Australia).
  • Head of Product and CTO at SMART VALOR, a regulated exchange under the Liechtenstein/FMA framework, from startup through to a listed company, with an active base of around 65,000 clients.
  • Structured deposit, withdrawal and product flows around CySEC client-money rules and TVTG asset segregation in Liechtenstein, in a form that Treasury Operations could run day to day.
  • Built crypto perpetuals at Tradu next to the running CFD business, with capital efficiency as a design goal: how capital and assets are placed with clients, liquidity partners and custodians decides whether a platform earns money or ties up far more capital than it needs.
  • Hands-on depth in MPC custody (Fireblocks), liquidity aggregation, deterministic settlement, DORA and financial-crime controls.
  • Automated real-time reconciliation across custody, trading and treasury: books that are audit-ready every day, not only at month end.
  • Diplom-Informatiker. Earlier: co-founder and managing director of a software house, through to a successful exit.

I work with institutional finance and crypto-native firms alike: banks entering digital assets, brokers, exchanges, custodians and the fintechs that serve them, across the UK, EU and Switzerland.

References

In their words

Thomas is a rare blend of strategic architect and operator. He didn’t just manage our Digital Assets roadmap; he defined our multi-jurisdictional operating model.

Brendan CallanCEO, FXCM

Thomas builds for scale. He understood that a trading platform is only as good as its back office, so he drove efforts to automate our settlement and reconciliation flows before volumes hit.

Ezra WeygantManaging Director Retail Operations, FXCM

He successfully managed a complex hybrid stack, maximizing our white-label provider capabilities while architecting independent, high-grade custody and liquidity layers. He speaks the language of engineering and drives systems that actually scale.

Paul SutherlandCIO, FXCM

Excerpts from LinkedIn recommendations, quoted as written. Roles as at the time we worked together.

Contact

How to start

Send me a short note: what you are building, or what worries you about a build you already have. I answer every message myself, usually within two working days. The first call is free of charge and ends with a straight answer: whether I can help, and in what form.

thomas@felberadvisory.com