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This week
Leadership is moving in Nordic crypto. Gustav Buder left Bybit to run Goobit and BTCX, and Bybit's marketing director is leaving too. H100 brought in Peter Warren as chief investment officer, and named a new chief executive in the same week.
In Denmark, the Nordic Blockchain Association has taken the Danish FSA to the Parliamentary Ombudsman over its handling of MiCA applications.
First, though: our pre-event for Blockathon Stockholm is on Thursday, and more than 100 have signed up.
Morten
Founder & Editor, KauprBlockathon Stockholm pre-event 1 - 20th of August
More than 100 signed up for Thursday's pre-event
The first virtual pre-event for Blockathon Stockholm takes place on Thursday 20 August, 11:00–12:30 CET. More than 100 people have signed up so far.
Fati Hakim, founder of FirstBlock, takes the theme the event was built around: blockchain beyond finance. This is where the challenges get explained rather than asserted — what teams are actually expected to build. Free, online, hosted by Kaupr.
Leadership changes in Goobit / BTCX and Bybit
Gustav Buder leaves Bybit to lead Goobit and BTCX
Gustav Buder became chief executive of Goobit Group and its bitcoin exchange BTCX on 15 August. He joins from Bybit, where he was Nordic Market Lead, built a dedicated Nordic team and positioned Bybit EU and the company's payment card in the region.
Gustav Buder, new CEO in Goobit / BTCX. Photo: BTCX.
The mandate
Goobit describes it as taking the business into its next phase, with an emphasis on product development, regulatory maturity and growth in the Nordic market for digital assets. Christian Ander, who returned as chief executive in February 2022, is proposed as the new chair of the board.
The licence case is unresolved
Finansinspektionen rejected Goobit's MiCA application on 2 July, citing deficient internal control and weaknesses in its risk assessment against money laundering and terrorist financing. The company appealed, the regulator upheld the rejection, and the case now sits with Förvaltningsrätten in Stockholm. BTCX may continue operating while the appeal is heard, but only in Sweden.
More changes in Bybit in the Nordics
David Leeb leaving Bybit
David Loeb, marketing director, is also leaving Bybit. He spent the past year building the company's Nordic business, including the title sponsorship of the Bybit Stockholm Open, and names Buder, Tyra Holmberg and Jan Rasmus Platou as the team he worked with.
The most visible piece of that year was the title sponsorship of the Bybit Stockholm Open. Loeb also points to the pace of the industry and the acceleration around productivity and AI as a lesson in speed and adaptability he takes with him.
He has not said where he is going next.
Here you can read Loeb’s Linkedin post on Monday.
New country manager in Bybit Nordics
Bybit EU yesterday informed Kaupr that “we assigned a new country manager now”, but have not yet announced who it is.
How the Nordic team was built
In February, Bybit stepped up its Nordic expansion with a new growth and relations team under Buder's leadership. Leeb came in as Marketing & Growth Leader from the role of chief marketing officer at Swedish Safello, and Jan Platou as relationship manager for the region from the role of head of sales at Norwegian K33.
At the time we noted that this was a relatively new pattern in Nordic crypto: players sourcing key people directly from competitors in the industry, rather than from traditional finance. A dedicated Nordic marketing team was built around Leeb and Platou.
Listed companies bring in hedge fund managers
Peter Warren to trade options on H100 bitcoin holdings
Peter Warren becomes chief investment officer at H100, where he will trade options and other derivatives on the company's bitcoin holdings. He has more than 45 years in global capital markets as trader, market maker, fund manager and chief investment officer.
Seven out of ten bitcoin were already his to manage
Before H100 completed its recent acquisition, Warren managed around 2,450 bitcoin through Moonshot AS and its subsidiary PDI AS. With the acquisition completed, total holdings are 3,506 bitcoin — so he takes investment responsibility for a balance sheet on which he already managed roughly seven out of ten bitcoin.
The mandate
The company says he will lead the continued development of its derivative investments and risk management, through the active management conducted in PDI AS. The aim is additional cash flow while limiting downside risk and retaining exposure to bitcoin.
Nordic listed companies hire hedge fund veterans to manage bitcoin
Warren is the second. Eighteen months earlier, Sweden's Hilbert Group made Russell Thompson chief investment officer with responsibility for active, quantitative management. Both were handed a mandate written in the language of a hedge fund manager rather than a bitcoin investor: risk management, cash flow, limited downside.
Acquisition as a hiring method
Neither was recruited in the conventional way. Thompson's own firm, Liberty Road Capital, was folded into Hilbert in March 2025. Warren arrived through H100's acquisition of Moonshot AS. In both cases more than a person came along — with the firms came the strategies and the developer teams that build the trading systems.
Same instruments, different set of accounts
Thompson has been clear that Hilbert is not a company that accumulates bitcoin on its own balance sheet in the hope of price appreciation. Hilbert manages money on behalf of external investors, and his job, as he puts it, is to manage risk and generate alpha.
Eirik Grøttum becomes CEO of H100
Eirik Grøttum takes over as chief executive of H100 with immediate effect, coming from the role of CEO at Moonshot AS. He has a background in technology, systematic trading and asset management, including as portfolio manager at SQA Asset Management.
People on the move
Anton Vajk takes over the operational work at Blockchain Sweden, succeeding Zarina Björklund Rehn. He founded Access Pass and was a member of the organisation before stepping into it.
Marvel Skreien Stigen becomes Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer at Finance Innovation on 1 September. She comes from Compact Food Solutions, and has more than 20 years in strategy, commercial leadership and innovation, including eight years at Sparebanken Vest.
Mats Persson Bergius becomes CEO of Zinova, the Swedish credit institution for small and medium-sized businesses, on 2 September. He comes from Marginalen Bank, and was Sweden head of Lunar Bank before that.
Morten Rongaard has started as founder of a stealth mode B2B fintech startup in Copenhagen, building an API-first platform for banks and financial institutions around payment experiences.
Denmark’s MiCA process goes to the Ombudsman
Nordic Blockchain Association takes Denmark's FSA to the Ombudsman
The Danish crypto industry has filed a formal complaint with the Danish Parliamentary Ombudsman over the Danish FSA's handling of MiCA applications. Nordic Blockchain Association accuses the regulator of systematically exceeding the statutory deadlines, and criticises long periods of silence, unanswered enquiries and a lack of information to the companies waiting for a decision.
"They have broken EU law in every example we know of," says chair Jakob Hansen to FinansWatch. "We do not know of a single example where they met the deadline."
Jakob Mikkel Hansen, CEO in Nordic Blockchain Association. Photo: Morten Brun / Kaupr
556 days for one application
Under MiCA the regulator has 85 working days from receipt of an application to reach a decision. The fastest Danish authorisation was issued after around eight months — at least 160 working days. Januar waited 556 calendar days, which the association puts at a minimum of 397 working days, nearly five times the deadline.
The regulator disagrees on how the deadline is counted
The Danish FSA has received 25 applications and issued seven authorisations. It acknowledges that some applications have taken longer than desired, pointing to MiCA being a new and extensive framework in an area with significant money laundering risk, and says it has needed to obtain further material from applicants. It disagrees with the association's reading of the deadlines, arguing that the 85 days cannot be counted from a company's first submission, since the rules first require an assessment of whether the application is complete.
Professor: it is unlawful
Sten Bønsing, professor of administrative law at Aalborg University, has reviewed the relevant provisions and concludes that the regulator has breached the EU rules. He also considers the lack of information to the companies open to criticism, but notes that Danish practice offers few consequences for exceeding case handling times.
The association wants the Ombudsman to require the FSA to account for each individual application. The Ombudsman has not yet decided whether the complaint will lead to an investigation.
Read on FinansWatch → In Danish
Industry notes
Bitwise expands in Europe via Swedish Alfakraft — The US crypto asset manager, with more than $11 billion in client assets, brings in Alfakraft Fonder as a partner to build regulated digital asset products for institutional investors. The products will be structured as funds in Luxembourg, aimed at pension funds, insurers and foundations. Read more →
Swedish bitcoin treasury firm pays Europe's first bitcoin dividend — Bitcoin Treasury Capital pays one Swedish krona per preference share on 19 August, the first monthly instalment of a fixed 10 percent annual yield. The company has not borrowed to fund its bitcoin purchases, unlike Strategy. Read more →
Entravel Group raises $7.5m — The Danish company runs hotel booking for Kraken, MetaMask, KuCoin and more than 40 other platforms, reaching 300 million users. It now takes what it learned in crypto into traditional travel and consumer platforms. Investors include Finality Capital, Ethereal Ventures and GSR Ventures. Read more →
Tesseract opens a Base vault on 24 August — The Finnish MiCA-authorised CASP opens a dedicated vault for cbETH on Base, running an optimised looping strategy. Onboarding is open. Tesseract notes that capital is at risk and that the vault is not available to residents of the US or UK. Read more →
Gateway positions itself around sovereign onchain finance — The company, originally founded in Norway and now serving international markets, has relaunched its website around a single idea: infrastructure and a partner ecosystem for institutional onchain financial systems. Protocol infrastructure, deployment environments, privacy, interoperability, insurance and production operations in one platform. Read more →
Ammy Edberg on the Nordic mandate — Known in the bitcoin community as BTChick, the new general manager for Sweden and the Nordics at Bitcoin Suisse (Europe) declines to speculate on price, and points instead to advisers approaching her because their clients are asking. Her mandate is to build long-term relationships with private and institutional clients, family offices and strategic partners across the region. Read more → In Swedish
Hilbert opens bitcoin fund for deposits onchain — Hilbert Group has opened deposits for its BTC Basis+ fund on the Syntetika platform. It is the first time a strategy managed by the Swedish company can be held onchain, priced at an independently verified value. Read more →
Neuro is technical partner to W Social — The Swedish company's CEO Tommy Andorff ran an onboarding session for W Social at Tagesschau in Hamburg, Germany's most-watched daily news programme. W Social is a European social platform built on verified users, still invite-only, with a full public release planned for early next year. Read more →
Inventi becomes the first Swift Business Connect provider in the Baltics — The Lithuanian payments infrastructure company now offers banks and licensed financial institutions access to SEPA, TARGET and Swift through a single integration, rather than a separate stack for each. Read more →
Events - recently and going forward
The payments duel at Arendalsuka — recording available
The payments duel Hosted by Stø, the company behind BankAxept, on Wednesday, with Norges Bank, Visa, Nets, Nordea and Revolut on the programme. One of the highlights, as usual, was a duel between Torbjørn Bull Jenssen of K33 and Robert Næss of Nordea.
Coming up
Blockchain Sweden valkompass results 2026 — Stockholm, Thursday 27 August, 17:00–20:00, Peter Myndes backe 16. Together with Firi. Private event, approval from the organiser required. https://luma.com/dcdr0dfq
Blockchain Sweden and SIS, lunch webinar — Online and free, 1 September, 12:00–12:30. The Swedish Institute for Standards on how a working group or committee in the blockchain field could be set up. https://luma.com/g1eo3onc
FirstBlock-athon Hack Day — Stockholm, 7 September. https://luma.com/FirstBlock-athon
AI x Blockchain Summit — KTH Arenan, Stockholm, 11 September. https://luma.com/ai-blockchain-summit
European Blockchain Convention — Barcelona, 16–17 September. https://eblockchainconvention.com/
BTCHEL — Helsinki, 25–26 September. https://btchel.com/
UN:BLOCK Fintech Forum — Riga, 15 October. https://ti.to/unblock/fintech
From Onchain Build
We keep publishing web articles on our Onchain Build pages, which are not sent out as a newsletter. Right now much of it is the run-up to the blockathon in Stockholm in September — agendas, challenges, partners, jury members. Below is a small selection. Read everything here →
The jury takes shape Two jury members have been named so far, both from the humanitarian sector. Arun Maharajan, blockchain lead at UNICEF, works on applying frontier technologies to digital public goods. Melanie Rideout, AI strategist at the Swedish Red Cross, leads the organisation's AI work across climate, health and crisis response. Arun Maharajan → · Melanie Rideout →
The partners so far Neuro and Sullis as technology partners. Hundstallet, AI-Institutet, BloXcel, Netlight and KTH are among the ecosystem partners. https://onchain.kaupr.io/build
A full day on AI, blockchain and what gets built with them AI Institutet is hosting a full-day summit at KTH Arenan on 11 September, together with KTH and FirstBlock. Research and governance in the morning, deterministic AI in the afternoon, leading into the showcase where the week's solutions are evaluated. Read more →
Explore Onchain by Kaupr
Thanks for reading the fourth edition of Onchain Growth.
We're here to follow the industry and community driving onchain finance forward across the Nordics and Baltics — and we're just getting started.
Morten Founder & Editor, Kaupr