EU regulator hires Ledger’s Nivot to oversee new crypto rules

The European Securities and Markets Authority hired the policy officer from the crypto hardware wallet firm Ledger.

Paris-based Julien Nivot, who led Ledger’s regulatory affairs over the last year, is joining the European Union’s financial regulator in the French capital.

Nivot’s job switch comes at a time where ESMA will need crypto expertise the most. Over the coming 12 to 18 months, the regulator will finalise the landmark Markets in Crypto-Assets legislation by drafting up its implementation rules.

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For example, ESMA will need to outline governance requirements for firms offering crypto services to European citizens, market abuse provisions, and how information will be exchanged between them and national competent authorities.

The new ESMA policy officer leaves behind the cold wallet manufacturer in the midst of controversy

The regulator will also need to keep building up its capacity to take on its new supervisory role for crypto issuers and service providers.

According to Nivot’s post on LinkedIn, he is starting his new gig with work on MiCA as well as the DLT Pilot — a regulatory sandbox for market players to experiment with tokenised financial instruments.

Before working at Ledger, Nivot spent four years with the French financial authority, the AMF, as a fintech, innovation, and competitiveness policy officer.

The new ESMA policy officer leaves behind the cold wallet manufacturer in the midst of controversy as it faces scrutiny for a recent update botching up its promise of security.

In May, Ledger was criticised for a new software feature which allows other devices to send coded parts of users’ seed phrases — a password that gives users ownership of their funds — to others as a way to back it up.

In response to the backlash, Ledger decided to pause its recovery feature and make sure the code is open source.