Bitcoin Pioneer Adam Back Urges Crypto Industry to Separate Custody From Exchanges

The Bitcoin industry should adopt safeguards long established in traditional financial markets to better protect investors, according to Adam Back, who said the crypto sector continues to repeat historical market failures and patterns of fraud.

Speaking at BTC Prague 2026, Back said one of the industry's biggest shortcomings is the lack of separation between asset custody and cryptocurrency exchanges. He argued that keeping those functions separate would allow customers to recover their holdings if an exchange fails, rather than having their assets tied up in bankruptcy proceedings.

Back said the industry has yet to fully implement lessons from previous cryptocurrency exchange failures, adding that incidents similar to FTX and Mt. Gox continue to occur despite the availability of established risk-management practices in traditional finance.

Source: BTC Prague