Archax CEO Graham Rodford on Regulation, Tokenization, and the Future of Digital Markets

Archax CEO Graham Rodford traces the company’s origins to decades in traditional finance. With a background as COO of a hedge fund, Rodford and his co-founders began exploring crypto in 2013. By 2017–2018, they identified two critical trends: many crypto offerings resembled securities requiring regulation, and blockchain technology promised unprecedented efficiency for financial markets.

Rodford envisioned a merger of these worlds. "As an operations guy, I spent years reconciling between prime brokers and administrators. A shared ledger could remove so much friction," he explains. The team recognized that all assets WOULD eventually migrate on-chain—but lacked a credible, regulated counterparty to facilitate this shift. Archax was built to fill that gap.

The company made history in 2020 by becoming the UK’s first regulated digital securities exchange, broker, and custodian—a rare trifecta achieved through its 2019 FCA application. Today, Archax supports everything from unregulated cryptocurrencies to tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), covering the full digital asset lifecycle including issuance, trading, and custody.

With its strong regulatory foundation and global reach, Archax is now bridging TradFi and DeFi, advancing its vision of fully on-chain financial markets.