A digital asset business needs the same governance disciplines as any financial business, applied to its particular risks: custody and private-key controls, authority over asset movements, exchange and counterparty limits, liquidity and leverage policy, valuation of illiquid tokens, treasury, sanctions and AML screening, cyber resilience, and oversight of outsourced providers. Mount Sage provides independent directors who already understand these mechanics, so the board can focus on informed, proportionate oversight.
The Governance Questions That Actually Matter
Where assets are held, who can move them, multi-signature and approval thresholds, key-person dependency and recovery.
Venue selection and concentration, exchange counterparty exposure, unencumbered balances, and what happens if a venue fails.
Lending and borrowing counterparties, collateral, rehypothecation, redemption liquidity against on-chain and venue liquidity.
Perpetual swaps, funding rates, margin and liquidation mechanics, and whether the risk framework reflects them.
Pricing illiquid tokens, locked and vesting positions, stablecoin and fiat treasury, and the independence of the mark.
Wallet screening, travel-rule readiness, sanctions exposure on-chain, incident response and operational resilience.
Why Experience Changes the Outcome
Institutionalising governance at a young digital-asset business is a pacing problem. Too slow and investors, counterparties and service providers lose confidence; too fast and controls obstruct the business before it has revenue to justify them. Directors who have watched both failure modes can calibrate — asking founders and managers the right questions, separating genuine operational issues from theoretical concerns, and building the control environment in the order that matters.
Christian Thompson brings direct oversight of crypto-focused hedge funds and their infrastructure; Sjoerd Koster brings board experience of regulated digital asset execution platforms and a bank general manager’s approach to custody, counterparty and AML risk.
Frequently Asked Questions
The same disciplines as any financial business, applied to a different balance sheet: documented custody and private-key controls, defined authority for moving assets, counterparty and exchange exposure limits, liquidity and leverage policy, a valuation approach for illiquid tokens, treasury management, sanctions and AML screening, cyber and operational-resilience arrangements, and oversight of outsourced providers. The board’s job is to ensure each exists, is proportionate and is actually followed.
Yes. Mount Sage accepts appointments to VASP entities, digital asset funds, Web3 foundations, token issuers and custody platforms where a genuine governance role is performed. Both directors have board-level experience of regulated digital asset execution platforms and crypto-focused funds.
Because a board that has to be taught how a perpetual swap works, or what a multi-signature wallet policy is, cannot oversee either. Directors who already understand execution, custody and counterparty mechanics move straight to the questions that matter, and can distinguish a genuine operational risk from a theoretical one.