Hugh Karp
Founder of Nexus Mutual; actuary turned DeFi insurance founder
London, England
Summary
Insurance practitioner and actuary who translated traditional insurance expertise into DeFi: Karp spent many years as an actuary and served as CFO for Munich Re's UK & Ireland life business before founding Nexus Mutual, and he applied actuarial modelling, economic simulations and regulatory thinking to design an on-chain mutual. defiprime+2
Founder and builder of a community-owned DeFi insurance protocol: he launched Nexus Mutual to provide smart contract and other crypto-native covers, designed governance and treasury mechanics for a non-custodial mutual, and continues to steer product direction and underwriting activity as the protocol evolves. defiprime+2
Public-facing communicator and ecosystem participant: Karp frequently speaks and is interviewed about DeFi risk, governance and insurance (podcasts, conferences and panel talks such as Bankless, CoinGecko, Amberdata and TOKEN2049), positioning Nexus Mutual as a bridge between traditional insurance thinking and on-chain risk management. bankless+3
Experienced a high-profile personal security incident and advocated for stronger wallet security: Karp publicly documented the December 2020 theft from his personal wallet, detailed the attack vector and mitigation lessons, and proposed community-led bounties and research to improve personal wallet security. medium+2