Sam Dorrer calls himself a “come over” which is Isle of Man shorthand for someone not born on the island. He arrived three years ago after what he calls “jurisdiction hunting” for the right place to launch Echo. The project’s ambition is bold: the world’s first regulated centralised cryptocurrency exchange, with a broader goal of becoming a full-service wealth management platform.
Echo’s vision is to handle the entire flow: exchange, custody, brokerage, and token issuance. The first phase focuses on cryptocurrency, but Dorrer is clear this is only the beginning.
“We’re testing out the tooling with cryptocurrency assets first,” he says. “If it all goes as planned, the intention long-term is to move towards a kind of blended platform, where centralised and decentralised aspects blend together, but the user experience is still strong.”
Tokenisation sits at the heart of this model, beginning with crypto but ultimately extending to real-world assets, securities (for example Apple stock), real estate, private equity which are unified and held in tokenised form.
Echo is not building a blockchain; it operates in a fully centralised environment with a high-speed matching engine, faster than many major crypto exchanges. It is already regulated by the Isle of Man Financial Services Authority with a VASP licence for custody and exchange, and holds a similar licence in the Czech Republic, soon to be upgraded to full EU CASP status.
“Step one is part of phase one,” says Dorrer. “The intention for us is to obtain a brokerage licence, so we can do the whole flow. You have people doing bits and pieces of it, but no one doing the lot.”
The regulatory choice of the Isle of Man was deliberate. As a crown dependency, the island has its own parliament, Tynwald, the oldest in the world, dating back to the Viking era, and a legal and tax framework attractive to business. Dorrer cites the ability to sit directly with decision makers as a key advantage.
“When you’re doing something novel or new, one of the most important things is to be able to sit directly across the table from someone and explain what you’re trying to do. In nearly any other jurisdiction, you’d have six layers of suits to get through.”
Dorrer’s own role in policy is significant. He sits on the board of Digital Isle of Man, the government’s executive agency for the sector.
His contribution is strategic, advising on regulatory frameworks that balance consumer protection with space for innovation in order to grow the technology sector in the Isle of Man..
The island’s financial profile is strong with AA credit, no debt, and a capped personal income tax rate of 20 per cent, with a maximum annual liability of £200,000. Corporate tax and capital gains tax are zero. This environment underpins Echo’s flagship high-net-worth offering: Echo Elite. Structured as a protected cell company (PCC), it allows clients to hold digital assets in segregated cells F(in association with its TCSP partner JurisTrust) each with separate ownership and liabilities.
“It’s a structure originally used in the insurance industry,” says Dorrer. “We’ve adapted it and attached wallet infrastructure to it. The interest for us isn’t so much about cryptocurrency. It’s about the unification of asset class: turn everything into a token, then put it into that wallet.”
The exchange’s native Echo token is structured as a “real yield” asset, passing 50 per cent of gross exchange fee revenue directly to token holders in USDC.
“Buying Echo token is a punt on exchange volume,” says Dorrer. “If the volume flows, you get daily dollars.” An initial coin offering raised $3.2 million for just under 10 per cent of supply, largely from a small group of high-net-worth individuals. The exchange is set to go live in October.
Dorrer owns 60 per cent of Echo, with the remaining equity split equally between his co-founders: Robert Clayton, chief technology officer, and Dustin Cornwell, head of sales and marketing. There is no external institutional investment. He is also building a strategic partnership network to expand reach and influence.
The advisory board is small but heavyweight. It includes John Squires, formerly of Currency.com and Capital.com; Eric Holreiser, who ran PR for Bill Gates and oversaw launches such as Xbox and Guitar Hero; Steve Billinghurst, ex-PwC and consultant to the Isle of Man regulator on blockchain; and Phil Games, a leading international corporate structuring lawyer.
While Echo is rooted in the Isle of Man, its connections are global. The team is also considering selective token listings, favouring fewer, higher-quality projects, and offering a full package to issuers, banking rails, custody via Echo Elite, listing, and engineering support.
Echo is also working with Entry, a Web3 protocol specialising in privacy-preserving, compliant, institutional DeFi. The partnership is expected to cover token listings, bridging from Entry’s native chain into Echo’s exchange, and providing fiat on- and off-ramps for its user base. Dorrer also sees scope for Echo to support the launch of other Entry-based projects, offering a regulated centralised platform to bring them to market.
Dorrer’s background is eclectic. Before Echo, he studied theology and philosophy at the London School of Theology, then founded a company specialising in R&D and patent design, selling intellectual property to large corporates. His projects ranged across sectors, including novel water purification technologies. He sees himself as a generalist, something he believes will matter more in an AI-driven world that rewards cross-disciplinary thinking.
He likes life on the Isle of Man. The small population fosters close connections, often leading to business opportunities over coffee. The lifestyle suits his current stage of life.
“You walk down the street and it’s very rare not to meet someone you know,” he says. “It’s a very old-school way of living, but with people who have money. You get these constant powerhouse connections.”
For Dorrer, Echo is both a commercial venture and a test case for the island’s ambitions in blockchain.
“The Isle of Man as a crown dependency does legal stuff really, really well and finance stuff really, really well,” he says. “If it can nail the engineering and the tech, then we’re away. I hope Echo is a kind of canary, starting some of this deluge. If we become a focal point for other companies to gather, that suddenly seems doable.”
