Citi’s Digital Asset Co-Chair Resigns With Plans to Start a Crypto Startup

Alex Kriete, co-head of digital assets at Citi, announced the banking giant’s resignation after 11 years at the company on Thursday via LinkedIn. He stated in his post that he plans to spend all his time developing a new crypto company but provided no further details at the time.

Kriete co-led the digital asset team with Greg Girasole in less than a year since the unit’s launch in June 2021. Girasole also announced his departure via LinkedIn, and together, he and Kriete plan to start their own blockchain-related venture. The two said they would share more details about it in the coming weeks.

Kriete’s excitement for its new commitment comes from the belief that digital assets will “continue to grow in importance to global capital markets and the emergence of business models.” new”. He added that personal interest in blockchain-powered digital assets began more than five years ago and has now made him want to “support the growth of this market” in terms of own.

While Kriete and Girasole oversee the digital asset group within Citi’s wealth division, the bank has another digital asset unit in its Institutional Client Group. led by newly appointed Puneet Singhvi.

Another Citi executive, Matt Zhang, has also moved in Launch a $1.5 billion crypto fund called Hivemind Capital Partners whose first technology partner was Algorand. And, in a similar corporate leadership move, longtime Goldman Sachs executive Roger Bartlett decided it was time to “embrace the crypto economy” and leave the bank to runs global financial operations at Coinbase.

Related: Coinbase Seeks New Executives To Argue With Policymakers

Meanwhile, another bank that is pioneering the Metaverse, JPMorgan Chase, has opened a virtual lounge in Decentraland metaverseas it hopes to capitalize on a $1 trillion market opportunity, according to the bank.