Three Executives Leave JP Morgan For Crypto This Week

By Kevin • July 7, 2022 3:29 pm • Comments

Despite the current crypto bear market, it was reported that three top executives at JP Morgan have left to join crypto firms this week.

The crypto firms that they joined include companies like Algorand, Digital Currency Group, and Pantera Capital where they will be focusing their efforts on decentralize finance and other industry disruptors.

This recent move from traditional banking executives indicates that talent is still being attracted to crypto and that the industry will likely once again survive another winter so that it will come out stronger than before.

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JP Morgan has declined to comment on these recent moves, but it is already known that the bank itself already has extensive involvement with crypto whether it be directly or indirectly.

CoinDesk reports:

The latest leavers include Eric Wragge, a former managing director at JPMorgan with 21 years’ tenure at the bank. He joined the Algorand blockchain project as head of business development and capital markets.

Also announcing a new job this week in crypto, Puja Samuel, formerly a head of ideation and digitization at JPMorgan based in New York City, joins Digital Currency Group (CoinDesk’s parent company) as head of corporate development.

Already this week, CoinDesk reported that former JPMorgan banker Samir Shah had left the bank to become chief operating officer at cryptocurrency-focused investment firm Pantera Capital.

Wragge’s arrival at Algorand was welcomed with a blog post, stating that he will report to Algorand Foundation CEO Staci Warden, and will lead initiatives in both traditional capital markets as well as decentralized finance (DeFi). Wragge will also chair the foundation’s investment committee.

This is not the start of a new trend, but it has already been quite a long term shift where members of the traditional financial world are moving into the world of crypto.

Investors and speculators expect this shift to continue as long as their is significant capital and room for growth available to attract top talent.

And that seems to still be true due to the fact that VC funding and capital raising still has not slowed down in the recent months.

This time, it was specifically executives from JP Morgan, but one could expect that there would be more moves coming soon from other top investment banking firms.

Yahoo concludes:

“Coming from a leading global investment bank, I understand the uncompromising performance requirements for a layer 1 blockchain to compete against and improve upon many aspects of traditional finance,” Wragge said in the post.

Commenting on her new role at DCG, Samuel said: “I am excited to help build out new strategic partnerships alongside an energized team that is driving change across the financial system.”

It should be mentioned that none of the people worked within Onyx, JPMorgan’s blockchain and digital assets division.

JPMorgan declined to comment on the moves.

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