Greg Girasole and Alex Kriete, who were spearheading the recently-launched digital assets group for Wall Street giant Citigroup have announced departing the firm.
Citi Execs bid farewell
According to Kriete’s LinkedIn post, the duo is set to create their own blockchain and digital asset startup.
“Over five years ago my personal interest and subsequent writing about blockchain-enabled digital assets (yes, “crypto”) led to an amazing network of colleagues across Citi businesses, external companies, and interested clients, and at this time I will be taking on a new challenge professionally by creating a new company in this space.”
The former Citi executive also said he believes in the importance of digital assets and said the industry will continue to grow into global capital markets and develop new business models. He went on to add that he was excited to “help mature this market.”
Apart from Girasole and Kriete, several Citi execs had previously left the firm to pursue the digital asset realm. The former head of structured products trading Matt Zhang founded a crypto-focused investment platform called Hivemind that is dedicated to blockchain tech, crypto companies, and the digital assets ecosystem.
Additionally, Citi veteran Christopher Perkins announced that he left the company after nearly 13 years to join a New York-based crypto investment fund – CoinFund – as chairman and managing partner.
Citi’s Crypto Expansion
Citi broke into crypto wealth management in June 2021 after announcing the launch of a new business unit dedicated to cryptocurrency and blockchain space.
Dubbed the “Digital Assets Group,” the initiative would be part of the firm’s wealth management division. He appointed Alex Kriete and Greg Girasole to lead the latest product development unit and work closely with Citi functional partners and the broader Capital Markets and Citi Investment Management team.
Five months later, Citi revealed plans to grow its digital asset team by onboarding 100 new employees. Puneet Singhvi was appointed as the new head of the division to develop a strategy to facilitate various internal operations, such as trading, investment banking, and securities services, to work together with digital assets and blockchain technology.
The main focus of the unit was to engage with important internal and external stakeholders including customers, startups and regulators.
