This Wall Street Backed Crypto Exchange Just Made Some Big Hires

As we reported in early January, the Chicago based ErisX cryptocurrency exchange made big hiring moves when they brought on board Joseph Lubin, a co-founder of Ethereum and blockchain development firm ConsenSys. The company would tout Lubin's experience and “extensive background operating within the digital assets area.” Also joining Lubin on the team was fintech entrepreneur, Cris Conde.

Now, ErisX has successfully recruited three top-level officers from major companies in the financial and tech industries, including Barclays and YouTube.

Announced today, Robert Thrash joined the company as chief operating officer from Barclays, where he spent more than 11 years in various leadership positions. Most recently, he was the global bank’s managing director of agency derivatives services, a business that encompasses over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives clearing, futures execution and clearing and foreign exchange prime brokerage.

Explaining his interest in the cryptocurrency markets, Thrash told CoinDesk:

“Crypto sits at the intersection of technology, finance and regulation. Regulation will continue to evolve and impact this space bringing transparency to the market, which in turn should lead to increasingly active participation by traditional financial intermediaries. As these intermediaries provide market access to new market participants, a whole host of trading technology, crypto-based products and financing solutions will need to be created.” - CoinDesk.

Coming on board the ErisX team is also former senior technical program manager at YouTube, Arnold Connell. After spending a decade at Google in various roles, Connell took on the focus on the YouTubeTV streaming service.

And finally, leaving his job as a head of U.S. sales at Pico Quantitative Trading, John Denza joins ErisX to be a business development executive. Denza also has worked at BATS Global Markets as director of U.S. sales for equities and derivatives.

ErisX is one of a handful of emerging exchanges that seek to offer regulated crypto custody solutions to retail and institutional investors. Recently the company concluded a funding effort of more than $27 million involving major financial institutions like Bitmain, ConsenSys, Fidelity Investments, and Nasdaq Ventures. They say their services will offer investors the ability to trade Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum and Litecoin on spot and futures markets sometime later in 2019.

“We are leveraging our industry relationships to secure talent and build the most robust, secure and regulated platform for digital assets,” a spokesperson for Thomas Chippas, ErisX CEO, told CoinDesk. “This is the beginning of a new asset class. The leaders in this space are still being developed as are the biggest players still being built.”