Own boss: Citi suffers blow as crypto lead walks out
Alex Kriete, the co-head of digital assets at Citi Group, has walked out to launch his own crypto start up.
Kriete is leaving the role, which he has held since the bank founded its digital asset division in June 2021, after less than 12 months. While he gave scarce details about the new venture in a LinkedIn post announcing his exit from Citi, Kriete said that he wants to assist with the maturation of the market as crypto continues to grow in importance to global economies.
“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,” Kriete wrote in a LinkedIn post.
“Unsurprisingly to those who know me, I believe digital assets will continue to grow in importance to global capital markets and the formation of new business models, and I could not be more excited to assist in the maturation of this market,” he added.
Kriete has worked at Citi for 11 years, starting his career as an analyst at the bank in 2011.
In November 2021, Citi group announced plans to hire 100 staff for its new digital assets division. The push into the crypto space came amid an explosion of institutional interest in digital assets last year – fellow banks Morgan Stanley created its own digital asset research team whilst the Bank of America corp also created a dedicated team.