Galaxy Digital suggests banks are major new competitors for crypto talent

In Coinbase’s fourth quarter earnings presentation, CEO Brian Armstrong described the current period as a “phase of despair” for crypto. Still, he also said that the number of “software engineers working in crypto has doubled.” Big crypto-native firms are making cuts or instigating hiring freezes… so where is all this crypto software engineering talent going?

Chris Ferraro, CIO of crypto investment bank Galaxy Digital, spoke at the Morgan Stanley Technology Media and Telecom conference yesterday. As pure crypto firms take flight, Ferraro suggested that the new competition for crypto talent is coming from traditional financial institutions.

Ferraro said he sees new crypto groups at “every bank, at every custodian, every broker-dealer.” The largest teams he expects are up to 100 people at “large asset management firms investing in the next stage”.

His observation comes as Galaxy Digital has lost several senior people to traditional finance this year. It also comes as Laser Digital, Nomura’s crypto spinout, continues to hire, as JPMorgan ramps up its work in the blockchain research space and as Goldman Sachs’ head of digital assets Mathew McDermot says they are “focused as a business on applying the underlying technology, because that’s where we’ve seen the biggest opportunity,”

In comparison, Ferraro said there is still fallout in the crypto-native sector. “Everyone knows they’re still alive, but really they have no future”

As traditional financial firms drain the crypto talent pool, crypto-native firms can flex their appeal as innovators. Ferraro says Galaxy has created a product team that makes up 25-30% of its workforce. Rather than imitating banks, he says Galaxy is run “like a technical organization”.

Galaxy’s chief product officer is Stuart Shearer, former global chief product officer for Goldman Sachs’ marquee platform. Another notable product specialist is CEO Tanvir Madan, formerly Kraken’s chief product officer and an alumnus of hedge fund Bridgewater Associates.

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