Julian Sawyer, a former top manager of the American cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, will become the new head of the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp.
Sawyer joined Gemini in December 2019. Under his leadership, Gemini Europe Services, the European arm of the exchange, was registered with the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in August 2020.
Now he will become the head of one of the oldest crypto exchanges. Bitstamp, which was founded by Nejc Kodrić in 2011, now serves over four million customers. In a comment for The Block, Sawyer said he was not looking for a new job, but he was contacted by recruiters and "offered a great opportunity: to become the CEO of a global company." Bitstamp was acquired by the Belgian investment company NXMH in October 2018.
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Kodrić, who helped hire Sawyer, will advise the company's board of directors.
“After much deliberation, I came to the conclusion that Bitstamp has grown beyond what I could have imagined, and it’s time for someone else to expand on the company's development strategy,” said Kodrić.
Before joining the crypto industry, Sawyer was co-founder and chief operating officer of Starling Bank, a British neobank with 1.7 million customers.