Crypto exchange FTX President for its U.S. subsidiary Brett Harrison announced his resignation from his position. Via his official Twitter account, Harrison confirmed that he will be “transferring” his responsibilities and taking on the role of advisor for the U.S. crypto exchange platform.
The former FTX President was hired in 2020 as the company was beginning to gain popularity in the sector. At that time, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been trading sideways below their all-time high levels and were able to return to price discovery territory later that year.
This led to a massive bull run, pushing the price of Bitcoin to an ATH of $69,000, Ethereum north of $4,000, and the adoption of digital assets to new highs. This allowed crypto companies to expand and gained a stronger foothold into the mainstream. FTX.US was key in achieving this milestone.
The former U.S. FTX President recounted his time in the company stating the following, as he thanked the team that allow them
to build a nascent crypto exchange into a multi-business enterprise; writing a retail equities trading platform and building a US brokerage; acquiring LedgerX and Embed; getting to know and work with regulators and lawmakers; participating in shaping crypto policy in the US; and many more. I don’t doubt my experiences in this role will be among the most cherished of my career.
The crypto exchange has launched major marketing campaigns to onboard more users to its platform, including a popular Super Bowl commercial with comedy legend Larry Davis. The exchange was also able to create partnerships with other companies within and outside the crypto industry as the former FTX President pointed out.
In addition, FTX.US and FTX have joined forces to persuade U.S. regulators, in particular, the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), to adopt a friendlier approach toward the nascent sector.
FTX President Shares His Vision For Crypto
For Harrison, the most critical aspect of crypto and its future lies in the intersection between financial technological complexities and new institutional participants onboard the crypto ecosystem. He believes crypto companies must remove friction from the way they operate to allow these new participants to fully adopt the nascent asset class.
In that sense Harrison hinted at the following, without being specific about his futures plans:
I’m remaining in the industry with the goal of removing technological barriers to full participation in and maturation of global crypto markets, both centralized and decentralized.
Harrison is the latest in a series of resignations announced by major crypto executives. This includes the CEO of exchange Kraken, Jesse Powell, and earlier today the CEO of Celsius Network Alex Mashinsky. Sam Bankman Fried, founder, and CEO of FTX wrote the following about Harrison’s announcement:
Really grateful to work with Zach Dexter (@zachdex), Ryne Miller (@_Ryne_Miller), and others to push forward in the US; and a heartfelt goodbye to @Brett_FTX as he transitions to an advisor and FTX US transitions to its Miami HQ! Being agile and coordinated is a core value–it’ll be great to be together.
