(Bloomberg) — Citigroup Inc.’s Lee Smallwood, chief operating officer for markets in North America, has left after six years with the bank to join Hivemind Capital Partners, the crypto investment firm founded by former Citi executive Matt Zhang.
At Citi, Smallwood also served as co-head of rates digital assets, a team launched last year to assess opportunities for the bank to provide traditional rates services to its digital-native clients and partners. Before joining Citi, Smallwood co-founded fintech startup Gradible, which focused on student loans. He joins Hivemind as managing partner and chief operating officer.
“To me, we really crossed the threshold in the last couple years when it became clear that this is going to be a meaningful asset class for the long term,” Smallwood said in an interview.
While he made his first Bitcoin investment in 2014, Smallwood said he decided to move into crypto full-time after fielding more inquiries about the asset class from clients and colleagues and witnessing the rapid growth in decentralized finance activity last year.
Smallwood joins a growing group of executives at Citi — and on Wall Street more broadly — who are making the leap into the emerging industry. Greg Girasole and Alex Kriete, who Citi tapped last year to oversee a new digital-assets group inside its wealth-management division, left this month to start their own venture in digital assets. Sabrina Wilson, former co-head at Citi’s futures, clearing and foreign-exchange prime-brokerage businesses, recently joined crypto custody firm Copper as chief operating officer.
Read More: Citigroup Alum Matt Zhang Launches $1.5 Billion Crypto Venture
Hivemind, launched last November, runs a $1.5 billion venture fund to invest in early stage tokens and growth equities. It also trades and invests in liquid coins, and expects to launch additional funds with thematic approaches.
“We aspire to be the Blackstone of digital assets,” Smallwood said.
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