Experience is more important than any other experience. At least that seems to be the case with a new JPMorgan Chase hire this week, as the financial firm has brought in former Celsius executive Adam Iovine to serve as a director of digital assets regulatory policy, according to a variety of reports on Wednesday, which cite Iovine’s LinkedIn page.
The reports come after headlines around JPMorgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon slamming crypto as ponzi schemes. Nonetheless, the institution has flip-flopped it’s public perspective around crypto while still building digital asset infrastructure. Let’s look at this latest, seemingly bizarre hire, and what we know thus far.
JPMorgan Chase: An Unexpected Hire
Iovine previously served as head of policy and regulatory affairs for cefi platform Celsius. The company was dissolved earlier this year. He was with Celsius for just 8 months, before he resigned in September. Iovine joined JPMorgan Chase today as the executive director of its digital assets regulatory policy section. A bit of an unorthodox hire, but Iovines resume certainly brings some… unique experience from his time at Celsius.
The cefi platform, led by CEO Alex Mashinsky, was widely considered one of the biggest of it’s kind, offering substantial yields on tokens that led to hefty criticism over the platform’s viability. From the critic’s vocals to reality’s being, Celsius started unwinding mid-year falling the crash of the Terra Luna ecosystem.
Cefi platform Celsius has had a difficult road, but one executive is now moving on to greater and more exciting ambitions. He joined JPMorgans' digital assets regulatory policy department.Source: TradingView.com CEL-USD | Source: CEL-USD on TradingView.com
Uncertainty and Inconsistency
Iovine’s hiring aside, JPMorgans perspective on crypto can never seem to remain consistent; the firm certainly wants to take advantage of the burst of interest in digital assets, but doesn’t seem to be much of a proponent of them otherwise. Dimon in recent weeks described crypto as “decentralized ponzis,” while still playing both sides and touting the institution’s latest blockchain-based product, JPMorgan Onyx.
Regardless of JPMorgan’s shifts in publicly-voiced sentiment, the role that Iovine is filling here is reportedly a newly created one, which serves as just another example that despite a crypto bear market, traditional finance players are still showing continued investment.
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