Goldman Sachs & JPMorgan quants keep leaving for crypto

Discussion in 'Crypto Assets' started by johnarb, Mar 23, 2022.

  1. johnarb

    johnarb

    prolly nothing...


    https://www.efinancialcareers.com/news/2022/03/quant-jobs-in-crypto


    Goldman Sachs & JPMorgan quants keep leaving for crypto
    by Sarah Butcher About a day ago

    [​IMG]

    Once upon a time quants and strats would leave investment banks to become entrepreneurs or work in technology firms. Recent moves suggest the preferred exit is evolving: quants are increasingly leaving for crypto.

    With bonuses paid, quants from Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and elsewhere have been spotted leaving for crypto firms.

    The exits include Guofan Hu, a former executive director level quantitative researcher from JPMorgan, who's just joined Coinbase as a senior quantitative researcher. In the past three months Coinbase has also hired Yibo Ma, a former executive director level systematic trading desk strat from Goldman Sachs, and Yiping Xing, a former credit risk modeler from Goldman (who came via hedge fund ExodusPoint).

    Coinbase is hiring 6,000 people in 2022, of whom 2,000 will be in product, engineering and design, so its appetite for quants is hardly surprising. Coinbase is building a team under Yao Ma, its head of data science quantitative research who joined from hedge fund Millennium Management last year. Ma was a strat at Goldman in a previous existence.

    Coinbase is far from the only crypto firm chasing banks' quant talent.

    Rival crypto exchange, Gemini, recently poached Toby Wade, the head of primary research and predictive analytics at Bank of America; he's now the firm's Florida-based head of machine learning.

    Crypto market maker GSR is also ingesting quant talent, having added ex-Goldman quant Jackie Shen as its quant risk officer in New York in January, and Akhil Nanda, Credit Suisse's former algo trading validation head, in December last year.

    In January, Chris Perez, a former MD of market risk and quantitative analytics at Goldman in New York, joined BlockFi, a Jersey-City based provider of crypto wealth management products backed by Galaxy Digital.

    Kyle Downey, the former Morgan Stanley managing director in electronic trading, is also out there hiring quants to build a digital asset risk management platform at Cloudwall Capital, his fintech firm. Some quants can be hesitant about the move. "The lack of good risk models, something my company aims to address, leads to a lot of questions about to properly value digital assets," says Downey. "But we only need a few rebels;-)," he adds.
     
  2. Listen, I worked with quants for much of my adult life.

    They were born nerds, they will die nerds. Except some of them realized their nerd power is profitable. This makes them think they are smart. They are not.
     
  3. mikeriley

    mikeriley

  4. johnarb

    johnarb

    [I admit that I'm not that smart, not trying to be humble, I failed college calculus, with an excuse was too lazy to do homeworks and couldn't catch up]

    I think the point of the article was that these people already made it to the coveted careers at the prestigious investment banks and they chose to leave for crypto

    Their backgrounds are at the most respected technical schools, i.e. MIT

    Look at Sam Bankman-Fried and Sam Trabucco of FTX/Alameda research, ex-MIT and ex-Jane Street

    Take that for what it's worth. Brain drain from TradFi to cryptos (DeFi)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Bankman-Fried
     
    Last edited: Mar 23, 2022
    Sprout and fan27 like this.
  5. Overnight

    Overnight

    I just noticed your new avatar pic, a stillshot from the Powell Brrrr...and for some reason it reminded me of Floyd. Hmmm!

    johnarbfloysworms.JPG
     
    johnarb likes this.
  6. Read the smartest guys in the room and when genius failed. I'm waiting for the blowup (if there is one) and will pick up the pieces.
     
    Spooz Top 2 and johnarb like this.
  7. We know...
     
    johnarb likes this.
  8. johnarb

    johnarb

    I think I read when genius failed (LTCM?) a long time ago, but it's quite possible I might have just watched the documentary "The Trillion Dollar bet"

    -------------------

    re: Blowup is a very good topic in light of the LME cancelled trades and closed markets

    Last year, cryptos market cap crashed down by over $1 Trillion within a short time started by Elon Musk tweet

    Prior to that in March 2020, we had a liquidity crisis and Bitcoin and cryptos lost half of their values within a few weeks

    A few months ago, November of 2021, we had a mini-crash in cryptos, lost hundreds of billions of $ of value

    No cancelled trades that I know of on this 24/7/365 cryptos trading markets

    No halted markets, sure there were problems at Coinbase and other exchanges because of overwhelming traffic, but no intended halts, and DeFi DEXes operated with no problems, albeit higher gas fees on the blockchains

    Cryptos trading markets are the most honest even though the prevailing narrative is that it's a scam trading market

    --------------------

    There is concern that when the big banks like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley get involved, they will fuck it up with TBTF shit that they do which is over leverage

    Right now every trading markets in cryptos are over-collateralized. When there is a liquidation cascade of traders, it causes a crash, but no one blows up, only the losing traders, but that's why the cryptos market survives over $1 Trillion crash in value

    ------------------

    On another thread, we have 100% no cash-out mortgages backed by crypto collateral. Again, over collateralized loans

    ------------------
     
    BKR88 likes this.
  9. To blow up you need a much, much bigger market than the casino that exists now.
     
  10. Tokenz

    Tokenz

    Oh the casino market is still growing, but thanks for the concern
     
    #10     Mar 24, 2022
    johnarb likes this.