Is Bitfinex about to experience a major HR shift?
Tone Vays, a self-employed cryptocurrency consultant and researcher with an impressive social media following, has mentioned in one of his latest Youtube videos that Phil G. Potter has quit his position at Bitfinex.
This information has not yet been officially confirmed, but it would not be surprising if Potter, after several years at Bitfinex, would like to phase out to pursue other, less hectic, roles in the industry.
A key figure in the company
Phil G. Potter is the Chief Strategy Officer of the exchange. According to a Bitfinex blog post from March of this year, he has worked in finance in various positions and companies since 1994. He joined Bitfinex in 2013.
He is also the Chief Strategy Officer of Tether, a stable coin which is used by Bitfinex and other major exchanges to help transfer money between exchanges without using fiat money as an intermediary.
Bitfinex is currently the fourth most heavily-used cryptocurrency exchange in the world, handling approximately $800 million in trading volumes daily (at the time of press). Originally founded in Hong Kong, its employees and subsidiaries are spread around the world, from France to California. It is operated by a Hong Kong-based company called iFinex Inc.
While Potter’s decision to leave Bitfinex could be a humbling setback for the world’s biggest Bitcoin exchange by trading volume, but it's nothing new for people familiar with the industry. We already reported about the departures and moves of top executives at crypto-linked startups over the last few weeks.
Since January, when all Cryptocurrencies went off a cliff after hitting all-time highs, many of crypto exchanges have lost a deep bench of its top executives — each leaving his company for different reasons.
Yet, it's also clear that the exodus isn't entirely over yet, as just last week we reported that China’s Huobi has onboarded rival OKEx’s former CEO Chris Lee, only a few days after the Hong Kong-based exchange became the world’s largest by reported turnover.
