Coinbase, which anticipates to debut in the public markets, said it appointed Tagomi co-founder and electronic trading veteran, Greg Tusar to serve as vice president of institutional products. Tusar’s arrival follows on the heels of Coinbase’s acquisition of the two-year-old cryptocurrency Prime Broker , Tagomi, which caters to deep-pocketed crypto traders. The digital asset trading firm, with a team of 20, was co-founded by former HFT technologists, including Greg Tusar and Jennifer Campbell from Union Square Ventures. “Greg’s experience in both electronic trading and execution as well as trading infrastructure make him uniquely qualified to guide Coinbase’s institutional products as more professional traders and funds seek to allocate portions of their portfolios to crypto assets,” Coinbase said. Tusar, who had been global head of electronic trading at Goldman Sachs for more than 10 years, was chief technology officer at the company he co-founded in 2018, with partners Jennifer Campbell and Marc Bhargava. Greg’s career, which dates back to 1986, includes a range of electronic trading, technical infrastructure and market structure roles. After his role at Goldman Sachs, he served as co-head of global execution services and platforms at KCG Holdings, where he was responsible for its sales, products and platforms globally. In 2013, Greg joined KCG (now part of Virtu Inc.) and worked his way up through several senior roles, including a partner and global head of the firm’s equities electronic trading business.
Institutional Investor Money Sitting on the Sideline
Drawing on over three decades of experience, Coinbase will Leverage Greg’s knowledge to develop new products that could usher in more institutional investors and solve the problems that made many of them wary of the space. He will focus on expanding Coinbase’s institutional client base, which already makes up about 60% of its total trading volume. “Greg joins Coinbase at a time when many of the world’s top hedge funds and macro investors are entering the space and searching for the right infrastructure through which to engage with crypto,” the exchange said in a statement. The San Francisco-based company’s institutional-grade custody service has already stored more than $7 billion in cryptocurrency on behalf of customers through its exchange. As for the newly-acquired Tagomi, the New Jersey-based crypto prime broker handles less than $20 million in weekly crypto volumes or about $1 billion per year. Greg replaces Dan Romero, one of crypto exchange Coinbase’s senior executives and early employees, who left the company in April 2019. Romero previously led the institution-focused section of the firm’s operations across the UK, Europe, and APAC regions, and later resigned after nearly five years with Coinbase.
