Ex-Barclays Crypto Expert Joins Fidelity's Digital Assets Team

A former Barclays commodities trader, who was tasked with bringing digital assets to the bank, has joined Fidelity Investments.

Chris Tyrer, who left the bank last August, is working on digital assets for the American investment manager, according to his LinkedIn page.

Originally a commodities trader, Tyrer spent the bulk of his career at Barclays.

He joined the British company as a graduate in 2001 and spent just over a decade with the firm.

In that time, he rose to become a director and global head of crude oil trading for the bank.

In 2012, he left Barclays and moved to the Mercuria Energy Group - a Swiss commodity trading company.

Tyrer spent two years as a senior crude oil trader at the firm’s Geneva office before moving, at the start of 2014, to the firm’s Chicago office where he was also a senior crude oil trader.

Back to Barclays

After a total of three years with Mercuria, Tyrer returned to Barclays in July of 2015, becoming the firm’s head of commodities trading.

Then, in January of last year, he was tasked with working on the bank’s cryptocurrency offering.

According to a Bloomberg report from last August, Tyrer and Matthieu Jobbe Duval, another commodities trader, attempted to set up a crypto trading desk at the bank.

Duval is now head of financial products at CoinList - a fundraising platform for firms operating in the digital assets markets.

It is unclear as to what exactly happened to Barclays' cryptocurrency trading desk.

Tyrer, however, left the firm eight months after starting his position on it. Duval followed him two months later, joining CoinList in October of last year.