Jason Chung has joined Castle Rock, Colorado-based Riot Blockchain, as its head of corporate development, the crypto firm said in a statement on Wednesday. He will also help with the financing strategy.
The former banker comes to Riot Blockchain with over 15 years of investment banking and corporate development experience. He previously served as a Managing Director in the mergers and acquisitions at Nomura, a role that he held for more than five years, first based in New York and then in Hong Kong.
Prior to that, Chung worked as a Vice President of M&A at Societe Generale SA, an investment banking company in New York, for eight years, according to his LinkedIn profile.
As the largest Bitcoin mining and hosting facility in North America through its subsidiary Whinstone U.S., Riot Blockchain was a biotech testing equipment maker until it changed it name in 2017 to reflect a new focus on buying cryptocurrency and blockchain businesses. It narrowed from $12.7 million net loss a year earlier and reporting a net loss of $7.9 million in 2021.
Shares of Riot Blockchain have plummeted about 68% this year in New York as Bitcoin prices drop. Riot Blockchain has a market value of about $913 million.
Chung’s departure follows the departure of other investment bankers and lawyers who left Wall Street to join fast-growing crypto companies.
Binance Holdings Ltd. tapped Vishal Sacheendran, a former Bank of New York Mellon Corp. banker, as its director of Middle East and Africa in February. After almost a decade as a M&A lawyer, Robbie Nakarmi joined as the crypto firm’s senior counsel in Dubai late last year. Lee Smallwood, chief operating officer for markets in North America, left Citigroup Inc. after six years with the bank to join Hivemind Capital Partners, the crypto investment firm founded by former Citi executive Matt Zhang.
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