Author: Zen, PANews
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group (CME Group) is one of the world's largest derivatives markets, providing futures and options trading in commodities, interest rates, foreign exchange and other fields. As a key player in the financial market, CME has played an important role in promoting the cryptocurrency market to enter the mainstream financial system.
These professionals who once worked at CME and later entered the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry are widely involved in many fields in the new field, including investment management, regulatory compliance, operations management, market development, and strategic development. They usually play a leading role in the industry and are able to apply the experience of traditional financial markets to the emerging digital asset field, promoting the popularization and innovative development of blockchain technology. Based on public information, this article PANews will briefly introduce these eleven important participants who once worked at CME and later entered the cryptocurrency field.
Rumi Morales worked at CME for nearly 7 years. She participated in the design and launch of CME Ventures, the venture capital arm of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group, and took the lead in investing in blockchain companies and companies specializing in artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and quantum computing, and the execution of portfolio management. During this period, she invested in blockchain startups including Ripple and distributed ledger startup Digital Asset Holdings. In 2018, Rumi Morales joined the Web3 accelerator Outlier Ventures; from January 2022 to January 2023, she served as the head of venture capital and growth investment at the blockchain investment company Digital Currency Group. In addition, from 2016 to the present, Rumi has been a member of the advisory board of the Chamber of Digital Commerce, a lobbying group for the US blockchain industry.
Jill Sommers has nearly 30 years of experience in the derivatives industry, and earlier she worked as a regulatory affairs manager at CME for 6 years. The most prominent stage of Sommers' career was serving as a commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for two consecutive terms from 2007 to 2013, and as chair and designated federal official of the Global Markets Advisory Committee, which discusses regulatory challenges in global markets. She briefly entered the cryptocurrency industry: in September 2022, FTX.US Derivatives announced that Sommers joined its board of directors to help strengthen the company's regulatory work. Jill Sommers has joined financial services consulting firm Patomak Global Partners since 2014 and is currently the chairman of the derivatives business group.
Nathan Dean is currently a senior policy analyst for the United States and Latin America at Bloomberg. He is good at disseminating political intelligence to executives, institutional investors and risk managers. He has extensive experience in engaging with government decision-makers, regulatory leadership and external counterparties to influence policy and regulatory outcomes. Before joining Bloomberg, Nathan Dean worked as a government affairs manager at CME, working with the CFTC, SEC, the U.S. Treasury and foreign regulators on rule-making related to derivatives and exchanges. Dean often analyzes and studies regulatory policies in the cryptocurrency industry. Before the Ethereum ETF was approved, he said that 2025 might be a good year for crypto policies. He believes that in addition to the benefits of the ETF's approval, the stablecoin framework may also be realized by the end of next year.
Danny Slutsky is an investment professional who just joined Galaxy Asset Management as principal in July this year. He started his career at CME, where he worked for nearly 8 years. His highest position was as manager of CME Ventures, during which he expanded the CME Ventures portfolio from 8 companies to 35 companies. After leaving CME, Slutsky joined Digital Currency Group in May 2022, serving as an assistant to late-stage venture capitalists and an assistant to strategy and operations, managing more than 250 portfolios. From August 2023 to July 2024, he joined digital asset trading company BlockFills as vice president of strategy. The company completed a $37 million Series A financing in early 2022, led by CME Ventures.
Ricky Li is currently a general partner of Nomad Capital, a crypto venture fund. Prior to this, he was the co-founder of Altonomy, a cryptocurrency trading, consulting and asset management company. He was also a research and product manager at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group and an energy risk manager at PwC. He has extensive experience in both emerging cryptocurrency markets and traditional commodity markets.
Eugene Cheung currently serves as Vice President of Bybit, during which time he established and led a new department focused on institutional investors, with responsibilities including finding business opportunities, developing partnerships, and implementing marketing strategies to promote the exchange's products and services. Prior to joining Bybit, Eugene served as Managing Director and Head of China at Tradeweb, responsible for developing business strategies and development plans. Eugene has extensive work experience and resume at CME, where he held several senior positions in the group from 2007 to 2015, leading the development of China's business, establishing a representative office in Beijing, and developing a long-term China strategy.
Richard Shade is currently the Chief Operating Officer of digital asset exchange Archax, and he joined the company in early 2021. Shade previously served as Head of European Market Operations at CME, managing all operational functions. From March 2018 to January 2019, he briefly joined blockchain financial services company UWINCorp, providing it with project management, business analysis and operational expertise. After leaving the startup, Shade joined Malta-based crypto trading company Safequant as a director and member of the board of directors, responsible for digital asset custody business, including customer-facing sales and business development, operations, and management of third-party relationships. In addition, Shade has joined the Global Blockchain Business Council since 2018 and serves as an advisor to the PTDL (Post Trade Distributed Ledger Group) group, which focuses on researching and promoting distributed ledger technology.
Sandra Ro currently serves as CEO of the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC), which has over 500 institutional members and 231 ambassadors across 109 jurisdictions and disciplines. In 2023, she was appointed to CFTC Commissioner Caroline Pham’s Global Markets Advisory Committee (GMAC), Digital Asset Markets Subcommittee (DAMS), and served as co-chair of the Taxonomy and Tokenization Infrastructure workstream within the Subcommittee. While at CME, she led FX and Metals Research and Product Development and launched a new business unit, “Digitalization.” Sandra and her team created the CME CF Bitcoin Pricing Index and Reference Rate, CME Bitcoin Futures, and Post-Trade, Clearing and Settlement Solutions.
Bobby Zagotta is currently the CEO and Global Chief Commercial Officer of Bitstamp USA, responsible for the business growth and management of the US business of the world's longest-running cryptocurrency exchange. Before joining Bitstamp in July 2021, Bobby served as Chief Commercial Officer at another well-known exchange, Kraken, for 3 years. He served as a member of the senior leadership team at CME from 2012 to 2017, successively responsible for its product and growth strategy, global expansion and sales, and responsible for big data and analysis, corporate strategy and innovation, planning and execution, and corporate venture capital.
Aaron Gong was the vice president of Binance Futures. Before joining the exchange, he worked at CME, where he was responsible for launching new products in the Asia-Pacific region. He also worked at a New York hedge fund and a Dutch market-making company. In the first two years of the Binance Futures trading platform, Aaron Gong was interviewed by many media outlets, and his Twitter account @AG_Binance was continuously updated. He later quietly left Binance, and his original Twitter account is no longer in use. His social media accounts and recent updates are no longer available.
Miguel Vias is currently the founder and managing partner of The Markets Group, a strategic consulting firm that was just founded in August this year. It specializes in token market development in the crypto capital market and provides services such as market maker coordination, fund management, and liquidity venue development. Prior to starting his own business, Miguel Vias has served as vice president of growth at blockchain video game platform Forte Labs since June 2021, and as head of marketing at Ripple Labs from 2016 to 2020, responsible for the initial partner strategy of Ripple's flagship remittance product On-Demand-Liquidity, and the management team's development of the market ecosystem around XRP. Before entering the blockchain industry, Miguel worked at CME Group for nearly 5 years, during which time he served as global head of precious metals and options.
