Mike Novogratz’s crypto investment bank, Galaxy Digital Capital Management, hired Goldman Sachs banker Ian Taylor to oversee the group’s advisory-services arm. Taylor will join Galaxy Digital before January 2019, sources told Bloomberg.

Taylor was a managing director at Goldman, where he worked for almost 19 years, according to his LinkedIn profile. At Galaxy Digital, he will oversee Galaxy Digital Advisors, a unit that provides blockchain advisory services.

Mike Novogratz, a former hedge fund manager, was himself once a partner at Goldman Sachs. Since raising $250 million in February 2018 to finance Galaxy Digital, Novogratz has wooed several top executives away from his former employer.

Bankers Dump Wall Street For Crypto Startups

In April 2018, Novogratz hired Goldman executive Richard Kim to be the chief operating officer of Galaxy Digital, CNBC reported. Kim joined Luka Jankovic, a former Goldman analyst who also left traditional finance to make the leap into crypto.

Novogratz — who’s one of the richest people in the cryptocurrency industry — joins a growing list of finance veterans who are leaving investment banking to jump on the crypto bandwagon.

Despite the recent bear market, Novogratz is confident the industry will surge to record highs in 2019.

Another investment banker who left Wall Street for the crypto world is Dave Chapman, the chairman of OSL Brokerage, a Hong Kong-based digital asset brokerage.

Before making the foray into the virtual currency industry, Chapman worked for 12 years at Credit Suisse, Bear Stearns, and HSBC, as CCN.com has reported.

Chapman said many of his former banking colleagues were understandably skeptical over his unorthodox career move.

“It surprised a lot of people: leaving a respected career to go and play with ‘magical internet money,’” he recounted. “That’s how a lot of people viewed it.”

Crypto Exec: Stop Obsessing Over Bitcoin Prices

Dave Chapman said analysts who panic every time bitcoin prices rise or fall need to take a chill pill. He said the industry is relatively new, so some turbulence should be expected in its early phases.

“Everyone says crypto is so bad, but there’s no difference between this and any other time when people have gone into something (new),” Chapman told the South China Morning Post. “Is it new? Yes. Does it need to mature? Yes. Will it be regulated? Yes.”

Besides, Chapman says if you constantly obsess over price fluctuations, you’re missing the forest for the trees.

“The price to me is probably the most uninteresting component about bitcoin,” Chapman said. “I’m more excited in the applications and more excited about what this means for people who don’t have access to financial inclusion. If we focus on the price, we’re losing track of the big picture.”

Featured image from Youtube/Bloomberg.