Circle’s Head of Trading Is Leaving the Crypto Startup

Circle’s head of trading, Dan Matuszewski, has announced internally that he is moving on from the company, CoinDesk has learned. He’s being replaced by Nick Gustafson, a Kraken and UBS alum.

“Circle Trade was born mostly out of accident. Initially tasked with providing liquidity for our retail bitcoin payments app, our presence in the market grew to a scale where we began to provide liquidity to a whole array of counterparties outside our own internal needs,” Matuszewski wrote to his colleagues in an email shared with CoinDesk.

“I have nothing but the best experiences from my time here,” he wrote, adding that he was pursuing a new entrepreneurial opportunity in the industry. According to industry sources, Matuszewski is said to be pursuing a new trading fund venture.

In a statement provided to CoinDesk, his successor, Gustafson, wrote:

“I’m looking forward to expanding the team, filling some key hires over the coming months, and continuing to deliver world class market making services and support to our growing roster of counterparties.”

The company also confirmed that Beatrice O’Carroll, head of institutional sales, has moved on from Circle. She worked in over-the-counter (OTC) trading at the Boston-based financial services firm. O’Carroll reported to the chief operations officer.

O’Carroll had a deep history in traditional financial services before making the leap to crypto. She served at Citi, Merrill Lynch, AIG and Deutsche Bank, among others, over the course of her career, according to LinkedIn.

In 2015 she joined the business development team at the exchange itBit (now Paxos). She’s served at Circle ever since she left there in 2016.

“As Circle’s OTC business has grown, we launched a new Strategic Accounts Management team with five full-time employees that handle all of our new counterparty and existing counterparty relationship management for Circle Trade and our institutional customers,” a source within the company told CoinDesk.

O’Carroll could not be reached for comment at press time.

Ian Allison and Christine Kim contributed reporting.

Dan Matuszewski image via CoinDesk archives