Hedge fund Balyasny adds Millennium alum and struggling crypto firm executive
Balyasny has been one of the quieter hedge funds when it comes to crypto, but it still appears to appreciate talent in the space. Its most recent hire not only has experience at major hedge funds like Millennium, but was an executive at a major crypto fintech.
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Samuel Donat joins Balyasny as its head of enterprise technology. He’s spent the last seven months as a consultant for Steve Cohen’s fund Point72, and was COO of bitcoin infrastructure firm NYDIG (New York Digital Investment Group) for nearly three years. NYDIG recruited some impressive TradFi alumni including a Goldman Sachs partner in the past but, after laying off 33% of staff amid the FTX crisis, social media data suggests the headcount has more than halved at the firm. Donat left around a year after the layoffs were announced.
In a former pre-crypto life, Donat was COO of Stone Ridge Asset Management. He was also Millennium’s global head of corporate technology from March 2013 to March 2018.
Not all of NYDIG’s TradFi departures have returned from whence they came. Martin Miner, a former SVP at D.E. Shaw, was global head of operations for three years; he joined cloud-based investment management fintech Enfusion last month as a managing director.
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