Ex-JPMorgan algorithmic trading head quits crypto for HFT
2025 looks to be a bumper year for crypto due in no small part to Trump's presidency, beginning next Monday. That doesn't mean everyone is sticking around. Digital asset market making stalwart GSR has lost a number of senior employees already in 2025, including its head of trading.
Click here to follow our new WhatsApp channel, and get instant news updates straight to your phone 📱.
Andreas Koukorinis has left GSR after spending just under a year in the role to join high-frequency trading firm Optiver in London as a credit trader. He only joined GSR last January from JPMorgan, where he was an MD for five years and the global head of electronic trading for credit and fixed income ETFs. Koukorinis had big plans when he joined, including to build out the firm's spot ETF market making business and establish a retail-facing business for GSR. He appears to have been succeeded by Goldman Sachs alum Jon Loflin, previously GSR's head of alpha strategies, who announced last week that he was becoming GSR's chief investment officer.
Koukorinis first entered the crypto space before working at any of these firms. He founded Stratagem Technologies, a sports trading and prediction firm, in 2013. The firm began working on digital assets in 2018 and was soon acquired by Blockchain.com, after which Koukorinis left for JPMorgan. The fintech was seemingly ahead of its time, as crypto-based sports trading and prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket are mainstream names today. Before that, he was a PM at famously nice hedge fund Alphadyne, an executive director at Deutsche Bank, and was the chief credit strategist of Fortress Investment Group.
Other employees are leaving GSR in 2025 but staying in crypto. Joseph Stallman, a Citadel alum and GSR's head of recruitment and talent, left last week. He's joining digital asset algorithmic trading firm AlgoQuant as its chief people officer. Pete Mscichowski, an investor in GSR's venture capital arm, left last week to become a deal partner in the crypto arm of hedge fund Brevan Howard.
Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: Telegram: @AlexMcMurray, WhatsApp: (+1 269 237 3950). Click here to fill in our anonymous form, or email editortips@efinancialcareers.com.
Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: all our comments are moderated by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. Eventually it will – unless it’s offensive or libelous (in which case it won’t.)
