Two former executives at major American investment management firms, Millennium Management and Pacific Investment Management Company (Pimco), are reentering the crypto space amid a major market rally.
Millennium’s ex-portfolio manager Benoit Bosc and Pimco’s former executive vice president Michael Bressler left their posts to set up a new crypto consultancy firm, x2B, Bloomberg reported on Nov. 11.
Expected to launch in November 2024, x2B will advise crypto projects on sectors like fundraising, tokenomics and market-maker strategy, exchange listing and treasury management.
X2B co-founders left GSR following a bear market in crypto 2022
Before their roles at Millennium and Pimco, both Bosc and Bressler spent a couple of years in senior roles at the crypto liquidity firm GSR, with Bosc joining in 2022 and Bressler in 2021. They left GSR in 2023 following a major decline in crypto markets in 2022.
Bressler, who previously worked almost 14 years at the Wall Street giant JPMorgan, says “very few people” at the intersection of high-level traditional finance and digital finance understand the “intricate dynamics of token launches.”
He said x2B already has 10 clients and will charge fees in a mixture of a project’s future tokens and cash.
X2B co-founders Benoit Bosc (left) and Michael Bressler. Source: x2B
Bosc, who served as a crude oil trader at Goldman Sachs for more than nine years, said the crypto industry would benefit from a “more professional and transparent approach.”
Related: Bitcoin forecast to hit $200K by the end of 2025: Bernstein Research
According to Bosc, x2B plans to target “more accountability” from the various market actors and service providers participating in token launches.
The crypto consultancy launches amid Bitcoin hitting $80,000
Bosc and Bressler’s reentry into crypto comes amid a massive rally in the cryptocurrency market, with Bitcoin (BTC) surging past $80,000 for the first time in history on Nov. 10.
The bullish crypto sentiment in 2024 has expanded further amid Donald Trump’s victory in the United States presidential elections, as many assume that a Trump administration will positively impact the growing crypto industry in the US and globally.
Bitcoin (BTC) all-time price chart. Source: CoinGecko
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $81,331, up about 3% over the past 24 hours. The cryptocurrency has surged around 85% year-to-date, with 30% gains over the past 30 days, according to CoinGecko.
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