PYMNTS-MonitorEdge-May-2024

Bitcoin Daily: TokenAnalyst Shuts Down; Crypto Lender BlockFi Hires Traditional Finance Execs To Lead Expansion

Cryptocurrency

TokenAnalyst is shuttering its operations, according to a Medium post.

The TokenAnalyst team said it will no longer support the company’s application programming interfaces (APIs) and platform.

The team said it would not “actively” work on TokenAnalyst any longer, but it noted that some of its members are becoming part of Coinbase.

The team wrote in the post, “Our mission was to bring transparency to the decentralized world, and we believe we made significant progress towards this mission. We built a host of tools that made blockchains easier to understand for our users, and we hope you enjoyed using our data and services as much as we enjoyed building them.”

It also noted that it was “truly invigorating to tweet/whatsapp/telegram/email/signal 24/7 with crypto enthusiasts from all over the world.”

In separate news, BlockFi said a former Credit Suisse executive and a former American Express executive have joined the blockchain company, according to an announcement.

David Olsson will serve as global managing director of European and Asian markets, while Wittney Rachlin will serve as chief growth officer.

Olsson will be tasked with expanding the institutional services of BlockFi, supervising sales strategy, business development and risk management throughout Asian and European markets. The executive had managed teams at Credit Suisse as well as Bank of America Merrill Lynch covering equity derivatives and prime brokerage.

Rachlin, on the other hand, will be tasked with heading up multiple sections of the business to fuel growth, including business development, marketing and the rollout of products in the payments area with the inclusion of a bitcoin rewards credit card scheduled to launch later in 2020. The executive recently held leadership positions at American Express and Prudential Financial.

BlockFi’s platform provides loans backed by crypto, crypto-based interest accounts and “zero-fee trading,” according to the announcement.

PYMNTS-MonitorEdge-May-2024