NYSE Former Executive to Join Winklevoss Twins’ Cryptocurrency Exchange Gemini

Gemini, the cryptocurrency exchange managed by Winklevoss twins, has followed ever more popular trend of employing institutional trading executives for crypto exchanges. This time, Gemini has hired Robert Cornish who previously worked for the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Cornish will serve as Gemini first chief technology officer.

Being an experienced professional in the sphere, he will become a member of Gemini team later in July. Cornish started his carrier at the NYSE in 2016 when the exchange had some technical issues upon the launch of Pillar, its integrated trading technology platform.

Earlier, for more than 10 years he worked at the first all-electronic US options exchange called the International Securities Exchange. He was promoted to become the chief information officer and left the company after it was acquired by NASDAQ Inc.

Tyler Winklevoss who is Gemini chief executive officer describes Robert’s  future position the following way:

“He will ensure that Gemini continues to deliver the best platform experience to our customers possible and set the standards of excellence for the cryptocurrency industry as a whole.”

“Rob is globally recognized for his abilities in leading high-performing engineering teams, his expertise in exchange and matching-engine architecture, and running high-throughput platforms that are both secure and resilient.”

Given exchange’s expectations that over time larger institutional clients such as hedge funds will join the crypto community bringing their investments, Cornish’s job responsibilities will include tasks aimed at diversification of the product range that Gemini offers its clients.

At the moment, the U.S.-based and regulated Gemini exchange supports rather wide range of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ether, and Zcash. Soon it also plans to add Litecoin as well.  Recently, it has expanded to Canada and managed to become the world’s first licensed Zcash exchange.  Owing to Gemini listing, the trading price of Zcash has added 50% in price.

Even if take the past calendar year Gemini exchange is far not the first one that took a decision to hire a talented professional who has rich experience in working in the traditional financial services sector.

It is widely believed that involvement of experienced professionals from the mainstream finance and trading industries can make the crypto industry more attractive for major institutional investors who are usually quite suspicious about the comparatively new, very changeable and unregulated cryptocurrency space associated with a lot of risks.

For example, recently it has become known that Kraken exchange hired Jump Trading’s Steve Hunt as vice president of engineering. Moreover, a Bush administration prosecutor has become its general counsel to advise on legal matters. Coinbase has also followed this trend and hired a former LinkedIn acquisitions executive.