B2C2 Chief Executive Officer Phillip Gillespie steps down: Exclusive

Phillip Gillespie, group CEO of crypto market maker B2C2 who managed its acquisition by Japanese bank SBI Financial Services, is stepping down, the company said today. 

Effective Nov. 4, current U.S. CEO Nicola White assumed the role of group CEO as the Tokyo-based Gillespie looks to take on a venture role with SBI in the digital asset space. White was previously Citadel Securities’ global chief operating officer of fixed income and joined the market maker in July last year. 

“While we are experiencing volatile times in the crypto market, our firm has continued to provide critical, deep liquidity to our clients,” White said in a statement. “B2C2’s role as a pioneer that creates a sustainable ecosystem, is to support our clients and the market as a whole, with dependable liquidity and robust risk management. Despite the current stresses the market is experiencing, in the future the crypto market will emerge stronger.” 

A company spokesperson stressed that the appointment wasn’t linked to current market upheaval spurred by fears over FTX’s potential insolvency, but had been planned over the last three months. 

Founded in 2015, the UK-based firm operates as a market maker in the digital asset space and moved into options and lending products last year after its 2020 acquisition. 

The FTX fallout

The market maker confirmed to The Block that it has no direct exposure to FTT or Alameda and that its limited exposure to FTX as a secondary trading venue had been hedged. It said that amid price volatility seen in the wake of this week’s events, the trading firm has seen daily user count increase by about 30%. 

Other digital asset market-making firms have also disclosed their exposures to FTX in the wake of the exchange’s ongoing collapse. Yesterday, Genesis Trading said that its derivatives arm had $175 million locked up on the exchange. Fellow market makers GSR and Wintermute also noted FTX exposure but said their situations were manageable. 

Gillespie joined the company in February 2018 as chief executive officer of B2C2 Japan, before moving into the group CEO role. He previously held positions at Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Barclays. 

As the crypto market has been rocked by the collapses of Terra-Luna, Three Arrows Capital, and most recently FTX, crypto firms have seen a number of executive leadership shakeups in recent months. Last month, Bitmex CEO Alexander Höptner stepped down, following in the footsteps of Kraken’s Jesse Powell, NYDIG’s Robert Gutmann and Genesis CEO Michael Moro. 

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