On Thursday, Peter Mintzberg stepped into the top job at Grayscale. The move, first announced in May, meant that one of the oldest firms in crypto—an industry that once denounced traditional finance—was handing the reins to a consummate Wall Street insider. The appointment of Mintzberg, who has held senior positions at Goldman Sachs and BlackRock, raises questions both about the future of Grayscale and what leadership in the crypto industry will look like going forward.
Under CEO Michael Sonnenshein, who joined the firm in 2014 as a salesman and rose to the helm in 2021, Grayscale brought digital assets to conventional investors through its Bitcoin trust before winning a pivotal legal battle against the Securities and Exchange Commission in August 2023 to approve Bitcoin ETFs.
