Two Bakkt institutional executives have left the company

Two high-level executives from Bakkt have taken up new roles in the crypto space in the past month.

Laura Edelman, Bakkt's former head of market development, is now working as global head of sales at messaging trade platform Paradigm, according to a Telegram announcement. Per LinkedIn, Edelman began the new role this month.

Before Bakkt, Edelman worked at the Intercontinental Exchange Inc. (ICE), which owns and operates the digital assets company as well as the New York Stock Exchange.

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Former Bakkt head of custody John Conneely now leads institutional custody sales and business development at crypto lending platform Genesis, a source familiar with the matter told The Block.

Conneely's LinkedIn account notes that he began the new role sometime in April. Before Bakkt, Conneely ran institutional sales at Digital Asset Custody Company (DACC), which Bakkt later acquired.

The twin departures come in the wake of Bakkt's official launch of its consumer wallet, which came after a long period of development and after Bakkt first launched custodial and derivatives business lines. Bakkt announced in January that it would go public via a SPAC deal. 

Bakkt did not immediately respond to The Block's request for comment.

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Saniya More (pronounced: Saan-ya Mo-ray) is a quadrilingual journalist at The Block. She got her master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and did her undergraduate degree at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University. Her work has appeared in CBS News, Bangkok Post, Thai Enquirer, Globalists, Byline Times and other publications. When she’s not chasing a story, you will most likely find her biking, tweeting, taking photos or creating Spotify playlists for every occasion.