A veteran of traditional finance (TradFi) has taken over as CEO of Grayscale, a digital asset investing firm. Sonnenshein left the company after ten years, a few months after the company’s flagship Bitcoin Trust became an exchange-traded fund (ETF). On August 15, Grayscale said on Monday, Peter Mintzberg, head of strategy for asset and wealth management at Goldman Sachs, will succeed Sonnenshein, who was appointed CEO in 2021.
Mintzberg has worked at BlackRock, OppenheimerFunds, and Invesco before joining TradFi. He has over 20 years of expertise in the industry. Until Mintzberg takes over, the company will be led by temporary CFO Edward McGee.
Barry Silbert, CEO of Grayscale’s parent business Digital Currency Group, commented on X, “Michael guided the firm through exponential growth & oversaw its pivotal role in bringing spot bitcoin ETFs to market, leading the way for the broader financial industry.” One of the roughly twelve companies whose spot bitcoin ETF was eventually permitted to list in the United States in January was Grayscale.
Due to the SEC’s persistent denial of the company’s request to convert its Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), which was a closed-end fund at the time, into an exchange-traded fund (ETF), the company had filed a lawsuit against the agency. Over the next three months, GBTC experienced withdrawals totaling almost $15 billion due to the company maintaining higher fees than its rivals.