JPMorgan hires former Celsius exec Aaron Iovine

JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) has hired Aaron Iovine, a former regulatory affairs executive at bankrupt crypto lender Celsius (CEL/USD), only a few weeks after he left the embattled crypto company.

Reuters reported the development, citing the new JPMorgan Chase $ Co employee’s LinkedIn profile.

Ex-Celsius exec joins JPMorgan

Iovine worked at Celsius for eight months, joining the crypto lender in February 2022 before leaving this September. Celsius paused customer withdrawals in June, a few weeks after Terra Luna and TerraUSD collapsed to suck in Three Arrows Capital and others. 

The crypto lender then filed for bankruptcy in July, these developments coming after the broader crypto market crash and the following contagion.

At Celsius, Iovine headed the lender’s policy and regulatory affairs division. Now at JPMorgan, he is reportedly taking up the position of Executive Director of Digital Assets Regulatory Policy.

A spokesperson at the US investment bank confirmed the move, but did not go into specific details about the hire, according to Reuters.

While Iovine is joining JPMorgan only weeks after leaving Celsius, his appointment at JPMorgan also comes days after the bank’s CEO Jamie Dimon blasted cryptocurrencies as “decentralised Ponzi schemes.”However, as Invezz reported in September, Dimon’s scepticism does not extend to blockchain, smart contracts and decentralised finance (DeFi) – with the banker telling US Congress that these sectors of the broader blockchain technology market have value.