Michael Gronager has left Chainalysis, the blockchain forensics company he co-founded in 2014. Gronager, who was also the CEO and public face of the New York City-based company, also gave up his board seat but retains his equity in the company.
With Bitcoin breaking $100,000 this week, mainstream financial institutions introducing crypto products such as exchange-traded funds, and the incoming Trump administration stacked with crypto-friendly cabinet picks, it stands to reason that Chainalysis will become more valuable as demand for its services increases.
Steering the company into that future will fall to co-founder Jonathan Levin, who has been named the new CEO. Levin, who studied economics at Oxford, has testified before Congress on issues related to cryptocurrencies and had previously been Chainalysis’s chief strategy officer. In an interview with TechCrunch, he said that he would maintain his previous duties and that the research and development team would continue to report to him.
Levin also told TechCrunch that the company is in a “strong cash position” and that he would focus on “the expansion of our risk platform, and going deeper with our government clients across the world to ensure they can deal with the increased demand of crypto.”
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According to the same announcement, Paul Auvil, the former chief financial officer of Proofpoint, would be joining Chainalysis’s board as an independent director.
Chainalysis, a 2023 Best in Business honoree, made a name for itself by investigating blockchain-based transactions, including crimes committed with crypto currencies. As of 2022, Chainalysis was valued at $8.6 billion. According to a review of public records by Inc. this February, Chainalysis had scored more than $70 million in U.S. government contracts since 2015, including contracts with the FBI and IRS. It may be best known for helping investigators locate FTX’s assets after the crypto exchange founded by Sam Bankman-Fried collapsed.
Gronager reportedly went on leave in September for personal reasons, a week after his last public appearance for the company. Chainalysis did not elaborate on the reasons for Gronager’s departure, beyond saying it was a joint decision between him and the board.
In a post on LinkedIn, Gronager wrote, “After much thought, I’ve decided it’s the right time for me to explore new opportunities and contribute in new ways. Chainalysis has grown from an idea into an unstoppable force for good, and I leave confident in the incredible team that will continue its mission.”
Gronager was an early convert to the world of decentralized finance and co-founded the crypto exchange Kraken in 2011. A few years later, another crypto exchange called Mt. Gox collapsed. Gronager investigated what happened to Kraken’s holdings in Mt. Gox and realized that the digital forensics tools he was developing might be of use to governments looking to track illicit cash flows, and banks that wanted to stay compliant with know-your-customer regulations.
In late 2014, he founded Chainalysis with Levin and Jan Moller. (Moller left the company in 2019.) The new company had the stated aim of “safeguarding the future of finance,” Gronager told Inc. earlier this year. It attracted a mix of crypto true believers and former government officials and played an important role in not only mainstreaming cryptocurrencies but also shattering the illusion that crypto is an anonymous space where criminals can transact freely.
With crypto set to be increasingly influential in a second Trump administration, Chainalysis could be in a sweet spot to expand. Howard Lutnick, the Cantor Fitzgerald CEO president-elect Donald Trump nominated for Commerce Secretary, spoke at the company’s Links conference in April.
“When I co-founded Chainalysis ten years ago, our vision was to help cryptocurrency achieve its full potential by bringing greater trust, safety, and transparency to this transformative technology,” Levin said in a press release announcing his appointment. “Today, Chainalysis is at the forefront as cryptocurrency matures as an asset class and powers new payments and application ecosystems. As CEO, I look forward to continuing to deliver cutting edge data, investigations, and risk solutions to our customers while also pursuing new market opportunities.”
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