Brett Harrison

Last updated
Brett Harrison
Born
Brett Alexander Harrison

(1988-05-11) May 11, 1988 (age 36)
New York City, U.S.
Education Harvard University (BA, MS)
Occupation(s)Founder and CEO of Architect Financial Technologies, finance executive, software engineer
Years active2010–present
SpouseHannah Clancy (m. 2017)
Children2

Brett Harrison (born May 11, 1988) is an American businessman and software developer. He is the founder and CEO of brokerage and trading technology firm Architect Financial Technologies. [1] [2]

Contents

Early life

Harrison was born in New York City and raised in Dix Hills, New York. [3] He graduated from Half Hollow Hills High School West in 2006. While in high school, his mathematical research was published in American Mathematical Monthly. [4]

He attended Harvard University, where he earned an M.S. and B.A. in computer science. [5] His studies focused on artificial intelligence. [6] He completed Math 55 during his time at Harvard. [7]

Career

Harrison joined Jane Street Capital as an ADR trader in 2010. [8] [6] He later went on to lead Jane Street’s algorithmic trading system development groups. While at Jane Street, he met and worked with Sam Bankman-Fried. [9]

He was subsequently a technology executive at Citadel Securities. At Citadel he managed the company’s Options, ETF, ADR and OTC technology departments. [10]

In May 2021, Harrison became President of FTX US. [11] While at FTX US he established the company’s regulated business operations and opened its headquarters in Chicago. [5] In 2022 he built and managed the launch of the company’s US retail stock brokerage and trading platform. [12] [13]

Harrison announced his resignation from FTX US on September 27, 2022, [14] after protracted disagreements with Bankman-Fried over formal management structure and lack of delegation of authority at the company. [15]

In December 2022, Bloomberg reported that Harrison was raising capital for a new trading technology venture. [16] In January 2023, he closed a $5 million seed round and founded Architect Financial Technologies, a company to develop institutional-grade trading infrastructure. [1] Architect’s investors include Coinbase, Circle, and Anthony Scaramucci. [17] The company became a CFTC-regulated derivatives broker in September 2023, and an SEC-regulated broker-dealer in October 2024.

Personal life

Harrison is Jewish. [18] He is vegan and owns numerous rescue dogs and cats. [19] [20]

He is married to Hannah Harrison. In January 2019, they adopted a child with congenital amputations from China. [21] They adopted their second child from Thailand in 2023.

Related Research Articles

A cryptocurrency exchange, or a digital currency exchange (DCE), is a business that allows customers to trade cryptocurrencies or digital currencies for other assets, such as conventional fiat money or other digital currencies. Exchanges may accept credit card payments, wire transfers or other forms of payment in exchange for digital currencies or cryptocurrencies. A cryptocurrency exchange can be a market maker that typically takes the bid–ask spreads as a transaction commission for its service or, as a matching platform, simply charges fees.

Fenwick & West LLP is a law firm of more than 470 attorneys with offices in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Seattle, New York City, Santa Monica, Washington, DC and Shanghai. The firm focuses on the technology and life sciences sectors, advising clients at all stages from startups to public companies. Fenwick has been embroiled in legal issues with the US law enforcement and multiple class action lawsuits due to their representation of FTX, for whom they allegedly created shell companies in order to launder money and skirt regulatory scrutiny.

Coinbase Global, Inc., branded Coinbase, is an American publicly traded company that operates a cryptocurrency exchange platform. Coinbase is a distributed company; all employees operate via remote work. It is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States in terms of trading volume. The company was founded in 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam. In May 2020, Coinbase announced it would shut its San Francisco, California, headquarters and change operations to remote-first, part of a wave of several major tech companies closing headquarters in San Francisco in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robinhood Markets</span> US-based financial services company

Robinhood Markets, Inc. is an American financial services company headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The company provides an electronic trading platform accessible via mobile app that facilitates commission-free trades of stocks, exchange-traded funds and cryptocurrency, as well as cryptocurrency wallets, credit cards and other banking services. The company's revenue comes from transaction-based revenues, net interest income, and subscription fees. The company has 24.3 million funded customers, 11.0 million monthly active users, and $152 billion in assets under custody.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jane Street Capital</span> Proprietary trading firm

Jane Street Capital is a global proprietary trading firm. It employs more than 2,600 people in six offices in New York, London, Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Chicago, and Singapore, and trades a broad range of asset classes on more than 200 venues in 45 countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital Currency Group</span> American venture capital company

Digital Currency Group Inc. (DCG) is a venture capital company focusing on the digital currency market. It is located in Stamford, Connecticut. The company has the subsidiaries Foundry, Genesis, Grayscale Investments, and Luno. It also formerly owned CoinDesk.

Allan Joseph Bankman is an American legal scholar and psychologist. He is the Ralph M. Parsons Professor of Law and Business at Stanford Law School. He was also employed at FTX, the cryptocurrency company founded by his son, Sam Bankman-Fried, who is an entrepreneur and convicted felon. His tenure at FTX lasted until the company's bankruptcy and subsequent collapse in 2022.

A cryptocurrency bubble is a phenomenon where the market increasingly considers the going price of cryptocurrency assets to be inflated against their hypothetical value. The history of cryptocurrency has been marked by several speculative bubbles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fred Ehrsam</span> Coinbase co-founder and cryptocurrency entrepreneur

Frederick "Fred" Ernest Ehrsam III is an American businessman, and the co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sam Bankman-Fried</span> American entrepreneur convicted of fraud (born 1992)

Samuel Benjamin Bankman-Fried, commonly known as SBF, is an American entrepreneur who was convicted of fraud and related crimes in November 2023. Bankman-Fried founded the FTX cryptocurrency exchange and was celebrated as a "poster boy" for crypto, with FTX having a global reach with more than 130 international affiliates. At the peak of his net worth, he was ranked the 41st-richest American in the Forbes 400.

FTX Trading Ltd., commonly known as FTX, is a bankrupt company that formerly operated a cryptocurrency exchange and crypto hedge fund. The exchange was founded in 2019 by Sam Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang and collapsed in 2022 after massive fraud perpetrated by Bankman-Fried and his partner Caroline Ellison forced the company to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Alameda Research was a cryptocurrency trading firm, co-founded in September 2017 by Sam Bankman-Fried and Tara MacAulay. In November 2022, FTX, Alameda's sister cryptocurrency exchange, experienced a solvency crisis, and both FTX and Alameda filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. That same month, anonymous sources told The Wall Street Journal that FTX had lent more than half of its customers' funds to Alameda, which was explicitly forbidden by FTX's terms-of-service.

Caroline Ellison is an American business executive who was convicted of fraud in 2023 in relation to the bankruptcy of FTX. She was the CEO of Alameda Research, a trading firm affiliated with the FTX and founded by Sam Bankman-Fried. Ellison was terminated from her position after FTX and Alameda filed for bankruptcy. In 2022, Ellison pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud, two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Wetjen</span> American attorney

Mark P. Wetjen is an American lawyer. In 2011, he was nominated by Barack Obama to serve a five-year term as a Commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). He also served for five months as acting chairman of the CFTC upon the departure of his predecessor, Gary Gensler.

The Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act (DCCPA), S. 4760, is a proposed United States federal law to regulate the trading of cryptocurrencies and related digital assets. It would place the regulation of crypto assets under the authority of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which already regulates the trading of financial derivatives in the United States.

The bankruptcy of FTX, a Bahamas-based cryptocurrency exchange, began in November 2022. The collapse of FTX, caused by a spike in customer withdrawals that exposed an $8 billion hole in FTX's accounts, served as the impetus for its bankruptcy. Prior to its collapse, FTX was the third-largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume and had over one million users.

John Samuel Trabucco is an American business executive. He was co-CEO of Alameda Research, a defunct quantitative trading firm founded by Sam Bankman-Fried before FTX. Caroline Ellison was Alameda's other co-CEO. Trabucco stepped down from Alameda in August 2022, leaving Ellison as sole CEO until its bankruptcy along with FTX three months later.

Gary Wang is an American computer programmer who co-founded the crypto currency exchange FTX with Sam Bankman-Fried. At the height of his success in 2022, Wang was ranked the 227th richest American in the Forbes 400, and the 431st richest person in the world by The World's Billionaires. After FTX collapsed into bankruptcy, caused by massive fraud perpetrated by Wang, Bankman-Fried and a few others, Wang plea bargained a guilty charge in exchange for testifying against his former college roommate and FTX cofounder, Bankman-Fried. Before co-founding FTX, Wang worked at Google Flights, building systems for the aggregation of ticket prices.

<i>United States v. Bankman-Fried</i> 2023 trial of FTX founder

United States of America v. Samuel Bankman-Fried was a 2023 federal criminal trial in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Financial entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried, commonly known as SBF, was convicted on seven charges of fraud and conspiracy following the collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange FTX in November 2022. After the jury's verdict in November 2023, on March 28, 2024, Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison.

Arkham Intelligence is a public data application that enables users to analyze blockchain and cryptocurrency activity. Founded by Miguel Morel in 2020, the company's platform utilizes AI to identify and catalog the owners of blockchain addresses. Its partners include various cryptocurrency and blockchain companies.

References

  1. 1 2 Melinek, Jacquelyn (January 20, 2023). "Coinbase and others back ex-FTX US president's crypto trading infra startup Architect".
  2. ↑ Katherine Doherty (April 19, 2023). "FTX US's Former Head Kicks Off Trading Hub for Futures and Crypto". Bloomberg– via www.bloomberg.com.
  3. ↑ "SALT Talks: Brett Harrison: Crypto Derivatives | SALT Talks #255 on Apple Podcasts". Apple Podcasts.
  4. ↑ Harrison, Brett A. (2007). "On the Reducibility of Cyclotomic Polynomials over Finite Fields". The American Mathematical Monthly. 114 (9): 813–818. doi:10.1080/00029890.2007.11920475. JSTOR   27642336. S2CID   5419188.
  5. 1 2 "Former FTX Executive Harrison Is Getting Ready for His Next Act". Bloomberg. February 2, 2023 – via www.bloomberg.com.
  6. 1 2 Jr, Landon Thomas (February 22, 2016). "A New Breed of Trader on Wall Street: Coders With a Ph.D." The New York Times– via NYTimes.com.
  7. ↑ "Burden of Proof | Magazine". The Harvard Crimson.
  8. ↑ "BrokerCheck - Find a broker, investment or financial advisor". brokercheck.finra.org.
  9. ↑ "Ex-FTX US President on Fraud Allegations, Bankman-Fried" – via www.bloomberg.com.
  10. ↑ "SALT – Brett Harrison". salt.org.
  11. ↑ "'It's wild out there': crypto firms lure top bankers in price boom". Financial Times. May 26, 2021.
  12. ↑ "FTX U.S. President Brett Harrison on launching stock trading for all users". CNBC.
  13. ↑ Osipovich, Alexander. "Crypto Exchange FTX Expands Into Stock Trading". WSJ.
  14. ↑ Capoot, Ashley. "Crypto exchange FTX is replacing its U.S. president". CNBC.
  15. ↑ Exhibit(s) (Notice of Filing First Interim Report of John J. Ray III to the Independent Directors on Control Failures at the FTX Exchanges) Filed by FTX Trading Ltd.. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit A)
  16. ↑ "Former FTX US Head Is Raising Money for Crypto Startup". Bloomberg. December 2, 2022 – via www.bloomberg.com.
  17. ↑ "Ex-FTX US President Harrison Taps Coinbase, Circle for New Crypto Firm". Bloomberg. January 20, 2023 – via www.bloomberg.com.
  18. ↑ @BrettHarrison88 (December 16, 2022). "I'm Jewish but my wife taught me to love Christmas" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  19. ↑ "Brett Harrison on how FTX builds successful products: We ask people what they want". Fortune Crypto.
  20. ↑ "FTX.US: A Crypto Future for All ft. Brett Harrison". Casted.
  21. ↑ @BrettHarrison88 (August 4, 2022). "A little bit about my son, Eli" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.