#DRWat25: Yuval

I joined DRW after a short and less than optimal experience at a competing trading firm. I was uncharacteristically optimistic and equally nervous about how this experience would shape my career, especially given the dissatisfaction I had felt in my prior role. From the outset, I was met with kindness and generosity from my colleagues, a willingness to share information and, generally speaking, a positive energy that clearly flows from the top down. DRW’s values were not taught to me explicitly, but rather learned from observing the way the organization is run and how its employees conduct themselves. What I learned during my time at DRW continues to influence me in my leadership role at Digital Asset today.

For about five years, I worked in the newly formed strategic investments group at DRW. At first, we primarily focused on investing in areas where we felt DRW had a competitive advantage. One of these areas was Bitcoin, and we began exploring opportunities in this space.

It became clear to us over time that DRW was equipped with a unique combination of capital markets expertise, technical knowledge and financial resources to pursue the formation of a distributed ledger technology company based in principle on the blockchain philosophy that underpins Bitcoin. For me personally, this presented a new set of challenges that are inherent in starting a company and a great opportunity to do something I felt had the potential to fundamentally improve the way institutions operate.

Digital Asset has evolved so much over the past three years that every day seems like my first day. I walk into work each morning with the same enthusiasm, excitement and skepticism of the unknown that I did on day 1 – feelings I hope to have three, five, even 10 years from now.

I’m convinced that the team we continue to build has the skills necessary to accomplish what we’ve set out to do, and the prospect of our collective success motivates me.

I was only a year out of college when I joined DRW, and from the moment I arrived at the interview, I felt I would have a lasting relationship with the organization. Now, here I am almost a decade later still working closely with the people I met during that interview in a completely new space at Digital Asset. I’ve had the opportunity to develop personal and professional relationships that positively influence me in ways I cannot measure, let alone articulate.

DRW is grounded in innovation. The culture that Don has worked so hard to develop and maintain empowers employees at all levels to raise new ideas for making DRW and the entire trading industry better.