The Block Brings In a New CEO as It Pushes Deeper Into Institutional Markets

Quick overview

Steve Chung is taking over as chief executive of The Block, the crypto news and research outfit, effective immediately. Larry Cermak, who had been running the company, moves into a president role where he will focus on research, data, and product. It is a fairly clean handoff, with Cermak staying involved in the areas where The Block has built its reputation while Chung takes responsibility for the business side.

Chung’s background is not the typical crypto hire. He started his career at Goldman Sachs, then spent years building and running media and technology operations in the US and Asia. He held senior roles at Fox Corporation, was CEO of CJ ENM America, and most recently was chief operating officer at Azuki, an NFT company. The combination of capital markets experience and media operations is clearly what The Block was looking for, given where it is trying to take the business.

The timing of the appointment reflects how much the industry has shifted. Big allocators are moving into digital assets in ways they were not three years ago. AI has started changing how research gets done and how information reaches the people who act on it. And the wall that used to separate crypto from conventional finance has gotten considerably thinner. Running a publication that serves that audience well requires someone who has actually worked across those areas, not just read about them.

Foresight Ventures, which acquired The Block in 2023, put another $10 million of growth capital into the company alongside this announcement. That is a signal that the ownership group is not just making a management change for the sake of it. There is a specific expansion plan behind it, focused on scaling the institutional research and data offering and growing the enterprise side of the business.

Whether Chung can execute on that while keeping the editorial credibility intact is the real question. The Block’s value to its audience is largely built on trust, and that is not something a new CEO can manufacture.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR See More

Sophia Cruz

Financial Writer - Asian & European Desks

Sophia is an experienced writer, reporter and newsdesk member, mostly on the financial sectors. For the past 5 years Sophia has covered a wide variety of topics such as the financial markets, economics, technology, fin-tech and trading. Sophia has been a part of the FX Leaders team since 2017 and works on producing valuable content and information for traders of all levels of experience.

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