Today asset manager WisdomTree announced that John Whelan is joining as head of digital asset strategy. Whelan spent ten years at Banco Santander, until the end of last year, where he led digital assets for the corporate and investment banking (CIB) arm.
Both WisdomTree and Whelan have track records as early movers in digital assets. It’s also unsurprising that Whelan is moving back to the US after repeatedly expressing exasperation about Europe’s penchant for passing regulations that constrain innovation. For its part, WisdomTree was one of the earlier asset managers to launch tokenized money market funds (MMF) alongside apps to enable clients to manage onchain investments and a stablecoin. Its WTGXX onchain MMF has $910m in assets under management. As an asset manager, it is not restricted by Basel banking rules for crypto-assets.
At Santander, Whelan was also an early mover, leading the bank to become only the second to launch a bond on a public blockchain back in 2019. Santander was a co-founder of the wholesale DLT settlement platform Fnality, where WisdomTree is a shareholder. WisdomTree’s CEO Jonathan Steinberg and Whelan both served on the Fnality board between 2022 and 2025. In October 2025 Santander joined a group of ten systemically important banks planning to make public blockchain payments using “stable” assets in G7 currencies.
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