John Kim Leads DV Trading’s Singapore Discretionary Crypto Team

DV Trading, a Chicago firm with more than 600 employees, has appointed John Kim to lead a newly formed discretionary crypto team in Singapore.

Kim’s team will operate through DV Chain, the firm’s crypto business. Founded in 2016, DV Chain had focused mainly on market making, giving the new team an established internal platform rather than a stand-alone company.

What experience does Kim bring?

Kim joined Nomura’s digital asset division, Laser Digital, in October 2025, where he led derivatives trading. Before that, he spent three years as head of derivatives trading at Galaxy Digital.

The chronology places three years at Galaxy Digital before Kim’s derivatives-trading leadership at Laser Digital, which began in October 2025. The announcement provides no performance history, investment mandate or trading strategy, so it does not support claims about returns, assets or market views.

His stated role at Laser Digital covered derivatives trading, while his Galaxy Digital position was head of derivatives trading. That record gives DV Chain a recruiting rationale centered on trading leadership, but the announcement does not describe how Kim will allocate responsibility within the Singapore team.

What changes at DV Chain?

The clearest change is organizational: DV Chain is adding a discretionary trading group to a business that had focused mainly on market making. Market making centers on liquidity and counterparties, while a discretionary book centers on investment selection; the announcement does not explain how their risk, technology or execution arrangements will interact.

Several practical details remain undisclosed, including the team’s headcount, reporting line, trading instruments, asset coverage, capital allocation and launch date. The announcement also does not say whether the discretionary group will share personnel or systems with DV Chain’s market-making operation.

For scale, DV Trading has more than 600 employees, while the announcement provides no employee count for the new Singapore team. Its placement under DV Chain, founded in 2016, ties the mandate to the firm’s existing crypto-business structure.

Why place the team in Singapore?

Kim joins DV Trading’s Singapore office, and the new team will work from that location. The announcement does not identify the office’s existing functions or say whether the team will serve clients, manage balance-sheet capital or operate as an internal proprietary unit.

The arrangement joins three defined elements: DV Chain provides the crypto-business structure, Singapore provides the location, and Kim brings the disclosed derivatives experience. The announcement does not say how the team’s authority over positions, counterparties or execution will differ from other DV Chain activity.

No fundraising amount accompanies the appointment. There is also no disclosed fee split, revenue target or trading-volume forecast, leaving the commercial scale of the team unquantified rather than allowing an estimate from company-wide figures.

What should readers watch next?

The next checkpoint is operational disclosure rather than a forecast of trading performance. Relevant terms include whether the team launches as a stand-alone book, which instruments it can use, how counterparties are selected and which limits govern losses. None of those parameters appears in the current announcement.

Until further disclosure, the verified conclusion is narrow: Kim has joined a Singapore office, will lead a new discretionary crypto team through DV Chain, and brings three years as Galaxy Digital’s derivatives trading head plus a derivatives leadership role at Laser Digital that began in October 2025.

No launch deadline appears in the announcement. The next structural test is whether DV Trading publishes the team’s launch date, trading mandate and risk boundaries as the Singapore operation becomes operational.