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Concordia Winter 2022

A career in the world of cryptocurrency

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Lanre Ige (2007-2014) is the Senior Research Associate at Menai Financial Group, a market maker and asset management firm in the digital assets industry. With an academic background in philosophy, economics and statistics, he has been conducting research and data analysis on the digital asset and cryptocurrency market over the past five years.

heavily involved with the digital asset (or cryptocurrency) industry. It’s very tempting to paint a cohesive narrative of how I first developed an interest in economics, philosophy, and computer science whilst at Merchant Taylors’, before developing said interest to a higher academic standard at Warwick, and then actualizing that interest in the industry I now work in. However, the reality is that my career path to this point has been quite haphazard and poorly-thought-out, although, when I reflect on my (interesting and enjoyable) current position I am very grateful for many of the lessons I learned during my formative academic years. Current role I’ve had several roles within the digital asset industry over the last eight years, but they have mostly been within a “research” capacity, namely producing reports and analysing data to help educate others on my industry, in addition to using this research to help

Memories of MTS I studied at Merchant Taylors’ from 2007 to 2014 and still retain many fond memories from my time there. Studying there gave me the opportunity to develop a somewhat fleeting interest in Computer Science (done for GCSE) and a stronger interest in Economics, which I carried with me through my university days and beyond. After my A Levels, I went to the University of Warwick to study Philosophy, Politics, and Economics and ended up focusing on modern philosophy and mathematical logic, given the breadth of courses the university offered me. It was also whilst I was in my first year at university that I did a research fellowship with the Institute of Economic Affairs. During this fellowship I learned about Bitcoin and ended up writing a research paper on it, linking some of the asset’s obviously libertarian philosophical roots with the work of Friedrich Hayek on private monies. From that point on and for the last eight years I’ve been