WisdomTree hires John Whelan from Santander as head of digital asset strategy

WisdomTree has appointed John Whelan as head of digital asset strategy, effective today. Whelan spent a decade at Banco Santander, where he led digital assets for the corporate and investment banking arm until the end of last year, and he exits Europe after publicly criticising the region’s regulatory constraints on innovation.

Whelan led Santander to issue the second-ever bond on a public blockchain in 2019 and co-founded the wholesale DLT settlement platform Fnality, where WisdomTree is a shareholder and where both Whelan and WisdomTree chief executive Jonathan Steinberg served on the board between 2022 and 2025. In October 2025 Santander joined a ten-bank group planning to make public blockchain payments using stable assets in G7 currencies.

WisdomTree has $910 million of assets under management in WTGXX, its on-chain money market fund, and operates client-facing applications for onchain investment management and a stablecoin. As an asset manager it is not subject to Basel crypto-asset banking rules.