NEW YORK, USA

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Michael Oved

Investor & Builder in DeFi

Co-Founder Harbor, cross-chain DEX

Co-Founded AirSwap, early Ethereum

Partner Virtu, global leader in HFT

I’m an investor and builder who has proven experience navigating turmoil in markets and has launched ventures with a focus on building efficient financial systems that transform how value is communicated globally.

I began my career on Wall Street, rising to partner at Virtu Financial, a leader in high-frequency and algorithmic trading. At Virtu, I traded nearly every asset class on every exchange globally, and maintained licenses across multiple jurisdictions. We built Virtu Asia, expanding the firm’s international footprint, and contributed to its successful IPO. That foundation in proprietary trading, market microstructure, and data systems instilled a deep understanding of markets and shaped the trajectory of my work in crypto.

After Virtu, we founded AirSwap, one of the first decentralized exchanges on Ethereum, pioneering non-custodial, peer-to-peer trading, that has since processed billions in volume. AirSwap was later acquired by MetaMask and ConsenSys, where our team built MetaMask Swaps, now one of the most widely used and highest-revenue products in DeFi. Through AirSwap and MetaMask, we introduced some of the earliest scalable frameworks for decentralized trading, helping define core concepts that underpin today’s DeFi landscape, influenced Web3 UI/UX, and contributed to the legal and technical foundations that shaped modern decentralized markets.

With successful ventures across both traditional and crypto capital markets, I understand the rigor, nuance, and regulatory awareness each domain demands. As Wall Street accelerates its adoption of blockchain and crypto becomes increasingly ubiquitous, my focus is on building the infrastructure that bridges these financial worlds.

I’m currently building Harbor, a new blockchain protocol developed with Pluto (formerly THORChain), backed by marquee investors and now live on mainnet processing trades in select wallets. Harbor is a native-asset, high-performance DEX built for wallets, apps, and global markets. We’re entering an era of structural uncertainty, where stablecoins fragment, app chains proliferate, new L1s emerge, assets move on-chain, and quantum computing questions existing implementations. In this environment, networks demand interconnectivity and flexibility. Harbor is built for that reality, future proof by design, enabling fast connection to new chains as they emerge and prove their utility. It operates at the infrastructure layer, ready to navigate shifting market structure and provide the connective tissue needed to bring all of finance on-chain. We closed a strategic round led by Susquehanna Crypto and Triton (Kraken Ventures), with additional participation from Selini, Auros, Hermeneutic, Kronos Research, Karatage, prominent crypto family offices, and leading angels, all aligned around Harbor’s long-term vision.

I studied Mathematics at Carnegie Mellon University and my work has been featured in Bloomberg, Off the Chain, Harvard, Stanford, Trust Machine, and the St Louis Fed.

Michael Oved

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