STAMFORD — Digital Currency Group, a leading company in the cryptocurrency and blockchain-technology sectors that recently opened offices in Stamford, announced Monday plans to create more than 300 jobs in Connecticut in the next five years — the latest of several prominent firms to commit this year to hiring on a large scale, with state financial assistance.
To support the new positions, DCG is building an approximately 90,000-square-foot headquarters across the fourth and fifth floors of 290 Harbor Drive, in the Shippan Landing complex. By the end of the summer of 2022, the company is aiming to open the new offices, which have panoramic views of Stamford and Long Island Sound.
Before deciding on Connecticut, DCG considered keeping its headquarters in Manhattan, while it also looked at locations in the other New York City boroughs, Westchester County and New Jersey.
“It was Connecticut where we were welcomed with open arms by Gov. (Ned) Lamont,” DCG founder and CEO Barry Silbert said Monday in a press conference on the fifth floor of 290 Harbor Drive. “It is here where we found a great home for financial-technology companies with the infrastructure, universities, access to capital and diverse pool of talent needed to build a global business.”
If DCG creates and retains more than 300 full-time jobs, it can earn a grant “in arrears” of up to approximately $5 million from the state Department of Economic and Community Development.
“This is a state that was one of the most entrepreneurial states in the country, going back a long time,” Lamont said at the press conference. “Then we lost a little bit of our entrepreneurial mojo, and we are getting it back thanks to entrepreneurs like you.”
Ahead of the completion of the permanent headquarters, DCG opened in the spring a temporary headquarters in the adjacent building at 262 Harbor Drive, where about 130 employees are based. As part of its expansion, DCG plans to hire more than 100 people in Stamford in 2022.
Today, the company employs more than 1,000 people across four continents.
“You are an enormous boost to our growing fintech industry, and thank you for your commitment to Connecticut, to Stamford and the jobs you’re going to be creating,” Stamford Mayor-elect Caroline Simmons said at the press conference. “We really look forward to partnering with you.”
Silbert described DCG as “the largest conglomerate of companies in the fast-growing cryptocurrency and blockchain industry.” Founded in 2015, DCG has invested in more than 200 companies focused on blockchain, a technology that plays a vital role in cryptocurrencies such…
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