BlockFi’s Flori Marquez: Crypto Is 'Center of Innovation' in the U.S.

While her net worth might be a mystery, Flori Marquez is already a success with or without a fortune in her bank account. Forbes named the BlockFi co-founder to its 30 Under 30 list in 2021 and hailed her company’s projected revenue of $120 million that year.

Marquez later told Decrypt that the honor presented “recognition and publicity for our products”—and that she called her mother, a Spanish teacher, when she found out she made the list. “And this is the most ‘mom’ move of all time,” Marquez added. “She congratulated me, but I could tell she was kind of trying to hang up. And then I think she thought she had hung up the phone, but she hadn’t, and I could hear her say to her entire class, ‘Guys, my daughter just won!’ It felt great.”

According to her LinkedIn profile, Marquez earned a B.S. from Cornell University and worked as an investment banking analyst for Sword, Rowe & Company. She also worked as a summer analyst for BNP Paribas during her college years.

After college, she worked as an analyst for Oak Hill Advisors, where she helped develop and maintain institutional partnerships. She worked as a portfolio manager for Bond Street, where she “helped build, scale, and optimize a $125 [million] portfolio,” her BlockFi bio touts.

Marquez co-founded BlockFi in 2017 alongside CEO Zac Prince. As Forbes noted last year, the cryptocurrency lending platform has raised more than $100 million in equity from venture capital firms. The company's website touts that it manages more than $10 billion in assets for more than 1 million verified clients and 350 institutions around the world.

In an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Jan. 11, Marquez said that she’s excited for crypto’s outlook in 2022, despite Bitcoin and Ethereum’s recent dips. “[In its] two-year return, as of today, Bitcoin is actually up 416 percent,” she pointed out. “Bitcoin is definitely a volatile asset, but as we look forward to 2022, there are two key things that I’m really excited for this year.”

For starters, Marquez is excited about the “record amount” of venture capital funding going into crypto. “We saw around $30 billion go into crypto, and that’s a 450 percent increase from [the year before],” she said. “So I do think that this year, you’re going to see crypto companies hiring stronger talent and just really good momentum as products begin to mature.”

Marquez is also excited about how crypto has become “a clear center for innovation” in the U.S. economy. “If you look at last year, crypto-related job postings grew 395 percent, and if you compare that to the tech industry, tech came in at just 98 percent,” she said. “So overall, it is a volatile start to the year, it’s definitely something that crypto investors are used to, but I’m definitely excited for what’s ahead.”