A Rising Crypto Star Has the SEC and Volatile Markets In Her Way

Ophelia Snyder spent her early twenties making marine biology documentaries for the Discovery Channel. Now, at 29, she’s managing $2.5 billion in a risky and volatile corner of finance.

Snyder’s firm, 21Shares, is based in Zug — known as Switzerland’s Crypto Valley — and offers European investors exchange-traded funds based on Bitcoin as well as tokens familiar only to the crypto cognoscenti, like Polkadot and Avalanche.

She’s now teaming up with another crypto apostle, Cathie Wood, to launch a Bitcoin ETF in the U.S. Snyder has even opened a New York office in the hopes of expanding in the country.

Her ...