Bloomberg tech host quits to join Ripple

The new face of Ripple is, in fact, an old familiar one for many investors.

Cory Johnson, who for many years served as a host on Bloomberg Television as well as editor-at-large, has joined the Ripple team to become the crypto payments company’s chief market strategist. Johnson announced his new job on Twitter, linking to a CNBC story about it:

Big news- I’ve joined @Ripple as chief market strategist. $XRP https://t.co/XASghaYJAQ

— Cory Johnson (@CoryTV) March 9, 2018

The move is so sudden that he has yet to update his LinkedIn profile though his bio has been scrubbed from Bloomberg’s website.

Johnson, who was at Bloomberg for seven years, was a co-anchor with Emily Chang of Bloomberg West (now called Bloomberg Technology) before becoming editor-at-large and a host on Bloomberg Radio.

A New York University graduate, Johnson began his career editing such hip hop publications as SLAM and Vibe. He transitioned into tech journalism when he joined Jim Cramer’s TheStreet.com at the company’s start in 1996 [where he worked with this writer]. During that stint, he moved west to open TSC’s San Francisco bureau. Johnson stayed in the Bay Area ever since, working as a reported for The Industry Standard and CNBC at the peak of the internet boom and the subsequent bust. He then went on to become a portfolio manager for a few years before returning to journalism at Bloomberg.

On Twitter, Johnson cited his career as a reason for making his latest change:

I’m a startup guy, always have been. @SlamOnline, @VibeMagazine, @TheStreet, #IndustryStandard, @CNBC Silicon Valley, #ForensicResearch, #BloombergWest, #BloombergMarkets… Ready to do it again and excited to join one of the most important companies in #crypto and #blockchain.

— Cory Johnson (@CoryTV) March 9, 2018

His last story on Bloomberg.com, written in December, was about Kodak’s foray into blockchain.

CNBC reported that Johnson “will be working closely with Ripple’s CFO Ron Will” and quoted him saying:

“The role of Ripple as a company and XRP as a currency in financial markets, to regulators, financial institutions and investors could use more explaining,” Johnson said. “I’m going to try and explain, listen and set strategies to make it easy for Wall Street and the world of finance to understand what we’re doing.”

In the four hours following Johnson’s announcement, Ripple’s XRP token was off by 6 percent and was down more than 30 percent from its rumor-driven highs over the past weekend.

[Disclosure: Ken Kurson, founder of Modern Consensus, is on the board of Ripple.]