Institutional BD - DeFi Lending

Referment is partnering with a fast-growing, institutional lending platform operating at the intersection of traditional finance and digital assets. This is a high-impact, senior individual-contributor role for a 'hunter' deeply embedded in the New York institutional finance ecosystem who thrives on relationship-led origination and deal sourcing.

This is not a retail, high-volume, inbound, strategy, operations, or advisory role. It is a pure new-business origination role focused on finding borrowers who need capital and structuring lending deals with them, working on fewer, larger, more complex transactions with typical deal sizes of $25m-$100m+.

• Originate new institutional borrower relationships across hedge funds, trading firms, prime brokerage, asset managers, banks, credit funds, and family offices.
• Own the end-to-end business development process: sourcing, progressing, structuring lending conversations, and closing.
• Act as the primary external face of the platform in New York, attending industry events and meeting senior decision-makers.
• Serve as a senior relationship manager to borrowers post-close.
• Collaborate closely with credit, capital markets, and leadership teams, and feed real-time market insight back into product and growth strategy.

• 5+ years' experience in institutional business development, relationship management, or capital markets, in a hands-on origination or loan coverage role.
• Direct experience in institutional lending, credit, or structured finance (e.g., securitization, corporate lending, warehouse facilities) is essential.
• Currently working at a blockchain, DeFi, or crypto-native firm in an institutional capacity, able to bridge TradFi and crypto.
• Well-networked in the NYC institutional finance community with a track record of personally originating and winning large-ticket, low-volume transactions.
• Must be based in New York City or the immediate surrounding area (e.g., New Jersey). Experience engaging with BTC miners or BTC treasury firms is a significant plus.

Remote-first culture with optional access to a shared New York office space and no mandated in-office days. The source listing displayed a salary band of $175,000 to $250,000; the posting body also notes a competitive base salary plus meaningful performance upside (OTE typically in the 50-100% range, depending on performance). This role is not a fit for those focused on capital sourcing/fund distribution, SaaS/tech sales, operations/strategy/M&A/advisory, account management of existing portfolios, or niches such as tokenization and stablecoin launches.