Miami, FL, USA, August 4, 2026

The engineer behind defi.app's more than $40 billion in volume has joined New Market Trading (NMT) as Chief Technology Officer, the company said on the same day it opened publicly to new clients.

New Market Trading, which describes itself as the first wealth management firm to move the investment account itself onto the blockchain, said Ajdin Kahrović will own the platform's technical foundation from launch day. The launch places NMT among a growing set of firms attempting to bridge traditional portfolio management with onchain finance, where investor demand for yield-bearing and actively managed crypto strategies has expanded alongside the maturation of Ethereum's account abstraction stack.

Kahrović brings more than 11 years of engineering leadership experience across fintech, Web3, and DeFi. According to the company, he previously architected defi.app from zero to more than $40 billion in cumulative trading volume, 10,000 daily active users, and a $500 million valuation, while leading an 11-person engineering team. His background includes blockchain architecture, smart contracts, DeFi protocols, backend systems, and cloud infrastructure.

"The CTO seat at New Market Trading carries real weight. Our clients hold their own assets, but the smart contracts the platform introduces need to be secure and audited. Ajdin has already built and scaled this kind of infrastructure at defi.app, past $40 billion in cumulative volume, and he leads engineers as well as he designs architecture. I hired him to own our technology completely. That is why he is here," said Frank Hepworth, Founder & CEO, New Market Trading.

NMT said clients own their investment account directly on the blockchain through ERC-4337 smart account technology. ERC-4337, adopted as an Ethereum standard in 2023, enables programmable wallet accounts without requiring changes to the protocol's core consensus layer, allowing features like delegated execution and granular permissioning. Under NMT's model, the team holds a scoped, delegated permission to execute strategies, but it cannot withdraw or redirect funds. The company said the security and integrity of that architecture is the basis of the client relationship.

As CTO, Kahrović will lead engineering, set the technical roadmap, and oversee the security and reliability of the platform as it scales.

"I'm excited to join Frank and the New Market Trading team as we build a platform that enables onchain wealth to be managed securely, in a truly self-custodial and censorship-resistant way.

"Our mission is to help investors own the highest-performing, fully managed crypto portfolios, whilst preserving the original benefits of crypto: sovereignty and independence. Exciting times lie ahead, and I'm looking forward to what's next." said Ajdin Kahrović, CTO, New Market Trading.

Kahrović's appointment comes as NMT expands its operations, with the company saying the engineering foundation behind its model will be maintained by someone who has already handled similar responsibilities in production, at scale, and under real market conditions.

The company said its technical philosophy aligns with its founding principles of censorship-resistant, open-source, privacy-preserving, and secure infrastructure.

New Market Trading said it is the first wealth management firm to move the investment account itself onto the blockchain. It said NMT clients own their account via ERC-4337 smart account technology, delegate trading management to the NMT team, and gain immediate access to more than 10,000 onchain assets, yield products, and active strategies that the company says are not available from legacy providers. The account minimum is USD $100,000.

Website:

New Market Trading (NMT) [email protected]

The post New Market Trading Names Ajdin Kahrović Chief Technology Officer appeared first on Chainwire.