Chase J Thompson is the CEO of Arena. Chase began his career working in emerging markets selling consulting projects and services in the Caribbean, Middle East, and Southeast Asia. In 2010, he founded his own consultancy firm called The Prospect Group (TPG), which is still in operation today. Chase was an expat from 2006 to 2017, living and working in Jordan, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Dubai, Bahrain, Brunei, Thailand, and Malaysia.

In 2014, he was so taken with the promise of crypto that he stepped away from TPG to work in crypto full time. He was the first business hire for Status.im, an Ethereum based secure messaging app, crypto wallet, and Web3 browser. While there, he was part of a team that raised $417mm in 2017 in an ICO that was in such high demand, Ethereum was inoperable for a day. From there he did a brief stint as a developer on Deloitte’s blockchain team before quickly being headhunted to crypto exchange ShapeShift to build their business development department.

At ShapeShift, Chase met Charlie Blackstock (who was coincidentally his direct neighbor) and after working together and becoming great friends and bonding over Chase’s truly pathetic gaming abilities formed the initial concept of Arena.