In a move shaking up both Wall Street and Web3, legendary trader Charles Winn has officially joined Castillo Trade as Lead Macro Strategist & Head of Digital Assets. Known globally as one of the sharpest minds in high-stakes finance, Winn is now steering the firm’s aggressive expansion into digital assets and decentralized finance (DeFi) — and unveiling what may be the most transformative ICO of the year.
Winn’s arrival marks a strategic milestone for Castillo Trade, a firm rapidly building its name as a disruptive force in the world of digital asset investment. But that’s not all: alongside his new role, Winn is also launching Atlas Protocol (ATP) — a new Layer 1 blockchain already drawing comparisons to Ethereum and Solana in its earliest days.
From JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs to Crypto Pioneer
Charles Winn’s career has been anything but ordinary. Over the past two decades, he built a legacy inside the world’s top financial institutions, racking up billions in profit through expert macroeconomic trades. His deep understanding of currency markets, global commodities, and monetary policy has earned him respect on both trading floors and boardrooms.
At JPMorgan Chase, Winn made headlines for correctly predicting the taper tantrum of 2013 and profiting from volatility in emerging market debt. Later, at Goldman Sachs, he cemented his status as a macro savant by generating over $1.4 billion in profit during a multi-year short on European bank stocks.
Yet in 2023, he left it all behind — stepping away from traditional finance and quietly beginning to build something new.
The Strategic Brain Behind Atlas Protocol (ATP)
Now, in 2025, that vision is materializing.
Charles Winn is the architect behind Atlas Protocol (ATP) — a new Layer 1 blockchain that aims to redefine data ownership and on-chain identity. Atlas is engineered to support decentralized identity frameworks (DID), sovereign data sharing, and tokenized real-world assets, all underpinned by military-grade privacy and blazing-fast throughput.
The project has already raised over $80 million in private rounds, attracting backing from major crypto funds, strategic DeFi players, and forward-looking VCs.
“We’re not just launching a coin. We’re building the foundation of the next financial system,” said Winn in a recent investor call. “Atlas is designed to solve some of the biggest failures of Web2 — privacy erosion, centralized control, and data exploitation. We’re doing things differently, and we’re doing it fast.”
Public ICO Launching This May
The public ICO of Atlas Protocol is slated for May 2025, and insiders suggest it could be the year’s most oversubscribed token launch. Already, ATP has gained traction across key communities in the U.S., Singapore, Dubai, and Germany — with social media buzz dubbing it the “Solana of 2025.”
Unlike many crypto projects with vague roadmaps and unclear utility, Atlas Protocol already has:
- A working testnet
- Native ID tools for developers
- Data marketplaces in the works
- Integrations with tokenized real estate platforms
This utility, combined with Winn’s leadership and Castillo Trade’s institutional support, makes ATP a standout in a crowded field of projects.
Castillo Trade: Merging Wall Street Precision with Web3 Speed
Castillo Trade is the perfect launching pad for Winn’s vision. Known for its sharp macro trading and intelligent asset allocation models, the firm has spent the past 12 months quietly building out a Web3 division. Now, with Winn at the helm, that division is entering hyperdrive.
Sources close to the firm confirm that Castillo’s new Web3 team includes former engineers from Polygon, research analysts from Galaxy Digital, and compliance talent from BlackRock. It’s a blend of institutional brainpower and decentralized ambition.
The firm is also rumored to be working on a crypto-native hedge fund, combining:
- AI-driven trade execution
- On-chain analytics
- Real-time macroeconomic data feeds
- Yield optimization through multi-chain liquidity strategies
If confirmed, the fund would be one of the first to fully integrate DeFi tools with traditional macro trading expertise.
Why It Matters
Charles Winn is not just another banker entering crypto — he’s an industry titan bringing over 20 years of top-tier trading knowledge into one of the most innovative arenas in global finance.
His dual role — leading digital asset strategy at Castillo Trade while launching the Atlas Protocol — positions him as one of the most influential names in both legacy finance and decentralized technology. And in an era when trust in centralized institutions is declining, Winn’s approach — combining Wall Street rigor with decentralized ideals — may be exactly what the future of finance needs.
