Dean Tappen is Senior Vice President of Institutional Finance within the Blockchain and Digital Assets Group at Western Alliance Bank. He leads the development and execution of institutional digital asset lending and banking solutions. With extensive experience in commercial lending, structured finance, treasury management and digital asset markets, he specializes in designing and scaling credit products secured by digital asset collateral while maintaining strong risk management, operational and regulatory controls.
Mr. Tappen has deep expertise in underwriting, structuring and managing digital asset-backed credit facilities, including collateral custody frameworks, margining programs, liquidation methodologies and institutional treasury solutions. Before joining Western Alliance, he helped build institutional lending and treasury management solutions for digital asset-native firms.
He earned a Bachelor of Science in finance from Virginia Tech and an MBA from Arizona State University.