Key crypto hires and moves: October 2021

October was a quieter month for the typically bustling crypto hiring scene. But there were still some key hires and moves.

One interesting change was Brett Redfearn -- part of the spate of regulators suddenly leaving crypto firms in the last couple of months -- who has joined Securitize. This could be seen as an endorsement of digital assets that are designed to work within the securities framework (something that State Street is particularly interested in).

Crypto exchanges have also continued to make big hires with Binance, Robinhood Crypto and Bitpanda Pro onboarding new heavy-hitters. These companies, and others, have picked up talent focused on editorial content and communications, both showing a focus on competing brand awareness.

Hires

• Hauck & Aufhäuser AG, a private bank in Germany, has hired Simon Seiter as head of digital assets. He comes from Deutsche Borse where he had the same role. 
• Ariel Wengroff has left the investment firm LionTree, where she was a senior advisor, to join hardware wallet maker Ledger as editor in chief.
• Paradigm has hired former Coatue Management investor Matthew Mizbani as a partner. He was hired to focus on the firm’s upcoming fund, which will likely be between $1.25 billion and $1.5 billion, per earlier reporting by The Block.
• On the flip side, Gus Coldebella has left Paradigm where he was general counsel and chief commercial officer. He has joined True Ventures as a partner. His priors include a one-year stint at Circle.
• A16z’s crypto arm has hired Riyaz Faizullabhoy as CTO and Nassim Eddequiouaq as its chief information security officer. Both hires have a surprisingly identical job history: each worked at Docker, then Anchorage, then Facebook before joining the VC firm. 
• A16z Crypto has also brought on Jai Ramaswamy as chief regulatory officer. He most recently worked as chief risk and compliance officer at cLabs and has priors at Bank of America and the U.S. Department of Justice, where he was chief of the asset forfeiture and money laundering section. 
• Binance has hired Mark McGinness as its chief regulatory liaison officer. He was previously chief decision-maker at the Dubai Financial Services Authority for 16 years, having spent eight years prior at the International Monetary Fund.
• Binance has also brought onboard Patrick Hillmann as the exchange’s chief communications officer. He joins from Edelman, where he was global head of innovation, crisis and risk.
• Robinhood Crypto has poached Benjamin Melnicki as chief compliance officer from Grayscale, where he held the same title. He previously worked for Ripple and Blockchain.com.
• Uniswap Labs has brought on Hari Sevugan as head of comms. He is an experienced political campaign manager, having helped run Pete Buttigieg's presidential campaign. He is also a former senior spokesperson for Barack Obama.
• Zilliqa has hired former Brave chief scientist Ben Livshits as CEO. Livshits built up Brave’s research team and plans to perform a similar role at Zilliqa. He’s a former senior researcher at Microsoft, where he worked for 10 years.
• In August’s hiring roundup, we saw former regulator Brett Redfearn depart Coinbase after just five months at the exchange. In October, he joined Securitize as senior strategic advisor to the CEO and chairman of its advisory board. This could show a leaning toward digital assets that are designed to work within U.S. securities laws.
• The Digital Dollar project — founded by former CFTC head Christopher Giancarlo — has appointed Jennifer Lassiter as executive director. She previously worked at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in its office of innovation tech lab.
• Bitpanda Pro — the advanced version of its main exchange — has brought on Josh Barraclough as CEO. He spent his last five years at JPMorgan, with his final role as co-head of digital innovation. 
• Blockchain infrastructure provider Alchemy hired Brandon Borrman as head of comms. Previously, he was the vice president of global communications at Twitter.

Promotions

• Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic has promoted Safiya Karsan from VP of strategy and operations to COO. She started at the company in May and was previously the executive VP of operations at experience management app Pollen.
• Binance.US has promoted its president Brian Shroder to CEO after the sudden departure of Brian Brooks in August.

Exits

• According to The Block’s reporting, fintech app Revolut is hunting for a new CEO for its U.S. division, with current CEO Ronald Oliveira set to leave in the next few months. He has led the startup in the U.S. since November 2019.
• Daniel Cawrey has stepped down as COO of crypto investment firm Cypherpunk Holdings. He has been replaced by Jeffrey Gao, who was an advisor on its investment committee and is now CEO. 

Board positions and advisory

• Morgan Beller has joined the mobile-first DeFi platform Celo as a board member. She is currently a general partner at NFX and was a co-creator of Diem (formerly known as Libra). Ramaswamy — who, as noted earlier, left cLabs for a16z — has also joined Celo’s board.
• Lord Philip Hammond, former Chancellor of the Exchequer in the U.K., has joined crypto custodian Copper as a senior advisor. He has now called on the U.K. government to do more to embrace digital assets.

Industry insights

Here are some of the hiring moves below the C-suite that might be relevant to those in the industry.

• Pseudonymous Ethereum researcher Protolambda has joined Ethereum scaling solution Optimism. They were previously at the Ethereum Foundation and have worked on research and development for scaling the blockchain platform.
• Jason Ma, director of sales strategy and operations at WeWork, has joined blockchain company Ripple as a go-to-market strategy and operations manager.
  
• Former Fortune Magazine senior writer Robert Hackett has left for a16z, where he will be leading content and editorial for its crypto fund.