53 Key crypto hires, exits and moves: June 2022

While crypto layoffs have been dominating the headlines, many crypto companies are continuing to expand their headcounts. 

A key factor may be the large amount of funding that has been poured into the crypto industry over the last year and a half. According to The Block Research, $49 billion has been invested in crypto projects between January 2021 and May 2022. This means that many projects still have capital to use for expansion. 

Last month, we saw a range of C-Suite hires, with smaller companies in particular filling CEO, CFO and COO positions. There was also a range of hires focused on NFTs and the metaverse, with celebrities Pharell Williams and Kylian Mbappé moving into crypto. 

Hires 

• Cryptocurrency mining company Riot Blockchain has hired Jason Chung as its head of corporate development to, among other duties, help with financing strategy. His last position was the managing director for Nomura Holdings. 
• Chiliz, the blockchain company behind fan engagement platform Socios.com, has added to its leadership team. James Newman was appointed as global director of corporate affairs after previously serving as corporate affairs director at Playtech. It also appointed Stuart Ramsey as head of brand partnerships for Socios.com. Ramsey previously held similar roles with the British Olympic Association and Southampton Football Club. 
• Steve Cohen-founded Point72 was joined by Elie Galam, who will be head of crypto for the Centralized Quant Business at Cubist Systematic Strategies. Among Galam's responsibilities will be to build a team to create algorithms for trading cryptocurrencies on the spot and derivative markets. 
• Crypto venture firm Paradigm has appointed Katie Biber as its chief legal officer. She previously served the same position at Brex. 
• Alice Liu is starting as CoinMarketCap's head of research. She joins from WisdomTree where she also worked in research. 
• Bitcoin mining firm Compute North has appointed Satyen Yadav as CTO. Before serving his current position, he held similar positions at Boeing Digital Aviation, Amazon Web Services and Intel. 
• ZenGo, a cryptocurrency wallet app, has appointed Michael-David Fiszer as its chief product officer. He was previously a senior member of Waze's product leadership team at Google. 
• Jay Drain Jr. joined Andreessen Horowitz as a deal partner in its crypto investing team. He was previously an investor at Maven Ventures, focusing on crypto and consumer software. 
• Blockchain development platform Polygon has appointed Bhumika Srivastava as its new global head of HR. She previously served as Airbnb's head of HR. 
• BkCoin Capital, an institutional crypto investment firm, has appointed three senior executives. Paul Magahis will be the company's president, Adriano Caloiaro joins as CTO, and Leanna Haakons will serve as director of business development and investor relations. 
• Former US Solicitor General Donald Beaton Verrilli Jr. has joined Grayscale’s legal team. He will serve as a senior legal strategist on government regulation and the Administrative Procedure Act. 
• Lindsey Argalas has joined TaxBit as COO. She formerly served as an executive in Intuit and Banco Santander. 
• Digital asset investment firm CoinFund has appointed Margaret Gabriel as head of talent. Gabriel will partner with portfolio companies to help them strategically invest in and grow their teams. She previously worked in the same role at Gemini and Google.  
• Disney has hired Mark Bozon as VP of next-generation storytelling creative experiences, focusing on the firm's expansion plan into the metaverse. He left his position as games creative director at Apple Arcade. 
• Paul Magahis, former head of capital strategy at Coinbase, has joined crypto hedge fund BKCoin as the fund’s new President. 
• Digital Currency Group mining subsidiary Foundry has named Dan Magnuszewski as its CTO. He left his position as an advisor for ACV Auctions. 
• Noah Davis has joined Yuga Labs as the brand lead for CyptoPunks. His previous position was head of digital sales at Christie's. 
• Matrixport Group has appointed Anthony DeMartino as its US CEO. He has two decades of experience running financial services business at global banks including HSBC, Barclays and UBS. 
• Simon Taylor joined Sardine as its head of strategy and content. He stepped down from his position at 11:FS, which he co-founded in 2016. 
• UK-based crypto wallet provider Zumo has hired Clark Povey as operations director. He previously worked at Worldpay, Barclays and Three. 
• Justin Choi will lead Coinbase's corporate development and Coinbase Ventures in Asia Pacific. He left his full-time position as CVC Capital Partners’ managing director for Asia technology. 
• Blockchain gaming studio Catheon Gaming has appointed Mark Aubrey as CEO. His previous role was managing director and head of Asia Pacific at Activision Blizzard.  
• Immutable, an Ethereum Layer 2 development startup, has hired Henry Cho as the company's head of design. His former position was Facebook's global head of product design for payments. 
• India-based crypto firm CoinSwitch has appointed Ramesh Bafna as its new CFO. He has prior experience across IT and consumer internet companies including Wipro, Flipkart and Myntra. 
• Andrei Serjantov has joined Nym Technologies as its new CFO. He previously held a position as the Head of Electronic Credit Trading at BNP Paribas. 
• Solana-based NFT marketplace Magic Eden has hired Joseph Doll as a general counsel. He has experience in blockchain and cryptocurrencies as a corporate associate at Fenwick & West and an associate attorney at Allen & Overy. 
• Dfns, a French cybersecurity startup, has hired Samer Fayssal as its chief information security officer to develop and execute strategic security plan. He was previously BitGo's head of security. 

Promotions 

• Crypto PR firm Bevel has promoted Nicole Cueto to lead the company's expansion in Miami and its NFT/Blockchain division. 
• Riot Blockchain's board of directors has selected Colin Yee as the company's CFO to succeed Jeff McGonegal, who will retire on August 15. Yee has been Riot's head of corporate and financial operations since April 2022 and is responsible for the company's overall coordination and scalability in corporate and financial functions. 
• Crypto exchange AscendEX has appointed Shane Molidor as its new CEO, replacing George Cao, who will become the company's chair. Molidor joined the company in May 2019 as Head of Business Development and waspromoted to CRO in December 2021. 
• Latin American cryptocurrency exchange Bitso has promoted its CFO Bárbara González Briseño to become the general director of Bitso Mexico. She will oversee the platform's operation in the Central American country. 
• Citadel Securities' global head of business development Jamil Nazarali has been named as CEO of the company's crypto venture. He will head Citadel's joint venture with Virtu Financial, Charles Schwab and Fidelity Digital Assets to boost investors’ access to crypto and digital assets. 

Exits 

• Jai Bhavnani has left Rari Capital after more than two years in the company that he co-founded, citing several reasons. He said the project “would not be the highest leverage of my time in an effort to really change as many people's lives as possible," and that he would focus on other opportunities — but stopped short of revealing any more details. 
• Nicolas Breuil left his position as chief marketing officer at Shares, citing the lack of “genuine long-term passion for the fast-changing sector [of] investing, crypto and NFT.” He plans to start advising both early- and late-stage tech ventures on marketing and brand strategy. 
• Justin Schmidt has left his position as Talos’ head of strategy, where he had worked for one year. He did not reveal his plans post-Talos, but said he would “remain a happy investor.” 
• Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg left the company after serving for 14 years. She took the role at what was then known as Facebook in March 2008 after having met CEO Mark Zuckerberg at a Christmas party. 
• Several key executives are leaving Binance Labs, namely Bill Qian, the firm's head, and executive director Nicole Zhang. Both worked for the company for more than two years. Qian joined Binance Labs in March 2020 from China's JD Group. Zhang joined in April 2020 from Singapore Press Holdings. Zhang is now working as a partner at Lingfeng Innovation Fund. 
• Babel Finance is also set to lose some of its executives. Among them is Yulong Lio, head of global partnership, who frequently represented the company at public events. The others are directors of global partnerships Sean Yang and Xavier Xiang as well as Yuchen Jiang, who worked in an unspecified partnership role. Babel also lost key staff from its PR and communications team: director of communications Jacynth Wang and global PR lead Yiwei Wang. 

Advisory and board positions 

• Following his retirement as Riot Blockchain CFO on August 15, Jeff McGonegal will become a consultant at the company, where he will continue supporting Riot's growth and operations. 
• Singer Pharrell Williams has joined Doodles as a board member and chief brand officer. He is the second person from the music industry to join the company after Julian Holguin, a former executive at Billboard, who was appointed as Doodles’ CEO in May. 
• French football star Kylian Mbappé has joined Sorare, a global sports entertainment company, as an exclusive player ambassador and investor. Mbappé, a player with Paris Saint-Germain Football Club, is the company's first player ambassador in a deal that represents his first entry into the Web3 space. 
• Rico Pang, the co-founder and CEO of Sanctum Global Ventures, has joined the SPiCE Venture Capital team as an advisor to its Board of Directors. 
• Stacey Cunningham, a former New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) president, has joined Uniswap Labs as an advisor. The stock exchange's first female president said she joined the Uniswap team due to her belief in the potential of decentralized exchanges.