Latest in Crypto Hiring: 21Shares Nabs State Street Exec

Ex-SPDR ETF business pro to lead ETP issuer’s presence in the Nordic region, Netherlands

article-image

Blockworks exclusive art by axel rangel

share
  • NFT-based protocol hires ex-Google, Facebook and Instagram employee
  • Association for Digital Asset Markets appoints new leader for its National Security Working Group

ETP issuer 21Shares hired Carl Hagerup to lead the company’s presence in the Nordics and Netherlands region.  

Hagerup joins 21Shares from State Street Global Advisors, where he began working for the asset manager’s SPDR ETF business in July 2018. He was responsible for institutional and wholesale clients across the Nordic region, including asset managers, pension funds, insurance companies, hedge funds and family offices.

The executive was previously head of Nordics at Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and also served in sales roles within the region for London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) and Bloomberg.  

The Association for Digital Asset Markets (ADAM) appointed Mike Castiglione as chair of its new National Security Working Group.

ADAM created the unit to be a bridge between the public and private sectors by acting as a resource for the executive and legislative branches to discuss blockchain national security issues with industry experts.

Castiglione is director of regulatory affairs for digital assets for Eventus, a provider of multi-asset class trade surveillance and market risk solutions, and is a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer. 

NFT-based protocol Unlock hired Patrick Workman as its vice president for business development and partnerships. 

Workman will look to expand collaborations with media channels, content creators and crypto natives to lead the transformation of online business models for creators. 

He was previously a part of Google’s partnerships team and has also worked at Facebook, Instagram, Experian and Pinterest. 

Trey Zeluff is now the director of strategy and innovation for LevelField Financial, a company that offers digital assets and traditional banking services on one platform.

He joins from Fertitta Entertainment, where he drove digital asset strategy and helped broker relationships with the Houston Rockets, Golden Nugget and luxury brands.

Zeluff is tasked with building partnerships in the crypto community and will seek opportunities with “next generation customers” for commercial enterprises in the digital asset space.

Hansong Zhang, a former chief scientist at Pokemon GO creator Niantic, has joined blockchain technology provider AnChain.AI as an investor, while Rex Ng, president and co-founder of mobile game publisher 6waves, is now an advisor for the firm.

Zhang and Ng seeks to help AnChain.AI deliver web3 innovation to the masses, including its upcoming launch of the Tenzing Web3 NFT platform. The company reported Web3 enablement revenue growth of roughly 400% in the first quarter.

BIGG Digital Assets subsidiary Netcoins, which develops brokerage and exchange software for purchasing crypto, named Fraser Matthews as its president, effective June 7.

Matthews comes to Netcoins from Banque Saudi Fransi (BSF), where he was its digital strategy lead. In that role, he led the company’s digital ventures unit, which set out strategic initiatives such as bank as a service, open banking and challenger banking. 

Canadian Swiss company Spirit Blockchain Capital revealed the recent hires of Gavin Nathan as head of fundraising and Bernd Berg as a portfolio manager.  

Berg has held similar roles at banks Credit Suisse, Société Générale, Bank J. SafraSarasin and Woodman Asset Management. At Spirit, he will manage investments of the company’s treasury in equities and cryptoassets and will lead the business’s research and advisory arm. 

Nathan started his career working in the global security and intelligence segment for the UK government. He was appointed last August to lead Canam Private Equity’s global business development and fundraising efforts

In case you missed it, fund group Global X poached an executive from Switzerland-based ETP issuer 21Shares to be its head of digital assets product.  

Before working at 21Shares, Sze held senior-level roles on product teams at New York Life Investment Management for 12 years, covering traditional and alternative investment assets.

CoinShares company XBT Provider has named Jean-Charles Dudek as a managing director upon the resignation of Dennis Engström.

Dudek has 16 years of experience covering derivatives, fund structuring and alternative portfolio management. He co-founded the first quantitative crypto-focused asset manager regulated in France to hold an AIFM license.

Sweden-based XBT Provider is issuer of the Bitcoin Tracker One, which became the first bitcoin-referenced security available on a regulated exchange when it listed on Nasdaq Stockholm in 2015.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 24 - 26, 2026

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Flying_Tulip.png

Research

Flying Tulip's perpetual put option provides real principal protection, but investors must pay a valuation premium today for products that have to be built over the next 24 months. This structure works best as a stablecoin substitute where the put allows continuous monitoring—accept opportunity cost in exchange for asymmetric upside if the team executes on its ambitious cross-collateral architecture.

article-image

As flows consolidate and volatility fades, finding edge now means knowing which games are still worth playing

article-image

Value distribution came to $1.9 billion distributed in Q3, though total revenues have yet to beat 2021 heights

article-image

MegaETH public sale auction ends tomorrow, and the free money machine has attracted people who like free money

article-image

With tBTC under the hood, Acre abstracts bridging and converts non-BTC rewards to bitcoin

article-image

Accountable is also eyeing mid-November for mainnet launch

article-image

“Adjusted for size, I think it may be the most successful ETP launch of all time,” Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan says