Crypto Hiring: Chainalysis enlists high-level IRS veteran

Jim Lee, who spent nearly three decades at the Internal Revenue Service, has departed the agency to take up a role titled global head of capacity building at blockchain research firm Chainalysis.

Lee was most recently the head of IRS Criminal Investigation. 

“Crypto is the future of finance, which also means it’s the future of crime,” read a header from Lee’s introductory blurb. 

While leading IRS-CI, Lee helped take down the dark web marketplace Hydra, seized crypto being used to finance Hamas and helped take down Welcome to Video, a crypto-based child exploitation site, Lee said. 

Read more: All fraud will eventually be ‘crypto fraud.’ And that’s okay.

“[B]y equipping law enforcement agencies with the best-in-class tools and data to fight this activity, we can ensure that the crypto ecosystem remains as safe as possible, so that people around the world can realize its many benefits without fear of being targeted by criminals,” Lee added.

His role will initially focus on helping international agencies combat crypto crime. 

The last time the IRS cropped up in crypto hiring news, it was the reverse situation: Crypto tax experts joined the agency to help beef up its crypto tax compliance capabilities. 

Read more: Crypto Hiring: IRS’s latest hires are long-time crypto industry colleagues and friends

Lee said near the end of last year that the IRS’ crypto tax evasion cases were mounting, Blockworks previously reported.

The talent deck begins to shuffle

While this week lacked many marquee hires, crypto companies added to their rank-and-file as crypto gears up for what could be another bull run. 

Some of this movement came in the DeFi sector. Multiple anonymous Uniswap employees announced they’d be leaving the company this week. One said they would be taking up a role at Blackbird Labs, the Web3 restaurant loyalty app. 

Read more: SEC signals to Uniswap that enforcement actions are looming

It wasn’t all departures for Uniswap on the hiring front though. Connor Chevli, formerly of Ava Labs, joined Uniswap as a developer. Avara, formerly Aave, also made a growth hire.

Jack Corddry, formerly a developer at Frax Finance, began a development role at custody platform Waymont. 

Elsewhere, Jordan Walker, who used to be the business development lead at Fidelity Digital Assets, took a role as head of business development at crypto investment firm Re7 Capital.

Other notable hiring news

• Former TechCrunch journalist Jacquelyn Melinek and media personality Anthony Pompliano teamed up to launch Token Relations, a firm helping crypto projects connect and communicate with their communities.
• Binance’s Europe-based head of legal left the exchange.
• Michiel Schop, formerly of Activision Blizzard, joined Cardano-based gaming project Chains of War.

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