Crypto hiring: Coinbase, Gemini nab product-focused execs

Crypto heavyweights Coinbase and Gemini have each added executives focused on improving and building out their product suites. 

Michael Rihani is now leading Coinbase teams dedicated to non-trading products in the exchange’s main consumer app, the executive said in a Wednesday X post. 

His official title, via his LinkedIn page, is director of product for banking and payments. These include offerings related to Coinbase Card; USDC and savings; borrow and yield; and payment rails in emerging markets, he notes.

Rihani also shared a Coinbase ad as part of the announcement:

Rihani formerly spent three years as a Bitcoin-focused director of product at Cash App. He held product manager roles at Apple and Tesla prior to that. 

Also this week, crypto platform Gemini nabbed Eric Kuhn as its head of onchain product, Kuhn shared (also via X).

He joins from crypto exchange Kraken, where he was director of product for nearly three years. Before Kraken, he was a senior program manager at Microsoft, with a focus on decentralized identity.  

“I’ll be working closely with Cameron and Tyler [Winklevoss] to help bring the next 100 [million] people onchain,” Kuhn wrote in a Monday X post. “We believe that onchain is the way to revolutionize money, finance and realize the vision of the decentralized web.” 

Speaking of Kraken, the company revealed Wednesday it has chosen Alex Mehrdad to lead its Canadian business. 

“He leveraged a background in management consultancy and expertise in building and scaling fintech startups to inspire the strategic vision of our local business, doubling our Canadian monthly transacting users since the start of the year,” Kraken noted in a blog post.  

Mark Greenberg had been Kraken’s Canada CEO since October 2022, according to his LinkedIn page. He was promoted internally to create a new asset growth and management unit, the company said.

As for one more crypto exchange naming a new leader, Bitget appointed Hon Ng as its chief legal officer. 

Ng previously worked at Binance as its general counsel, as well as head of government affairs and policy. Prior to that, he spent five years as a legal director at Uber. 

Other notable developments

• Shobhit Maini, the head of digital assets within Citigroup’s markets division, left the company to pursue other crypto-related opportunities, Bloomberg News reported Monday. Deepak Mehra is set to lead that team, according to the report, as he expands his current role as the markets unit’s strategic investments lead. Maini declined to comment about his future plans. 
• Michael Sonnenshein, who spent three-plus years as Grayscale Investments’ CEO before departing the firm in May, has joined Arch as an adviser.
• Blockchain technology company Consensys named Dan Odell its new chief financial officer. He joins from metaverse tech company Improbable. 
• Hinkal, a multi-chain privacy layer for confidential DeFi transactions, appointed Yvonne Wang as its director of business development.

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