Crypto Hiring: NuBank Taps Lightspark CEO, Ex-Meta Exec as Board Director

A former executive at Gemini and Coinbase now seeks to help a crypto-as-a-service infrastructure platform expand operations into Europe.

Zero Hash has brought aboard Araba Eshun as its head of compliance in the UK and deputy lead of international compliance. 

Founded in 2017, the company has secured money transmitter licenses to operate across 51 US jurisdictions, as well as two BitLicenses from New York’s Department of Financial Services. It has now applied for crypto asset registration with the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). 

Eshun led crypto exchange Gemini’s UK compliance efforts for the last two years, according to her LinkedIn page. Prior to that, she was a money laundering reporting officer for Coinbase, a senior compliance officer at payments platform Paysafe and chief compliance officer at UK-based crypto exchange Coinfloor.

Brazilian digital banking platform Nubank, which supports a handful of cryptocurrencies, appointed David Marcus as a member of its board of directors.

Marcus is the CEO and co-founder of Lightspark — a company building infrastructure for Bitcoin’s Lightning Network. He most recently spearheaded all payments and crypto efforts at Meta (formerly Facebook), which he joined in 2014 to lead Messenger.

The executive spent nearly four years as head of Novi, Meta’s digital wallet designed to help people send and hold Libra digital currencies. The company shut down Novi last year. Marcus was also a president at PayPal from 2012 to 2014. 

The appointment comes after Brazil-based Nubank launched a crypto token last week for its 70 million customers in Brazil that rewards users’ engagement through a loyalty program. Nubank revealed it had reached 1 million customers trading cryptocurrencies in the country last July — a month after launching its crypto product. 

Electric Capital taps three advisers to spur growth 

Crypto-focused venture capital firm Electric Capital brought aboard Elad Gil, Akash Garg, and Rebecca Rettig as advisers. 

Gil co-founded Color Health and Mixer Labs — acquired in 2009 by Twitter, where he subsequently worked as a vice president — and also started Google’s mobile team. He is set to work with Electric Capital founders on fundraising, product strategy and organizational growth.

Garg was most recently chief technology officer at web3 infrastructure company MoonPay after a short stint as vice president of engineering at Block. He also spent nearly three years as a director of engineering at Uber.

Rettig recently joined Polygon Labs as its chief policy officer after leading Aave’s legal and policy efforts for nearly two years.    

Electric has raised more than $1 billion in capital to invest in early-stage crypto companies and protocols with investment sizes ranging from $1 million to $50 million. 

The company said in November it dodged a bullet when crypto exchange FTX collapsed thanks to “yellow flags” it spotted about the firm during due diligence.

Marketing execs move around segment

Web3 investment firm CoinFund hired Julie Mossler as its head of marketing and communications. 

Founded in 2015, CoinFund has stakes in more than 90 web3 ventures in sectors including artificial intelligence, protocols, gaming and NFTs. A registered investment advisor, the firm specializes in both web3 and crypto-focused investments. 

Mossler is set to “reimagine” the firm’s marketing and narrative strategy and support the go-to-market approaches of its portfolio companies.

She was most recently chief marketing officer at NFT ecosystem Metaplex and has also worked as interim CMO at fintech blockchain unicorn Paxos. Prior to her time in the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry, Mossler held senior brand and growth roles for Waze and Groupon.

Web3 gaming company Immutable appointed Devon Ferreira as chief marketing officer.

He will be tasked with helping onboard thousands of game developers to Immutable — a company that says nearly $1 billion was invested in games on its platform last year.  

Ferreira was formerly a marketing chief and brand builder for the Avalanche network, working at Ava Labs from July 2021 to December 2022. He was a director of marketing and strategy at The Walt Disney Company before moving to apparel company Oakley as its global head of digital. 

Immutable also promoted senior vice president Jason Suen to chief commercial officer.