Latest in Crypto Hiring: Another Ex-BlockFi Exec Resurfaces in New Role

Another executive from bankrupt crypto lender BlockFi has surfaced somewhere else.

Zodia Markets, a digital asset exchange backed by Standard Chartered, appointed Paul Howard as its head of sales. 

Howard formerly led BlockFi International’s institutional sales team in Asia. The unit’s efforts included developing relationships with crypto and traditional finance clients. BlockFi filed for bankruptcy in November after the crash of crypto exchange FTX.  

Before joining BlockFi, Howard worked in director roles at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Bear Stearns. 

Howard’s move comes after fellow former BlockFi executive Samia Bayou joined Kraken as the exchange’s head of prime finance and OTC sales in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. She was global head of BlockFi’s private client business from May 2021 to September 2022.

ConsenSys is one of the latest crypto companies to lay off employees, albeit not as many as some others in the space. 

The blockchain infrastructure company’s decision to cut jobs will impact 96 employees — about 11% of the company’s total workforce, CEO Joseph Lubin said in a blog post Wednesday. 

ConsenSys raised $450 million in March — valuing the company at roughly $7 billion. It revealed around that time that it planned to hire more than 600 new employees. 

“While I’ve often said that the fear and greed cycles are shortening in duration, our current bear market also coincides with a very challenging macroeconomic environment driven by surging inflation, lagging economic activity, and increased geopolitical unrest,” Lubin added. 

The layoffs come a week after Coinbase, Crypto.com and Blockchain.com each announced further headcount reductions amid the ongoing crypto winter.  

Web3 platform Fasset hired Khalid Dannish as a general manager for the Middle East and North Africa. 

Dannish was formerly a vice president at JPMorgan and Barclays Capital in London. He also previously worked as CEO for Bahrain Fintech Bay.

Fasset, a platform that allows users to buy, sell, send and store digital assets and tokens, raised a $22 million last April in a round led by Liberty City Ventures and Fatima Gobi Ventures.

Mastercard partnered with Fasset in July to expand its financial services to Indonesia, which at the time had more than 92 million unbanked people.

Blockchain technology provider Baton Systems appointed Ravindra Madduri as its global head of product. 

Madduri was most recently head of enterprise products at payment platform Paysend. He also spent nearly a decade at Barclays in a couple roles, including head of international payments and cash management products.

Wells Fargo revealed in December 2021 they would use Baton Systems’ Core-FX distributed ledger technology in the settlement process of cross-border payments. 

In case you missed it, Chris Perkins was appointed as a member of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Global Markets Advisory Committee.  

Perkins has been CoinFund’s president since September 2021. Before that he worked at Citi as its co-head of futures, clearing and foreign exchange prime brokerage.

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