Crypto Hiring: Polygon co-founder now has larger role

Polygon’s co-founder is now also the company’s chief business officer.

Sandeep Nailwal, an original founder of what was in 2017 called the MATIC network, has been executive chairman of Polygon Labs, and will continue to be.

But under a new expanded role, Nailwal is set to focus more on Polygon’s zero-knowledge solutions, like Polygon CDK — an open-source software toolkit for developers to create layer-2s on Ethereum.

“Polygon Labs is in the midst of building incredible, transformational technology that will provide developers and enterprises with countless opportunities to scale quickly and securely while having access to liquidity,” Nailwal said in a statement.

Beyond the additional responsibilities for Nailwal, two crypto-focused companies fresh off of fundraises have also named new leaders.

Tokenized asset platform Centrifuge added a chief operating officer and a head of product as the on-chain asset management space gains momentum.

Centrifuge’s new COO, Julia Merkel, was previously the chief financial officer at venture capital firm BlueYard Capital.

The company has also tapped Sonam Joshi — a former pro at UBS, Google and Amazon — to lead its product unit. Joshi was also previously a director of product at Abra.

Centrifuge facilitates pools of tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), including assets like loans, credit and real estate. Centrifuge has roughly $280 million worth of assets in its liquidity pools.

“They join at a perfect time as Centrifuge looks to scale to meet the widespread, increasing demand for tokenized real-world assets,” Centrifuge co-founder Lucas Vogelsang said in a statement.

The hires come after Centrifuge raised $15 million in April as part of a funding round co-led by ParaFi Capital and Greenfield.

Also raising money in April was Movement Labs. PolyChain Capital led the blockchain company’s $38 million Series A round.

Now, Movement Labs welcomes Franck Cassez as its head of research.

A former researcher at Consensys and a blockchain research lead at Windranger Labs, Cassez looks to help the startup bring Facebook’s Move Virtual Machine to Ethereum.

Other notable hires

LMAX Group appointed Chris Knight as a managing director — a role he will step into this summer. A former executive at XTX Markets and Standard Chartered Bank, he will first oversee LMAX’s institutional crypto exchange.
Ross O’Leary has joined Coinbase’s global communications team as an associate manager.

Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

The Breakdown: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.
Empire: Crypto news and analysis to start your day.
Forward Guidance: The intersection of crypto, macro and policy.
0xResearch: Alpha directly in your inbox.
Lightspeed: All things Solana.
The Drop: Apps, games, memes and more.
Supply Shock: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin.