Crypto Hiring: SBF, Mashinsky opt to keep same lawyers

Elsewhere, a former Fidelity International exec advises a layer-2, and Yuga Labs’ co-founder becomes CEO

article-image

FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried | Getty Images modified by Blockworks

share

Despite conflict of interest concerns, the former heads of FTX and Celsius will have the same lawyers representing them as they continue to battle fraud charges. 

Sam Bankman-Fried and Alex Mashinsky both hired Marc Mukasey and Torrey Young for upcoming appearances in court — Bankman-Fried for his sentencing hearing and Mashinsky for his trial. 

Earlier this month, US prosecutors called for conflict of interest hearings regarding Mukasey and Young’s counsel because court evidence suggested Celsius loaned money to FTX partner company Alameda Research and was paid back with FTX customer funds. 

Read more: Prosecutors concerned that Mashinsky, Bankman-Fried have same lawyers

In separate hearings this week, both former chief executives reportedly waived their right to conflict-free representation and said they wanted to proceed with the lawyers. 

Mukasey and Young apparently said at Mashinsky’s hearing that they could fairly represent both Bankman-Fried and Mashinsky, despite the past overlaps. 

The erstwhile CEOs didn’t admit to a conflict of interest stemming from the lawyers, but merely said they are comfortable with their representation even if one may exist. 

New York law says attorneys can represent two clients with potentially conflicting interests only if the clients give consent — as Mashinsky and Bankman-Fried did this week. The pair of lawyers will not be allowed to share confidential information between Mashinsky and Bankman-Fried or use one’s information to the detriment of the other. 

Bankman-Fried’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for March 28, and Mashinsky is set to go to trial in January 2025.

Layer N adds former Fidelity International exec to advisory board

The Ethereum layer-2 Layer N announced Fidelity International’s former digital assets head Luc Froehlich would join its board of advisors. 

Froehlich left Fidelity International in October, where he worked on tokenized real-world assets, according to his LinkedIn. Froelich also currently serves as an advisor to blockchain outfits NYMLAB and Envelop. 

Read more: BitGo looks to jumpstart RWA tokenization segment via acquisition

Froehlich is joining Layer N to help “pioneer a path to more dynamic, seamless and broadly accessible financial ecosystems,” Froehlich wrote on LinkedIn. 

Layer N is a network of virtual machines designed for high throughput. It raised $5 million in a round led by Founders Fund and dao5 in September and has announced an upcoming partnership with Eigen Labs’ data availability solution, EigenDA.

Other notable hiring news

Updated Feb. 28, 2024 at 10:38 am ET: Clarified Luc Froehlich previously worked at Fidelity International.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Unlocked by Template (10).png

Research

Innovations on Aptos’ technical design through Raptr, Shardines, and Zaptos approach near-optimal latency and throughput by unlocking 100% utilization of network resources, with the capacity to settle 260k transactions per second with latencies less than 800ms. The original Move language was revamped with the launch of Move 2, supporting more expressivity in smart contract logic and a scalable ability to interact with high volume datasets. The ecosystem has benefitted from strong asset inflows, now hosting over $1.3B in stablecoins, $450M in bridged BTC, and $530M in RWAs. Activity in the Aptos ecosystem has grown notably over the past year, with monthly application revenue reaching ~$835k and monthly DEX volumes growing to over $5B, both at new all time highs.

article-image

Sam Altman sees our future through the World Orb

article-image

Few US politicians are this clearheaded about Bitcoin

article-image

Pump.fun seemed to kick off buybacks on Tuesday according to onchain analysis

article-image

Stablecoins are a new form of money, with an old kind of limit

article-image

Firedancer has yet to go fully live, but its progress has been “pretty impressive,” a dev said

article-image

House lawmakers support, criticize the GENIUS Act, CLARITY Act and the Anti-CBDC Surveillance Act in Monday hearing