Crypto Hiring: BlockFi’s Zac Prince heads for the crypto exit

Elsewhere, Anchorage Digital hires a former SEC lawyer and a GSR researcher becomes an ETF strategist at BlackRock

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Former BlockFi CEO Zac Prince | DAS 2022 New York by Blockworks

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It had been a year and a half since Zac Prince’s last X post, a retweet announcing that lending platform BlockFi would pause operations amid the fallout from FTX’s collapse. 

Then, this past Monday, Prince returned to say he’d be leaving crypto altogether.

Prince is taking over as CEO of RE Cost Seg, a firm that offers potentially tax-saving cost segregation studies to real estate investors. It’s the first time Prince has worked in a real estate-focused firm, as he worked in lending in the years before he founded BlockFi, according to his LinkedIn. 

Read more: FTX, BlockFi score tentative settlement agreement

In general, executives skewered by FTX’s fall haven’t flooded for the exits. Brett Harrison, the onetime president of FTX.US, launched a new derivatives brokerage named Architect. And Blockworks previously reported on Backpack, a former FTX employee-led startup that’s created a popular wallet for Solana users. 

Read more: Funding Wrap: Startup co-founded by former FTX employees land $17M

Prince, whose firm entered bankruptcy due to FTX exposure, testified at Sam Bankman-Fried’s trial in November. Prosecutors questioned Prince on his decision to lend funds to Alameda Research, FTX’s sister firm. 

Read more: US prosecutors seek decades in prison for Sam Bankman-Fried

Anchorage Digital makes SEC vet its general counsel

The crypto platform Anchorage Digital named TuongVy Le its general counsel. 

Le most recently worked in regulatory and legal roles at Bain Capital Crypto and Worldcoin. She was also a partner at Bain Capital Crypto. Before that, Le spent years at the Securities and Exchange Commission where she handled some of the agency’s earliest crypto investigations, according to an Anchorage Digital blog post. 

“We are making a big bet on the future, but progress always prevails. Onward!” Le wrote to cap off an X thread announcing the new role. 

Other notable hiring news

  • The head of digital assets at Steve Cohen’s Point72 left the hedge fund, Bloomberg reported
  • Former GSR researcher Matt Kunke left the firm to become BlackRock’s digital asset ETFs product strategist. 
  • NFT fantasy sports startup Sorare laid off 22 employees from its New York office in February, TechCrunch reported.

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