Ben Strack

<div id="highlights-block_6206b99ef5797" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>PayPal finalized its new crypto advisory council</li>
 <li>21Shares, the largest issuer of cryptocurrency ETPs, hired three senior sales pros to enlarge its US footprint</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Bitcoin mining and crypto tech company Bitfury has hired Jonathan Gould as its chief legal officer in the latest instance of a government official to join a crypto firm.



Gould most recently worked as senior deputy comptroller and chief counsel at the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). Before that, he was chief counsel of the US Senate Banking Committee.



Crypto.com has hired Giuseppe Giuliani, previously global head of institutional relationships and services at Kraken, as managing director of the company’s exchange. He will look to expand into new markets and introduce new offerings for institutional investors.



Ken Timsit has been named managing director for the Cronos blockchain. He was formerly chief revenue officer in charge of global sales and marketing at blockchain technology company ConsenSys.



Cronos supports both Ethereum and Cosmos technology, including DeFi, NFTs and metaverse technologies. Timsit will help the blockchain firm scale its DeFi (decentralized finance) and Web3 business by equipping developers with the resources to instantly port apps and crypto assets from other chains.



Sébastien Badault joined digital assets platform Ledger as its vice president of metaverse and Web3. He will oversee the company’s NFT (non-fungible token) division, plus gaming and brand collaborations.



Badault was previously a managing director at Alibaba and also spent more than 10 years at Google, where he ran the company’s French operations. Before Google, he led Amazon’s customer and partner acquisition strategy across the UK, Germany and France.



Crypto prime brokerage FalconX has hired former Carta chief people officer and Bloomberg head of talent Suzy Walther as its head of people, amid a push to fill hundreds of roles across engineering, marketing, HR and customer support.



The company, which <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/falconx-coindcx-hit-unicorn-status-amid-uncertain-regulatory-environment/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">raised</a> $210 million in August, has also hired Sujay Jaladi as its new vice president of security. He was previously chief information security officer at Gusto, Ripple, Harbor, Inc., Earnin and PayPal subsidiary Xoom.



&#8220;Institutional adoption of cryptocurrencies continues to cement the notion that the world&#8217;s economy will be tokenized in 5 to 7 years,&#8221; FalconX CEO Raghu Yarlagadda said in a statement.



TaxBit, a tax and accounting solution for the tokenized economy, hired Nathan Jones as senior vice president of worldwide public sales and government affairs. Jones has worked the last 19 years at IBM subsidiary Red Hat.



The company also brought aboard Miles Fuller as head of government solutions, plus Christi Muoneke as corporate general counsel.



Fuller joins TaxBit after a 15-year stint with the IRS, where he worked in a senior legal role. Muoneke previously spent more than 15 years working at Meta, DocuSign, Microsoft and Avalara.



Charlie Hu, former head of Polygon China, has joined Syscoin, a decentralized, open-source project created in 2014 by the founders of Blockchain Foundry.



As an ecosystem advisor, he will help drive the company’s expansion into untapped markets. While at Polygon, he focused on business development in Asia.&nbsp;



Marathon Digital appointed Raymond Walintukan as vice president of mining operations. He previously served as chief operating officer of Apifiny subsidiary Hash Hive. Before that, he served as the head of operations at Bitmain North America.



The hire comes as Marathon seeks to grow from 3.6 exahashes per second (EH/s) at the start of February to 23.3 EH/s by early next year.



PayPal brought aboard specialists in cryptography, distributed technology, regulation, economics and capital markets to establish a crypto advisory council.



The council includes Peter Briger, Jr., co-CEO of Fortress Investment Group; Chris Brummer, a Georgetown University law professor and faculty director of the Institute of International Economic Law; Dr. Shafi Goldwasser, director of the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing at the University of California, Berkeley; Timothy Massad, an ​​adjunct law professor at Georgetown University and research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School; Dr. Neha Narula, director of MIT Digital Currency Initiative; and Antoinette Schoar, a finance professor at MIT Sloan School of Management.



Former Domino’s Pizza President Kory Spiroff joined the advisory board of FriesDao.



Spiroff is tasked with bridging real-world operations with blockchain-based governance. FriesDAO plans to acquire and build on-chain membership around popular fast food franchises.



Metaplex Studios, a US organization working to advance Solana NFT protocol Metaplex, tapped Stephen Hess as its CEO.



21Shares, the largest issuer of cryptocurrency ETPs, has hired three senior sales professionals to boost US growth.



Hires include Kayle Watson as US head of sales; Aram Babikian, who will lead US west coast and Latin America business development; and Ches Snider as US head of research sales.



The executives combined have decades of traditional finance experience at firms such as BlackRock, Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs and Guggenheim Securities.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



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The Latest in Crypto Hiring: PayPal, Crypto.com Add to Digital Assets Headcount

<div id="highlights-block_61c0bd4a92d5e" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Brooks can assist Voyager as the company expands into NFTs, decentralized finance (DeFi) and the metaverse, Voyager Chairman Philip Eytan said</li>
 <li>The Bitfury CEO was one of six crypto firm executives to testify during a hearing of the House Committee on Financial Services earlier this month</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



The former acting comptroller of the currency and current CEO of <a href="https://bitfury.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Bitfury</a>, Brian Brooks, has joined <a href="https://www.investvoyager.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Voyager Digital’s</a> board of directors to help the firm in its next phase of growth.&nbsp;



Brooks joins the board as an independent, non-executive director, according to the firm, and his appointment is effective immediately. 



“As one of only two publicly traded, crypto-first trading platforms, and with exponential funded account growth of 23 times this year, Voyager is already proven in the marketplace,” Brooks told Blockworks in an email. “The next challenge for the company, and one that I look forward to being part of, is building out the platform for global scale and navigating the regulatory environment in the US and beyond.”



Brooks became the CEO of Bitfury, a designer of mining application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and operator of mining data centers, in October. Before that, he was Binance.US’s CEO for several months, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/brian-brooks-resigns-as-binanceus-ceo/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">but resigned in August</a>, citing “differences over strategic direction” in a Twitter post.&nbsp;



Prior to his stint at Binance, Brooks was acting comptroller of the currency. The 3,500-employee <a href="https://www.occ.treas.gov">federal agency</a> is responsible for chartering and regulating 1,200 national banks and federal savings associations, which comprise 70 percent of all banking activity in the US, Brooks wrote on his LinkedIn profile.



He added on the profile page that he “led federal efforts to modernize the national bank charter, expand the scope of marketplace lending partnerships, reform and modernize the Community Reinvestment Act, and define the scope of permissible cryptocurrency activities” while in the position.



Brooks also launched <a href="https://www.occ.gov/topics/consumers-and-communities/minority-outreach/project-reach-fact-sheet.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Project REACh</a>, a partnership of large bank CEOs, fintech founders, minority deposit institutions and civil rights organizations dedicated to correcting barriers to financial inclusion for underserved Americans.



&#8220;Brian Brooks is extremely well versed in crypto, banking and in the legal and regulatory aspects of crypto,” Voyager Chairman Philip Eytan told Blockworks. “He can assist Voyager in the next phase of our growth around the globe, especially as we expand into NFTs, DeFi and the metaverse.&#8221;



Founded in 2018, Voyager offers a mobile app allowing users to trade about 70 crypto assets and earn rewards of up to 12% annually on more than 30 cryptocurrencies.



The firm <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/voyager-digital-acquires-crypto-payment-platform-coinify/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announced in August</a> that it would acquire crypto payment platform Coinify to accelerate its international expansion and boost its capabilities in the payment space.



Voyager CEO Steve Ehrlich <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/voyager-looking-to-enter-nft-space-in-2022-ceo-says/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said during an October earnings call</a> that the company intends to make NFTs on multiple platforms accessible to its users, which now totals more than 2 million.



The company also revealed last month that it was set to <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/voyager-digital-to-debut-crypto-debit-card/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">offer a crypto debit card</a>, which will go out to customers in early 2022.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Crypto regulation</h3>



Gary Gensler, chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/gensler-says-centralized-regulation-is-path-for-crypto/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">has said</a> in recent months that cryptocurrency companies and exchanges will not be able to operate outside of regulatory oversight for much longer.&nbsp;



Brooks was one of six crypto executives that <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/crypto-industry-will-move-offshore-if-congress-doesnt-act-executives-warn/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">testified during a hearing of the House Committee on Financial Services</a> earlier this month, which focused on digital assets and the future of finance.



The Bitfury CEO asked for more regulatory clarity around crypto at the hearing. He urged lawmakers to not only focus on micro questions, such as if a particular token is a security or not, but larger questions, such as whether big banks should be trusted more than open-source software as a tool for maintaining ledgers of account and allocating credit and capital.



“It is clear to me that the present financial system has plenty of examples of risk and costs and safety and soundness problems that are being addressed in the current system,” Brooks said at the time.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“Shouldn’t we take seriously the possibility that algorithms and open-source software that take a measure of human error, greed, negligence, fraud and bias out of the system might actually make the system better on net, even if there are some new risks being presented that need to be understood and regulated?”</blockquote>



In addition to his role as Binance.US, CEO and acting comptroller of the currency, Brooks has held senior positions within the financial industry including chief legal and risk officer at Coinbase, as well as general counsel and corporate secretary at mortgage loan company Fannie Mae.



<hr class="wp-block-separator">
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<hr class="wp-block-separator">

Bitfury CEO Brian Brooks Joins Board of Voyager Digital

<div id="highlights-block_61b08d5a6c0b0" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Executives from Bitfury, Paxos, and Stellar Development Foundation will also testify at hearing of US House Committee on Financial Services</li>
 <li>Circle Co-founder Jeremy Allaire to recommend that “the US should aggressively promote the use of the dollar as the primary currency of the internet”</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Executives of some of the largest crypto companies in the world are set to testify before the US House Committee on Financial Services on Wednesday.



The hearing — called Digital Assets and the Future of Finance: Understanding the Challenges and Benefits of Financial Innovation in the United States — will feature testimony from FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire and Alesia Haas, the CFO of Coinbase Global.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



The other crypto firm leaders set to testify include Bitfury CEO Brian Brooks, Paxos CEO Chad Cascarilla and Denelle Dixon, the chief executive of Stellar Development Foundation.Though some might interpret the invitation as US legislators taking a hostile approach towards digital assets, it should rather be seen as a positive signal, said Mikkel Morch, executive director at crypto hedge fund <a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__ark36.com_about-2Dus_-23our-5Fteam&amp;d=DwMF-g&amp;c=sWW_bEwW_mLyN3Kx2v57Q8e-CRbmiT9yOhqES_g_wVY&amp;r=FUTyxn_53i67ILzDMW5BFG24i77vq3UgLHm1MQBAppk&amp;m=F2xft-K7lbChauYoIcnSMDrgQHVZWAilDTCEYvi8Lnk&amp;s=4TvW1zxaA07sth7ycoEiAHuILYioqhRAnu0CpSFeqrU&amp;e=" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ARK36</a>.



“Cryptocurrencies have been on the radar of top US politicians for a long time now, yet the Congress hasn&#8217;t yet decided to take any substantial regulatory action towards it,” Morch said.&nbsp;



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“One should hope the committee is a sign that US congressmen and congresswomen are willing to learn more about this burgeoning and extremely innovative market sector before taking any action that could potentially cripple it.”</blockquote>



Martha Reyes, head of research at digital asset prime brokerage and exchange <a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__bequant.io_&amp;d=DwMF-g&amp;c=sWW_bEwW_mLyN3Kx2v57Q8e-CRbmiT9yOhqES_g_wVY&amp;r=FUTyxn_53i67ILzDMW5BFG24i77vq3UgLHm1MQBAppk&amp;m=F2xft-K7lbChauYoIcnSMDrgQHVZWAilDTCEYvi8Lnk&amp;s=dowhZcTdB6r7C_aqJIkkDmqvYIufW4NNrBpEaluPZDk&amp;e=" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">BEQUANT</a>, said in an email that it is key for politicians to understand the implications of any crypto-related laws they may enact. She added that the hope is that the US becomes the first major crypto-friendly economy.



Morch said he doesn’t expect the US to follow China’s approach to crypto. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/bitcoin-breaks-below-30000-on-china-concerns/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">told the country’s key financial institutions</a> in June to block all cryptocurrency transactions, and its regulators have intensified a ban on bitcoin in recent months.



But, Morch added, he believes there will be tighter regulation related to stablecoins, noting that it is becoming more likely that the US government will seek to “severely restrict” what entities will be able to issue stablecoins.



Circle launched its stablecoin, USD Coin (USDC), in September 2018.



“In a world where money becomes a core feature of the internet, the US should aggressively promote the use of the dollar as the primary currency of the internet, and leverage that as a source of national economic competitiveness, security and a major upgrade needed for more efficient and inclusive financial services,” Allaire, Circle’s co-founder, said in <a href="https://www.circle.com/blog/circle-ceo-to-congress-u.s.-at-pivotal-moment-on-digital-assets" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a blog post </a>published Tuesday.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Allaire will also be speaking about the expanding use cases for stablecoins across both institutional and startup businesses, according to a Circle spokesperson, including small business payments, international low-cost, high-speed remittances and efficient payments for remote workers.



“Even though the road will be a long one, the sector is hopeful that these Congressional meetings will make a difference in the long term,” Reyes said. “While this continues, players in the industry such as ourselves must continue to act with clients&#8217; best interests at heart and aim to become recognized and regulated in other jurisdictions while the US decides how it will move forward.”



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Watch Replay</h3>



<iframe loading="lazy" width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4oOTvtupND8?start=52" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>



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<hr class="wp-block-separator">

Blockchain Industry Executives Set to Testify Before Congress

Sam Reynolds

<div id="highlights-block_6184f79c04499" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Brian Brooks resigned as CEO of Binance.US in August, and was previously the US Acting Comptroller of the Currency</li>
 <li>Bitfury raised $80 million at a valuation of $1 billion back in 2018, and is said to be pursuing an IPO</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Former Binance.US CEO and former US Acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks has been appointed CEO of mining manufacturer Bitfury as the company pursues its next funding round which might come in the form of an IPO. 



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="alignright size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/800px-Acting_Comptroller_of_the_Currency_Brian_P._Brooks-731x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-10604" width="183" height="256" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/800px-Acting_Comptroller_of_the_Currency_Brian_P._Brooks-731x1024.jpg?w=731 731w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/800px-Acting_Comptroller_of_the_Currency_Brian_P._Brooks-731x1024.jpg?w=214 214w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/800px-Acting_Comptroller_of_the_Currency_Brian_P._Brooks-731x1024.jpg?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/800px-Acting_Comptroller_of_the_Currency_Brian_P._Brooks-731x1024.jpg?w=184 184w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/800px-Acting_Comptroller_of_the_Currency_Brian_P._Brooks-731x1024.jpg?w=186 186w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/800px-Acting_Comptroller_of_the_Currency_Brian_P._Brooks-731x1024.jpg?w=156 156w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/800px-Acting_Comptroller_of_the_Currency_Brian_P._Brooks-731x1024.jpg?w=57 57w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/800px-Acting_Comptroller_of_the_Currency_Brian_P._Brooks-731x1024.jpg?w=800 800w" sizes="(max-width: 183px) 100vw, 183px" /><figcaption>Brian P. Brooks, June 2020</figcaption></figure></div>



“With an eye toward the next phase in our evolution, we are thrilled to welcome Brian to the Company. Brian is a respected executive and thought leader with deep regulatory, digital asset and capital markets expertise who shares Bitfury’s vision for a decentralized peer-to peer economy,” the company said in a release.&nbsp;



Bitfury founder and former CEO Valery Vavilov will move over to the role of Chief Vision Officer and the Chairman of the Board of Directors.



Given Brooks short stint at Binance.US — he was at the<a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/binance-us-taps-brian-brooks-as-ceo/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> firm for less than five months</a> before leaving due to “<a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/brian-brooks-resigns-as-binanceus-ceo/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">differences over strategic direction</a>” — many had wondered where he would reappear, or if he would move on from crypto altogether. During Brooks’ tenure as Acting Comptroller of the Currency, where he oversaw the <a href="https://www.occ.treas.gov/about/index-about.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">US’ bank regulator</a>, he paved the way for <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2020/10/31/us-banks-may-seek-to-partner-with-or-buy-crypto-custodians-occs-brooks-says/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">chartered banks to act as crypto custodians</a> creating the ability for institutions to invest in digital assets. 



“Bitfury is an established leader in the digital asset industry, renowned for its sustained research and development efforts and best-in-class proprietary technologies,” Brooks said in a statement. “I look forward to working alongside Valery and Bitfury’s highly experienced leadership team to grow the Company’s core businesses and scale its portfolio of new innovations.”



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">A Bitfury IPO?</h3>



With the bitcoin mining industry <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/chinas-global-bitcoin-hash-power-slips-to-0-heres-why/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">exiting China </a>and doubling-down on the US, investors have taken <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/north-american-miners-get-buy-rating-despite-bitcoin-price-slump-low-hashrate/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">keen interest in the mining industry</a>. As Bitfury was <a href="https://medium.com/meetbitfury/a-momentous-bitfury-birthday-51f1343fb4b3">one of the first large-scale mining manufacturers</a>, founded in 2011 and launching its first mining chip in 2013, an IPO is a much talked about next step for the company. Last month its former CEO, Valery Vavilov, confirmed to <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitfury-ceo-confirms-ipo-considerations-are-part-of-expansion-plans" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">CoinTelegraph</a> that they were taking the first steps to pursue a public listing. 



“As Bitfury and its portfolio of companies continue their global expansion in the digital assets space, Bitfury will be considering an IPO as part of its broader expansion and growth plans,” Vavilov is quoted as saying.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Bitfury’s investors include South Korean internet giant Naver, Macquarie Capital, and Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital.