Sebastian Sinclair

<div id="highlights-block_628ef3f5e35f5" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Crypto.com is hoping to drive its Web3 ambitions across four product verticals with the addition of its newest executive</li>
 <li>As managing director, Kwon Park will lead Crypto.com&#8217;s partnership developments and attempt to map out new business opportunities</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Singapore-based exchange Crypto.com has named a new managing director to help guide the business&#8217; Web3 ambitions.



Former Bittrex executive Kwon Park has been picked to lead the charge and will answer directly to Crypto.com Chief Operating Officer Eric Anziani, the company said Thursday.



The executive will also seek out new business opportunities and develop partnerships by leveraging his more than three years&#8217; experience at Bittrex, in which he was both that exchange&#8217;s chief strategy officer and director of business development. He was also a board member of several Bittrex-affiliated companies.



Prior to joining Bittrex and Crypto.com, Park spent more than four years at US government affairs firm Delta Strategy Group as counsel. In that role, Kwon was involved in multiple industries across a range of areas including regulatory compliance, enforcement, business strategy and policy issues.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“Kwon brings tremendous expertise in developing and operationalizing complex opportunities across a range of disciplines and a deep understanding of how to effectively scale in the crypto industry,&#8221; Anziani said.</blockquote>



Crypto.com&#8217;s latest hire comes as the firm seeks to shore up its business opportunities amid a market downturn that has ultimately shaken the bottom line of many of the industry&#8217;s largest names. 



The exchange has spent more than a billion dollars on marketing over the last 12 months, including a lavish ad in a <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/exchanges-compete-to-grab-super-bowl-spotlight/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">prime-time slot</a> during the Superbowl. 



Crypto.com tapped NBA superstar Lebron James to front its commercial during that event as part of a <a href="https://fortune.com/2022/01/28/lebron-james-crypto-com-marketing-deal/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">multi-year deal</a> to support Web3-related “educational and workforce development opportunities.”



Park is hoping to drive home the exchange&#8217;s Web3 strategy, recoup some of its marketing spend and further partnerships as it attempts to leverage the nascency of crypto&#8217;s newest sector. 



That strategy involves leveraging products along four main verticals, including payment, financial services, trading, and the metaverse, according to the exchange&#8217;s <a href="https://crypto.com/images/crypto_com_whitepaper.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">white paper</a>.



&#8220;This strategy creates and self-sustains a virtuous cycle: payment channels bring users onto the platform, whereas trading and financial services generate revenue that can be reinvested into payment and used to build the ecosystem to offer full-suite crypto services,&#8221; the white paper states.



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Crypto.com Hires Exec to Further Firm’s Web3 Ambitions

<div id="highlights-block_61e8aa3e9e2c2" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Google is forming a new blockchain unit dedicated to the tech and other &#8220;next-gen distributed computing and data storage technologies&#8221;</li>
 <li>As part of its push, the tech giant has appointed an experienced executive as &#8220;founding leader&#8221; of the newly formed unit</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Following years of tiptoeing around directly involving itself in blockchain projects, tech giant Google is finally looking to get its feet wet.



The Alphabet subsidiary has appointed a new executive to lead a unit dedicated to “blockchain and other next-gen distributed computing and data storage technologies,” <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-19/google-forms-blockchain-group-under-newly-appointed-executive?utm_source=google&amp;utm_medium=bd&amp;cmpId=google" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Bloomberg reported</a> Wednesday.



Shivakumar Venkataraman, Alphabet&#8217;s engineering vice president will now head the unit as the founding leader of Labs, an incubator created by Google to test new projects dedicated to virtual and augmented reality.



Venkataraman, who has worked at Google for more than 18 years, brings more than 25 years to the table as a software engineer with companies like IBM as well as over 10 years in paid advertising for the tech giant, according to his <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/shivakumar-venkataraman-4a03841/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">LinkedIn page</a>.



Google&#8217;s push coincides with the hiring of former PayPal veteran Arnold Goldberg who will head Google&#8217;s payments division as part of a broader strategy to link up with a larger array of financial services including cryptocurrencies, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-19/google-hires-paypal-vet-to-reset-strategy-after-banking-retreat" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Bloomberg first reported</a> Wednesday.



The moves on Google&#8217;s part come after years of dancing around direct investment into the nascent blockchain tech. The tech giant now appears to want to catch up with Facebook&#8217;s <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/zuckerberg-says-facebooks-new-name-will-be-meta/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">endeavors</a> into the metaverse as well as Twitter&#8217;s investment into crypto infrastructure.



Blockworks attempted to contact Google but did not receive a reply by press time.



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Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/onthemargin">Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter</a>.



Get alpha directly in your inbox with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">0xResearch newsletter</a> — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.



The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">Subscribe to daily Solana news</a> from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.