Katherine Ross

This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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Picture the iconic Spider-Man meme with the various Spider-Men pointing at each other.



Got it in your head?



Kraken said yesterday that it turned the tables on a North Korean hacker who was trying to get a job at the exchange.



I spoke to Kraken’s chief security officer, Nick Percoco, who gave me some details that are, honestly, just perfect for a Friday edition.



Percoco told me Kraken had received a list of email addresses tied to hackers. They, as one would expect, checked to see if any of those addresses would pop up around Kraken. One did. The person had applied for a job and was in a pool of candidates.



Basically, he explained, the person’s resume wasn’t standout enough for the hiring team to otherwise pay attention. But the team decided to see what would happen if they proceeded with the hacker.



According to Percoco, given some red flags, the person wouldn’t have gotten very far in the job application process. For example, when the person joined a Zoom call, it was under a different name (not the name he’d used on the application), and then he quickly changed it.



When Percoco virtually sat down with the individual for one of the cultural interviews, things got interesting. It was Halloween, so naturally, Percoco asked the individual what he was doing for Halloween. After an extensive conversation, he claims it was pretty clear the person didn’t understand the holiday.



Then, when asked to pull out his phone and show his Google map location (to verify that he was in Houston, Texas), the individual struggled with that, too, Kraken said. It took him a few minutes of pretty obvious scrolling to find Texas on his Google Maps, per Percoco.



While this story is amusing now, it pulls back the curtain on a bigger problem in crypto. These bad actors are actively trying to infiltrate US crypto companies.



Percoco warned that companies have to be more careful about who they’re hiring and how they verify them. In Kraken’s case, the individual had enough missteps that he wouldn’t have made it through the normal process. But hiring someone directly through Discord, for example, could leave a project at risk.



His advice for screening a candidate that’s raising some red flags is to have them go to a place like a local Starbucks or McDonald’s and order something. That way — on a Zoom or virtual call — you can see where they are and it gives the interviewer insight into the location. For example, a McDonald’s in Germany would have German on the packaging instead of English, he said.



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Empire Newsletter

Kraken thwarts hacker’s ill-intentioned job application

James Cirrone

The most high profile hires at crypto firms this week were those tasked with regulatory matters.&nbsp;



For instance, Ripple Labs added former Obama Administration official Lauren Belive as head of US Public Policy and Government.&nbsp;



With Ripple still engaged in a court battle with the US Securities and Exchange Commission over alleged unregistered securities offerings, Belive will likely have her hands full. The SEC’s appeal of the July ruling was <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/judge-greenlights-sec-motion-to-file-appeal">granted</a> on Aug. 17.



Belive wrote a <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7112397888764162049/">LinkedIn post</a> announcing her new role and what it would entail.&nbsp;



“My role will be to lead our engagement in Washington and nationally,” she wrote. “With regulatory landscapes evolving, it&#8217;s paramount that we advocate for policies that not only support the crypto industry but also the countless individuals and businesses that could benefit from these advancements.”



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ripple-abandons-plan-fortress-trust">Ripple ditches plan to buy Fortress Trust</a>



<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-belive-ba355246/">Belive</a> was a policy director at the White House from April 2012 to May 2015, but she was in Barack Obama’s orbit for far longer. She previously served on his 2008 campaign, the White House transition team and finally, the White House’s legislative affairs office for over three years.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/judge-rules-ripple-xrp-not-security">Judge rules in SEC case vs Ripple</a>



After that, she left the public sector and has been working as an advisor to large corporations on governmental matters. The role she’s taken at Ripple is similar to roles she’s had at Lyft, Zoom and SoftBank.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Kraken makes moves in Canada</h2>



This week was a busy one for Kraken, a San Francisco-based crypto exchange.&nbsp;



First, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/kraken-licenses-spain-ireland">it received key crypto licenses in Ireland and Spain</a>. Just a day later, there were reports that <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/kraken-stock-trading">Kraken will offer stock trading by next year</a>, which will in no doubt put it in direct competition with Robinhood.&nbsp;



Then on Thursday, Kraken publicly <a href="https://blog.kraken.com/news/kraken-bolsters-its-canadian-offering">announced</a> a new hire in Canada — one that’s focused on keeping in step with regulation in the country.



Dina Mainville will be joining Kraken’s board of directors in Canada, also known as Payward Canada.



Mainville has been a member of the Canadian Blockchain Consortium, a nonprofit lobbying group, since September 2020. Since then, she founded and chairs its regulatory committee.&nbsp;



She’s also the founder and president of Collisionless, a Toronto-based professional services firm that specializes in blockchain technology and digital assets.&nbsp;



Kraken added that she’s advised global Fortune 500 companies on blockchain initiatives and has “trained hundreds of government and law enforcement professionals on cryptocurrency forensic investigation strategies.”



As part of this announcement, Kraken also expanded access to Interac e-Transfer — Canadians&#8217; method of electronically transferring money — to all Canadians on the mobile and web platforms. The firm is also reducing the Interac e-Transfer fee to 0.95% down from 1.5%.



And in the coming days, there will be eight new digital assets that Candians can trade, including Sui, Audius and others.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Other notable hires</h2>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Wednesday was Alex Chriss’ <a href="https://twitter.com/acce/status/1707053986606465169?s=20">first day</a> as <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hiring-roundup-silvergate-paypal">PayPal CEO and president</a>. He is taking control during <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/paypal-stablecoin-slow-uptake">the implementation of PayPal’s stablecoin PYUSD</a>.</li>



<li>Matteo Leibowitz, head of ventures at Uniswap Labs, said it was his last day after three years at the company in a Friday <a href="https://twitter.com/teo_leibowitz/status/1707789881752387704">post</a> on X.</li>



<li>Swan Bitcoin, a Bitcoin financial services firm, announced that pro basketball player Matthew Dellavedova would be joining the firm as vice president of business development. The Australian point guard won an NBA Championship alongside Lebron James while on the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2016.</li>



<li>Epic Games <a href="https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/news/layoffs-at-epic">laid off</a> 830 employees, or 16% of its staff, right as the game studio is trying to fashion Fortnite into a monetizable metaverse.</li>
</ul>



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crypto hiring

Crypto hiring: Firms shore up operations with key regulatory hires

Jacquelyn Melinek

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<div id="highlights-block_61bce3bc1c2b2" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The fund will focus on investing in financial infrastructure, Web3 and decentralized finance (DeFi)</li>
 <li>About half of firm’s investments are in the US, but it’s looking to explore opportunities in Canada, Asia-Pacific, Europe, the UK, Israel and United Arab Emirates</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Kraken Ventures is launching its first fund, after raising $65 million to invest across crypto and fintech, the firm announced on Friday.&nbsp;



&#8220;Our original goal for the fund was $50M, but given the significant demand we had for the fund, we expanded the fund size up to $65M,&#8221; Brandon Gath, managing partner at Kraken Ventures, told Blockworks. 



Kraken Ventures is its own entity, but it is anchored and led by Kraken, the world’s largest digital asset exchange by euro volume and liquidity.&nbsp;



Though the majority of the business’s existing investments focus on seed rounds and Series A investments, the Kraken Ventures Fund I LP will focus on investing in technologies supporting the future of crypto and fintech innovation. This includes tech within the financial infrastructure, Web3 and decentralized finance (DeFi) sectors.



The crypto exchange <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210211005504/en/Kraken-Backs-Launch-of-Venture-Capital-Fund" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">launched</a> its venture capital fund in February 2021 and has made a number of investments since in <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/funding-news-blockdaemon-secures-155m-genesis-digital-assets-raises-431m/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Blockdaemon</a>, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/goldman-sachs-kkr-a16z-invest-350m-in-anchorage-digital/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Anchorage</a>, Messari, Hashflow, Acala and pStake, according to the company.



The amount or timeline for the investments were not disclosed, but the fund intends to make initial investments ranging from $500,000 to $2 million.&nbsp;



&#8220;We will continue to invest in infrastructure that will power both the crypto and fintech ecosystems,&#8221; Gath said. &#8220;Our goal is to get to know teams even before they&#8217;re launching their company or protocol to be able to support them from a very early point in their development through an investment and operational support,&#8221; he added. 



Kraken Ventures currently has about half of its investments in the US and the other half allocated internationally. But the firm is looking to explore opportunities in Canada, Asia-Pacific, Europe, the United Kingdom, Israel and United Arab Emirates, according to its <a href="https://www.krakenventures.com/investments" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">website</a>.&nbsp;



In addition to launching the fund, the firm announced that Laurens De Poorter will be Kraken Venture’s head of Europe as a part of its global expansion. De Poorter will focus on executing investments and working with portfolios across the region.&nbsp;



“The European crypto scene is booming; deal count doubled in the last two years and continues to accelerate,” De Poorter said in a statement. “With the influx of institutional money and impending regulation wave, one of the most promising areas will be the intersection of crypto and fintech.”



Gath said going forward there is potential to make the crypto ecosystem more accessible to the masses, not just those who understand the technology, by making it more secure, scalable, transparent and easy to use.



&#8220;We think this will just continue to widen the gap between innovation on the crypto side versus more traditional financial services,&#8221; Gath said. &#8220;The innovation and exciting products that cut out middle agents and give economics back to the user are what&#8217;s driving excitement in the space and why a young demographic has so embraced this industry. Now it&#8217;s time for the industry to make sure everyone has the tools to participate,&#8221; he said. 



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