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Libra Association Appoints Former HSBC Executive Ian Jenkins As CRO and CFO Of Payment Systems

Ian Jenkins, a former HSBC executive is joining Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency and cross-border payments project as Chief Financial Officer.

Libra Association has announced that it has hired Ian Jenkins as chief risk officer and chief financial officer (CFO) of Libra Networks to oversee a unit tasked with managing the anticipated digital currency’s payment system.

Jenkins, most recently, served as Group General Manager and Head of Business Finance of HSBC, and also has worked at Credit Suisse global financial company and Santander multinational financial services company.

Jenkins said:

“I am excited to join the Libra Networks leadership team at a time when innovation in the financial sector has the potential to empower billions of people worldwide. The Libra project is poised to transform the industry and I am looking forward to being part of this team.”

James Emmett, managing director of Libra Networks, said:

“Ian’s deep expertise in global finance, risk and strategy will be crucial in bringing the Libra vision to life. I look forward to working with Ian as we move forward to a more operational phase of the project.”

Libra Association has appointed many senior executives since submitting its application for a Swiss payment license in April; several of them are specialized in financial compliance and have ties to U.S authorities and government.

In May, the Libra Association appointed HSBC’s former legal chief Stuart Levey, formerly a U.S Treasury official during the Bush and Obama administrations, as CEO of the association itself. In June, Libra project named Credit Suisse’s former head of financial crime compliance Sterling Daines as Chief Compliance Officer of Libra Association. Last month, the association hired former HSBC Europe CEO James Emmett as managing director of Libra Networks.

Libra Project Faces A New Global Opposition

Opposition still seems to continue mounting against the launch of Libra cryptocurrency. On Tuesday, October 13, a draft of the G7 statement announced that the financial leaders of the seven largest economies in the world would oppose the launch of the much-awaited, controversial Libra stablecoin.

In the draft, Central bankers and finance ministers of Italy, Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Canada have said that there would be no launch of stablecoin such as Libra coin and others until proper regulations are put in place. While the G7 statement highlighted that digital payments could potentially remove high costs and inefficiencies and improve access to financial services, such payments services must be properly regulated. The draft said that regulation and supervision are essential to avoid undermining of consumer protection, cybersecurity, privacy, financial stability, and taxation.

Moody’s Getting into Crypto Space, Wants to Hire Cryptocurrency Analyst

Moody’s Investors Service Limited, one of the world’s largest credit-rating firms, is seeking to hire a cryptocurrency analyst, according to the recent job posting.

As for the job ads, the major credit rating company based in New York placed a new opening on LinkedIn’s employment listings. The positing signals that Moody’s is taking a more serious look at digital assets such as cryptocurrency, non-fungible tokens, and DeFi assets.

The job listing indicates that Moody’s Blockchain C4E team is seeking to hire an experienced crypto analyst to develop the company’s digital currency, NFTs, and DeFi strategies and leverage the research and development the team has put together.

“You will be part of a team of individuals responsible for supporting successful project deliveries for our C4E. The role also includes advocating for operational and process changes to move towards a more data-driven organizational paradigm,” the Moody’s job listing notes.

Moody’s job posting indicates that an understanding of DeFi is a very vital part of the job. The company is looking for someone with “[Managing and maintaining] deep understanding of the financial markets and the potential wide-reaching impact of decentralized finance (DeFi) on [an] existing ecosystem. [Alongside performing] back-testing of assessment framework(s) developed by Blockchain C4E using market data to analyze crypto-assets and other related products; provide detailed feedback for further refinement of risk factors.”

The employment listing shows that Moody’s is also interested in stablecoins, CBDCs, and NFTs. The company wants the analyst to develop in-depth knowledge on DeFi and blockchain-based elements like stablecoins, non-fungible token (NFT) assets, and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

Moody’s expects the crypto analyst to stay up-to-date on development within the industry and carry out a risk analysis of DeFi (blockchain) protocols and other features. Of course, the company wants a person who is very passionate about blockchain and DeFi.

Companies on Crypto Hiring Spree

Based on its current commitment to hiring a cryptocurrency expert, Moody’s, therefore, joins a rising number of major companies exploring the viability of digital currencies such as Bitcoin, NFTs, and DeFi.

Moody’s recruitment efforts come after similar job postings listed by major corporations like Amazon, JPMorgan, British billionaire Simon Nixon’s family office, among others.

On July 25, Amazon Inc. announced that it would hire a blockchain and digital expert to join its payment team. The corporation stated that an experienced digital currency and blockchain product lead would help the firm develop its digital currency and blockchain strategy and product roadmap. Amazon took such a decision because of what it termed as being “inspired by the innovation taking place in the crypto sector” and therefore needs to examine what it could look like within the company.

Last month, Walmart multinational retail giant announced its intention to hire a leader for cryptocurrency and digital products. According to the job posting, Walmart wanted to employ talent with experience in product or project management and technology commercialization and an in-depth understanding of cryptocurrency and related technologies.

In addition, late last month, Seek Capital family office, owned by UK Billionaire Simon Nixon, announced plans to hire a cryptocurrency analyst to help the firm expand its investment products into the crypto sector.

Binance.US Appoints Ant Group Executive to Succeed Former CEO Brian Brooks

Binance.US has announced that it has hired Brian Shroder as president and appointed him as the board member.

In the new role, Shroder will oversee the firm’s fundraising, strategy and execution, corporate and business development, and manage the company’s HR, legal, and product and technology functions.

Shroder comes to Binance.U.S, with a solid background in fintech. In the past, he worked at Ant Group, the firm behind the mobile payment app Alipay, as the head of its Southeast Asia operations. During that time, Shroder was in charge of expanding Alipay and other Ant Pay services across the region. Before that, Shroder worked at Uber Technologies Inc in the Asia office as head of the strategy and business development.

The appointment of Shroder, a Harvard MBA who kept a low profile while serving senior functions at Ant and Uber in Asia, seems to be an effort by Binance.US to ramp up its operations. The appointment is a clever approach by the exchange to bring in an executive with experience in doing business in Asia and someone with the ability to face off competition in the US market, with companies such FTX aggressively winning market share.

Binance.US is an independent firm but is completely linked to its relationships with the Binance Group, a company with deep roots and leadership in Asia. Shroder’s experience makes him fit to navigate this business culture while building an increasingly regulated business in the US.

Shroder talked about his appointment and said that his experience at fast-growing firms would help him bolster Binance.US toward its plans to go public. He believes that the company has all the necessary resources to become the largest and most successful crypto exchange in the US.

Considering Going Public

The move of Binance.US to hire Brian Shroder comes one month after former CEO Brian Brooks was abruptly reassigned from the exchange after just three months on the role.

In the meantime, the operations of Binance.US is being led by an interim CEO, Joshua Sroge.

Shroder’s coming is set to help the exchange prepare for its initial public offering expected within the next three years, depending on business growth.

Earlier this month, the exchange announced plans to go public, with the founder Changpeng Zhao stating that Binance.US is about to close a huge private fundraising round in the next two months that should reduce his control of the board. He said that after Binance.US plans to conduct an IPO by 2024.

Zhao insisted that despite ongoing pressure from regulators worldwide, business operations are running smoothly in the US now that the crypto exchange has put down a regulatory anchor.

Binance.US was launched in 2019 following a suspension of crypto services associated with its parent company Binance Group to US customers – a move to ensure complete compliance with agencies like CFTC and SEC.

Binance beefed up internal regulation through the establishment of Binance.US and is now able to protect its access to the US crypto markets as it can adjust its exchange operations to meet the specific requirements imposed by federal regulators.

Andreessen Horowitz Hires Former CFTC Commissioner Brian Quintenz To Bolster Regulatory Expansion

A16z, the cryptocurrency arm of leading venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, has announced that it has hired former commissioner of the US CFTC, Brian Quintenz, to advise the firm on policies about crypto investments.

Andreessen Horowitz general partner Katie Haun talked about the development and said the appointment is part of a broader effort to ensure the firm has support in place for regulatory and policy matters.

“We are grateful that Brian is joining the team to help in our work of translating crypto for the policy community. He understands both how crypto technology works and how the CFTC thinks about the issue. His ability to translate between the two will be central to the success of a16z’s Crypto policy program and our portfolio companies.” Haun said.

In the new role, Quintenz will be joining many former US federal regulators currently working for Andreessen Horowitz, including former senior advisor to President Biden Tomicah Tillemann, former Under Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Brent McIntosh, and former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission official Bill Hinman.

The move by Andreessen to hire such prominent, former regulators signals that the venture capital firm is stepping up to navigate better the emerging regulatory challenges in the U.S. cryptocurrency scene and to meet the more aggressive demands of the US regulators this year.

SEC Ready Regulate Crypto

Andreessen Horowitz is a leading venture capital firm that has been investing in several major cryptocurrency firms, including Uniswap, Solana, Robinhood, CryptoKitties, Coinbase, Earn.com, among others. In recent years, a16z, which is recognised as one of the most influential venture firms globally, has made several investments in the cryptocurrency and decentralised finance (DeFi) space.

In May, Andreessen Horowitz was looking to raise a fund of as much as $1 billion from investors to invest in cryptocurrencies and crypto startups.

Quintenz’s hiring comes at a time when U.S. financial regulators are considering regulating the fast-growing cryptocurrency sector.

US financial regulators are preparing to take a more active role in regulating the $1.5 trillion cryptocurrency market as concerns grow that a lack of proper oversight risks harming investors and consumers.

Earlier this month, the US SEC started investigating the largest DeFi exchange, Uniswap, to look into how investors use the exchange and how the platform is marketed.

Two days ago, Coinbase got the SEC’s attention. On Tuesday, September 7, Coinbase CEO Brain Armstrong went public with the battle, stating the SEC has now picked his company’s proposed lending product. Coinbase wants to launch a yield-generating product called Coinbase Lend to compete with popular decentralised (DeFi) products like Compound and Aave. But the SEC claims that the product “Coinbase Lend” is security and would therefore sue Coinbase if it goes ahead and launches the Lend program.

Coinbase exchange and decentralised exchange Uniswap are some of A16z’s most notable investments.

Biden To Name Crypto Critic Saule Omarova To Lead OCC

U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to announce his nomination for the Comptroller of The Currency within the next few days. He will pick a female candidate, according to Bloomberg media outlets, citing three people familiar with the nomination process.

The U.S. President is planning to nominate Saule Omarova, Cornell University law school professor, to head the Office of The Comptroller of The Currency (OCC). The nomination event is reported could happen as soon as this week.

Omarova, a Kazakh-American lawyer, has been teaching at Cornell University law school since 2014, specializing in banking law and corporate finance. In 2006-2007, she served as special adviser for regulatory policy to the U.S. Department of The Treasury under former President George W. Bush.

As a native of Kazakhstan, Omarova would be the first woman and person of colour officially named to run the Office of the OCC that oversees the U.S. banking sector.

Omarova is an outspoken critic of cryptocurrency and traditional banking and has called for the government to play a more active and bigger role in the nation’s financial services sector. As in charge of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, she would be expected to supervise the country’s biggest banks and implement regulations concerning cryptocurrency firms and Fintech startups.

In the past, Omarova has criticized the cryptocurrency and traditional banking sector, and she is known for wanting to “end banking as we know it”

Omarova described the cryptocurrency sector as threatening the stability of the economy and believes that crypto-assets only benefit the “dysfunctional financial system we already have.” She further acknowledges that the financial sector is prone to abuse from large private financial institutions.

Omarova is therefore expected to pursue stricter rules and stricter oversight for cryptocurrency and the financial industry.

Next move for the OCC?

After Brian Brooks’ departure, the Office of The Comptroller of The Currency (OCC) signals a less crypto-friendly institution.

Brooks stepped down as the head of the OCC in January 2021as the Biden administration prepared to take the reins.

As a result, the appointment of Michael Hsu as the current acting comptroller of currency came with changes, a shift away from the aggressive innovation pushed by fintech-friendly Brian Brooks.

Mr. Brooks strongly promoted the OCC’s proposed special-purpose fintech charter. He allowed banks and thrifts to offer custody services to cryptocurrency companies, among other moves to modernize and innovate the OCC in response to rapid changes in financial services.

But all that changed with the appointment of Hus, who signalled a potential reversal of the innovations Brooks sought to achieve.

In May, Hsu called for a review of the cryptocurrency guidance issued by the OCC under Brian Brooks.

Hsu ordered a review of several of the agency’s recent actions, including moves that gave it authority to provide crypto custody companies with banking licenses. OCC hinted that it could become less friendly to cryptocurrency.

With the current new appointments underway, more significant changes are likely to come to the OCC, creating new challenges for fintech, crypto regulations, and DeFi (decentralized finance).

Reddit Wants to Develop NFT Platform, New Job Listing Revelas

Reddit, a popular social network site, is seeking to hire experts to work on a project that would enable the site to design, develop and maintain a new platform for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and digital goods.

The social media discussion site plans to develop an NFT platform for selling and purchasing crypto-collectables, the firm signalled in a job posting.

According to a new job posting focusing on the position of a senior engineer, Reddit wants to hire engineers to design, build, and ship backend services for millions of users to create, sell, purchase, and use NFT-backed digital goods.

Reddit announced “a new and exciting, rapidly growing team that aims to build the largest creator economy on the internet, powered by independent creators, digital goods and NFTs. We are looking for strong engineers and leaders to help us seed the team, set its strategy and build for the future.”

Some of the job responsibilities include contributing to the overall strategy of the NFT platform and assisting in building, designing, and shipping backend services for the creation, sale, purchase, and use of NFT-backed digital goods.

The firm is looking for someone with experience in backend development and the ability to design and implement complex distributed systems operating under high load.

In the job posting, Reddit revealed its intentions and motivations behind its latest pursuit. The company has noticed NFTs having a massive ability to develop a sense of belonging and participation.

With an average of 430 million visitors using Reddit’s platform monthly for widely-read discussion threads and news updates, Reddit wants to become the leader of the internet economy with the help of collectables, NFTs, digital assets and many more.

The NFT craze

The latest development by Reddit comes at a time when the popularity of NFTs has significantly increased, which has prompted a wide variety of firms to launch their own initiatives.

As recently reported by Blockchain.News, cryptocurrency exchanges such as FTX.US and Coinbase recently stated that they are developing their own NTF marketplaces.

Besides Reddit, a rising list of social media firms are also embracing the opportunities being offered by NFTs. Twitter recently announced that it is working on an NFT authentication feature. Earlier this month, Tiktok stated that it would launch its collectable platform, while in August, Facebook noted that it is also developing NFT features alongside its Novi crypto wallet.

Crypto Trading Platform BitPanda Hires Former JPMorgan Executive Joshua Barraclough as CEO

European-based cryptocurrency trading platform BitPanda has hired a former executive at JPMorgan to lead a division in the leading platform – BitPanda Pro, a platform targeting to fulfil the needs of experienced traders and institutional investors.

BitPanda, a cryptocurrency trading platform based in Vienna, Austria, announced on Thursday, October 28, that it named JPMorgan executive Joshua Barraclough as the Chief Executive Officer of its fully-regulated digital assets exchange BitPanda Pro.

Before Barraclough moved to the crypto sector, he served as the global head of the fintech team at JPMorgan. He served as co-head of digital innovation at the investment bank, responsible for creating new products and businesses.

He talked about his departure from JPMorgan to join BitPanda, saying that the move was an easy decision. He mentioned: “The crypto ecosystem is the most exciting part of that right now, with an incredible pace of change and growth in adoption. We want further to bridge the gap between digital assets and traditional finance, building on my prior experience.”

Barraclough will now lead BitPanda Pro, which targets experienced traders, professionals, and institutions. According to a press statement, the platform has witnessed average daily trading volume rise four times in the first half of 2012.

BitPanda allows retail investors to invest in various products, including cryptocurrency, stocks, precious metals, among others.

BitPanda Pro, an advanced and European Union-wide regulated version of the main platform, is yet to add digitized versions of precious metals like gold, platinum, and silver as part of its portfolio on its trading platform.

Barraclough said that the exchange is “actively looking at offering even more traditional assets other than gold and silver, using blockchain technology and tokenization to facilitate this.”

Barraclough acknowledged that cryptocurrency is getting traction as the first investment asset for younger digital natives and “acts as a gateway to further financial education, building wealth through a diversified portfolio.”

He further talked about the rising adoption of cryptocurrencies and the inflow of new institutional funds. He stated: “This wave of institutional investment, unaffected by many of the regulatory worries of the last bull run, has proven the viability of Bitcoin (BTC) as a secure store of value and inflation hedge.”

Barraclough is the latest in a series of high-profile hires for the rapidly-growing fintech firm. Last month, BitPanda hired Irina Scarlat, a former Revolut executive, as its chief growth officer. In August, BitPanda hired former regulator Matthias Bauer- Langgartner as its managing director in Ireland and the UK.

In August, BitPanda achieved unicorn status after raising $263 million in a Valar Ventures-led series C round, funding that brought its total valuation to $4.1 billion.

Crypto Firms Make Job Cuts Amidst Ongoing Crypto Winter

This week, many cryptocurrency companies have eliminated jobs in response to the current crypto winter. However, these companies have chosen to keep “impactful” people on staff as they prepare for a “longer slump.”

At least 216 jobs were cut across three different cryptocurrency companies. These companies are open-source software laboratory Protocol Labs, blockchain data firm Chainalysis, and cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex. Each of these companies reduced their workforce by 89, 83, and 44 employees, respectively.

In a blog post dated February 3, Juan Benet, CEO of Protocol Labs, the firm that introduced Filecoin (FIL), said that the company will be cutting jobs because it needed to concentrate its workforce “against the most impactful and business-critical projects.”

He claimed that the firm had come to the conclusion that it was in the best position to “weather this protracted winter” by eliminating “89 jobs,” which is equivalent to around 21% of its staff.

Given that the cryptocurrency business is now experiencing “very tough” conditions, Benet said that the firm should “plan for a lengthier slump.”

Meanwhile, on February 1, Bittrex CEO Richie Lai emailed the firm’s workers to notify them that the company would be reducing its employment in order to “maintain the long-term health” of the business.

On February 2, the email was shared inappropriately on Twitter. Lai claimed that despite the fact that the leadership team has been “working vigorously” over the last several months to decrease expenditures and boost efficiency, the efforts have not achieved the “results required.” Lai added that the efforts have not delivered the “results necessary.”

Lai went on to say that the current state of the market necessitated a reevaluation of the company’s approach and a readjustment of its “investments with the new economic climate.”

On February 2, 2018, records pertaining to employment in the state of Washington indicated that Bittrex had eliminated 83 positions.

According to statements made by Maddie Kennedy, director of communications at Chainalysis, to Forbes on February 1, the firm let off 44 of its 900 workers, which represents around 4.8% of the workforce. Kennedy said that those who were let go were “mainly in sales” at the company.

The announcement of these layoffs follows reports that in January, at least 2,900 employees were let go across 14 different cryptocurrency organisations.

Among those companies, Coinbase saw the most personnel reductions, with 950 employees losing their jobs on January 10th.

During this time, rival cryptocurrency exchanges Crypto.com, Luno, and Huobi each laid off about 500 employees, 330 employees, and 320 employees, respectively.