Monthly Mint — 08.2024
A curated selection of hires and promotions from across crypto and web3. If you would like to sign up to receive this newsletter, please visit our website.
We’re Following
With summer in the rearview mirror and 🍂 fall officially upon us (👀looking at you, Starbucks), what better way is there to celebrate back to school than with a good old-fashioned HBS case study? 📝Crypto students, grab your pencils and take note. As the author deftly describes, the blockchain infrastructure wars are over (👑long live Bitcoin and Ethereum), but the war for stablecoin domination is just beginning. From mainstays Circle and Tether to Paxos and PayPal’s PYUSD, the stablecoin landscape is ripe with competition and technological advancement that holds the promise of revolutionizing the way value is transferred.
🤔So how are those players fairing today? Tether just generated a record $5.2bn in profit during the first half of this year. 💥Unfortunately for him, co-founder Brock Pierce isn’t fairing quite so well — RIP Puertopia 🪦. PayPal’s PYUSD crossed the $1bn market cap mark 📈, and USDC was just chosen as the stablecoin network of choice for AI agent payments company Skyfire ❤️🔥. We might be biased, but consider us fully locked in to the journey ahead for these guys. To AI agent x stablecoin payment protocols and beyond! 🚀
Back in fundraising land, the price tags and press releases are almost too many to count. 🧮 Stablecoin money movement platform Bridge raised $58M. Blockchain x AI intellectual property startup Story raised $80M at a $2.25bn valuation. Another new stablecoin darling, Sling, raised a $15M Series A. Chaos Labs raised $55M, Morpho raised $50M, Sahara raised $37M and Sorella raised a $7.5M seed — and those are just the companies with “Labs” in their name! 😂 The gas pedal is back on the floor, and we are thrilled to see it.
As we sit and wait with baited breath for the House Committee crypto hearings later this month to unfold, we’ll leave you with two pieces of highly-encouraged back-to-school homework. 📓The first, exploring Electric Capital’s wildly comprehensive crypto market map that could easily double as wall art…but seriously, can we get this laminated for my office? 😏 Here’s the ZK-specific version if orange is more your thing 🧡. The second, listening to our very own Scott Fletcher, exec search Jedi and podcast savant, On the Brink with Castle Island, where they discuss everything from the Intersection Growth Partners origin story to how top crypto firms land the best hires. 🆘Spoiler alert: a tight interview process, getting the right decision-makers around the table and aligning on a target profile are just the beginning. Shoot us a note if you’re interested in learning more about how we run our process. 😉
🍁☕Cheersing with a pre-season PSL,
The Intersection Crew
We’re Tracking
B2C2: Francois Lamy joined as Managing Director, Head of Corporate Strategy. Francois was previously Head of Strategy and Corporate Development at Genesis. Link
Bitget: Hon Ng joined as Chief Legal Officer. Hon was previously General Counsel and Head of Government Affairs and Policy at Binance. Link
Block: Jason Karsh joined as Business Lead for Proto, Block’s bitcoin hardware division. Jason was previously Head of Marketing and GTM at Blockaid. Link
Coinbase: Michael Rihani joined as Director of Product, Banking & Payments. Michael was previously Director of Product, Bitcoin at Cash App. Link
Consensys: Dan Odell joined as Chief Financial Officer. Dan was previously Chief Financial Officer at Improbable. Link
Grayscale: Peter Mintzberg joined as CEO. Peter was previously Global Head of Strategy, Asset and Wealth Management at Goldman Sachs. Link
Sophon Labs: Ed Chang joined as Chief Operating Officer. Ed was previously Head of Gaming at Ava Labs. Link
Starknet Foundation: James Strudwick was promoted from Head of Ecosystem Growth to Executive Director. Link
TON Ventures: Ian Wittkopp and Inal Kardan launched TON Ventures, a for-profit venture capital firm. Ian and Inal were previously leaders at TON Foundation. Link
Intersection Growth Partners is the leading executive search firm in web3. We connect our clients with game-changing talent and invest our own capital for true alignment.
