Monthly Mint — 09.2023
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
It’s the end of another quarter, so raise a glass and raise a round, because crypto deals are popping off like champagne corks. 🍾 Earlier this month, Pantera led a $16.5M Series A in Brine Fi, a ZK-powered decentralized exchange. Embedded finance platform Mesh raised a $22M Series A to redefine the modern financial system user experience. Bastion, a white-labeled web3 infrastructure platform founded by a former a16z crypto exec, raised a $25M Seed round. And to top our list, Proof of Play — an on-chain gaming studio founded by the co-creator of FarmVille 🐽 — raised a $33M Seed round from a16z, Naval Ravikant and Balaji Srinivasan, to name just a few. Given that cryptocurrency and blockchain startups received 76% less investment in Q2 2023 than the same period one year earlier (thank you Crunchbase 🙏🏼), this is monumental news. Huge. It’s no T-Swift and Travis Kelce, but it’s big. 😏❣️
If you think builders are having all the fun here, never fear. Electric Capital announced it’s raising $300M for a third crypto fund. Blockchain Capital closed $580M across two new investment vehicles 🤯, one early-stage and one opportunity fund. Even lawyers are getting in on the action. Forget picks and shovels, they’re raking it in with DocuSign and legalese. 📜⚒️
As we move into the final stretch of the year, it’s no surprise that EOY reviews are top of mind — or should we say “connect sessions?” 🙄 Whatever you call them, these chats have been constructively criticized to the point of capitulation. The Gen Zs have spoken, HR has listened and feedback is officially out. 👋🏼 Now we can only wonder — is the feedback culture what pushed so many Binance execs out of the door? Or maybe it played a role in the FTX fiasco. A few feedforward sessions and the government wouldn’t be taking Salame’s Porsche as part of the plea deal. 🤷🏼♀️
Closing things out with a glance across the pond 🫖, London Stock Exchange Group is laying the groundwork for a first-of-its-kind blockchain-powered digital assets business. We’re still big fans of the digital nomad visas, Web3 Wednesday happy hours and Golden Gate Bridge doppelgänger in Lisbon, but we have to give it to the Brits. Talk about a fintech regulatory superpower 🦾🇬🇧. And we are thrilled to share that we are launching our EMEA effort next month, starting in London. We look forward to having a pint of Guinness with you soon! 🍻
In the words of 21.co, that’s a wrap! 🎁
🍷Cheers,
The Intersection Crew
We’re Backing
This month we spoke with Rebecca Rettig, one of the most respected legal minds in the space and someone we’re proud to count as an Intersection client. Chief Legal and Policy Officer with Polygon Labs, Rebecca is a true crypto OG, and below she weighs in on the evolving regulatory landscape, the evolution of Polygon’s tech stack and more.
You’ve evolved from a litigator at Cravath into a versatile crypto policy and legal leader who contributes across the business. Marc Boiron has had a similar journey, growing from a private practice securities lawyer to CLO and now CEO of Polygon. What advice would you have for an early-career lawyer in crypto with aspirations to move in-house and take on broad operating responsibilities?
Having a wide scope in your legal training is incredibly important, as is being intellectually curious and willing to put in the time and effort to understand the technology, the law relating to it and where the law and the tech intersect. Being versatile and showing you can ramp quickly on new business matters is important.
You also need to have a passion and understanding of the tech. I have been captivated by crypto since 2013. I vividly remember reading about Bitcoin and Mt Gox in the WSJ while on the subway down to my clerkship in the SDNY. Once I got off, I immediately called my husband and said something like “this is emailable money, this is the next thing… and I want to be part of it.” Fortuitously the judge I was clerking with had a relatively early crypto case. I then started reading about it deeply. So engaging with the technology is critical to be credible and effective when working with software developers at a product-driven company.
Finally, you need to ensure that you’re in a “solutions-driven” mindset where you provide clients with a range of options that map to different risk tolerances (while complying with the law!) . This takes on even more importance in an emerging market like crypto.
You’ve been heavily involved in Polygon’s “The Value Prop” database which lays out hundreds of novel real-world use cases for blockchain tech beyond financial products. We’re curious, what use cases are you personally most energized about and where do you see the industry eventually onboarding billions of users?
This bear market’s equivalent to DeFi is tokenized off-chain assets. To be clear, this isn’t just tokenizing financial assets, but also tokenizing things like consumer goods. This will revolutionize and grow the economy. For instance, some companies are tokenizing collectibles, such as Courtyard. You’re basically taking objects that are outside the market and bringing them into the market, resulting in them being tradeable or used as collateral.
We are looking forward to the Polygon 2.0 upgrade later this year and see the potential for ZK tech generally; what part of the new tech stack gets you particularly excited? And, more importantly, where do you see it being implemented and used at scale?
Stepping back, blockchain tech currently has limits on scalability and a steep learning curve versus Web2. The very ambitious goal with Polygon 2.0 is to be the mesh underpinning Web3. Polygon CDK allows developers to easily create their own chain and then seamlessly plug it into the unified Polygon 2.0 architecture in a highly scalable way. If we all do our jobs right, the end user won’t know whether it’s Web2 or Web3 except that they’ll have a whole lot more agency and ownership, opening up a ton of new business models and experiences.
There’s a lot of doom and gloom in the industry around the regulatory headwinds. Let’s flip the script: what are you most jazzed about from a regulatory perspective? What do you think it is going to take to get meaningful legislation passed?
I’m thrilled about the Uniswap decision from Judge Failla in the Southern District of New York as it engaged with DeFi in such a thoughtful and nuanced way. The decision explains the tech and the issues clearly. It also confirms that today’s laws aren’t sufficient to address DeFi properly. It’s going to be viewed as a turning point and may require a real rethinking of policy positions on a more global scale.
The court cases over the last 3–4 months between Ripple, Grayscale and Uniswap are momentous and have truly moved the needle, along with the extraordinary amount of work those in the industry have put into crypto advocacy. Institutions are not waiting for the regulatory environment to evolve but are charging ahead. BlackRock’s filing for their Bitcoin ETF and PayPal’s new stablecoin are good examples. It might feel like we’re in this period of regulatory ambiguity, but we are nevertheless trending in a positive direction.
We’re Tracking
Binance: Rachel Conlan was promoted from VP of Global Marketing to Chief Marketing Officer. Link
BNY Mellon: Monica Ramirez de Arellano joined as Head of Digital Assets Strategy. Monica was previously Director and Chief of Staff, Engineering and Founding CTO at Blockchain.com.
Chia Network: Noor Menai joined the Board of Directors. Noor is currently the CEO of CTBC Bank USA. Link
Circle: Sanja Kon joined as Vice President of Europe. Sanja was previously the CEO of xMoney.com. Link
CoinShares: Lewis Fellas joined as Head of Hedge Fund Solutions. Lewis was previously the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Larks Leaf Asset Management. Link
Digital Currency Group: Tonya Evans joined the Board of Directors. Tonya is currently a Professor at Penn State Dickinson Law. Link
Douro Labs: Mike Cahill, Jayant Krishnamurthy and Ciarán Cronin launched Douro Labs, a software company developing a financial data feed project built on blockchains. Mike, Jayant and Ciarán were previously executives at Jump Crypto. Link
Fidelity: Peter Hans joined as Head of Digital Asset Product and Strategy. Peter was previously Chief Strategy Officer at Arca.
Galaxy Digital: Leon Marshall was promoted from MD, Global Head of Sales to CEO of Europe. Link
Haun Ventures: Suzanne Kim joined as Partner and Head of Investor Relations. Suzanne was previously Managing Director of Investor Relations at Hellman & Friedman. Link
NEAR Foundation: Chris Donovan was promoted from General Counsel to CEO. Link
Ondo Finance: Katie Wheeler joined as Vice President of Partnerships. Katie was previously Director of Business Development, Web3 at Circle. Link
OP Labs: Prithvi Subburaj joined as Chief Operating Officer. Prithvi was previously the General Manager of Google Fi at Google. Link
Reflexive Capital: Sunny Parikh launched Reflexive Capital, a fundamentals-driven investment firm focused on the next generation of web3.
Ripple: Lauren Belive joined as Head of U.S. Public Policy and Government. Lauren was previously Director Of Government Affairs at SoftBank Group. Link
Uniswap: Stephanie Marcellin joined as Head of Recruiting. Stephanie was previously Senior Manager of Technical Recruiting at Coinbase. Link
WalletConnect: Jess Houlgrave joined as Chief Operating Officer. Jess was previously Crypto GTM and Strategy Lead at Checkout.com. Link
Web3 Foundation: Fabian Gompf joined as CEO. Fabian was most recently Vice President of Ecosystem Development at Parity Technologies. Link
Zodia Custody: Jonathan Hugh joined as Chief Financial Officer. Jonathan was previously Chief Financial Officer of GSR. Link
Intersection Growth Partners is the leading executive search firm in crypto and frontier fintech. We connect our clients with game-changing talent and invest our own capital for true alignment.
