Crypto Hiring: Coinbase, Bybit see changes; leaders step away

A couple crypto exchanges named new leaders, while other executives have stepped back from their roles, or plan to do so soon.

A former Binance executive with various leadership stints at traditional finance companies has joined crypto exchange Bybit as its chief legal and compliance officer. 

Robert MacDonald was Binance’s head of sanctions after working in a previous role there to build out the company’s anti-bribery and corruption program.

Read more: Former Binance CEO hints at potential next steps

Prior to working at Binance, MacDonald held various compliance-related positions at Standard Chartered Bank and HSBC. Earlier on — from 2008 to 2011 — he was a compliance and legal officer at the UK Ministry of Justice. 

Regulating stablecoins and ensuring compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) regulations are pressing challenges, MacDonald said in a statement. 

“These issues give legitimate crypto exchanges with the technical know-how and right culture an opportunity to change the digital asset industry for the better,” he added. 

As for another people-related update at a crypto exchange, Jesse Pollak is set to expand his role outside of leading Coinbase’s layer-2, Base. Pollak said in an X post he will also lead Coinbase Wallet.

“I’m really excited to take on this new mandate and to accelerate our mission of bringing a billion people and a million builders onchain,” he wrote.

Stepping away

Additional changes around the industry come as some step away from their positions. 

Coinbase’s Manish Gupta has decided to “move on to take some well deserved time to recharge before starting his next chapter,” according to Coinbase Chief Operating Officer and president Emilie Choi.

Gupta has been an engineering executive at the company for nearly five years, his LinkedIn page indicates. He held similar roles at Lyft and Google prior to that.

A Chainalysis spokesperson told The Block that Chainalysis CEO Michael Gronager has been on leave since Sept. 25 due to “a personal issue.”

Sari Granat, Chainalysis’ president and chief operating officer, is reportedly working as the company’s interim CEO. It is unclear whether Gronager could return to that role or when.

Others set to leave their posts are Coin Center leaders Jerry Brito and Robin Weisman.

Brito has been the crypto policy-focused nonprofit’s executive director since 2014, while Weisman has held the senior policy counsel role since that year, their LinkedIn pages indicate.

Peter Van Valkenburgh, who has served as Coin Center’s director of research, will take over as its executive director on Jan. 1, Brito said in an X post. Landon Zinda will take over the organization’s government outreach efforts as policy director, while Neeraj Agrawal and Antonie Hodge will have expanded roles in fundraising and management.

Read more: Coin Center senior staff to step down at end of year 

“Our goal at the outset was to secure time for Bitcoin to reach ‘escape velocity,’ and on that score, I think we succeeded,” Brito wrote on X. “The struggle is not over yet, though. We must remain vigilant and continue to fight for our rights to make and use crypto software, and to do so privately.”

And in case you missed it: Gurbir Grewal, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement division since July 2021, will also be leaving his post.

Other updates:

• Prometheum named Jacek Bugaj as its head of product — a role in which he will work with the company’s broker-dealers and technology teams “to streamline the development of blockchain-enabled financial products.” Bugaj was previously head of macro product management at Two Sigma.
• Singapore Gulf Bank, a digital bank backed by Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund, appointed Ali AlShamma as chief financial officer and Elaine Leong as its chief operating officer. 
• Jack Lipstone is now the head of DeFi business development at Sei Foundation, he revealed in an X post. 

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