Andrew Yang To Advise Web3-Focused Firm

2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang joined Pool Data as a strategic adviser as he seeks to transform the data economy via Web3 technology.

Pool Data is deploying Web3 to build infrastructure in an effort to allow people to monetize and control their online data. Yang said in a statement that the data economy is on the verge of a once-in-a-generation shift.

“Individual consumers are massively outgunned and out-resourced by trillion-dollar tech companies,” Yang said. “It makes sense for consumers to come together, pool their data, and form data unions that can negotiate collectively and command a fair share of the data economy for all.”

Yang has brought the issues of data control and monetization onto the political agenda through the Data Dividend Project, which aimed to establish data-as-property rights under privacy laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act.

The political figure and entrepreneur told Blockworks in an interview earlier this year that crypto and Web3 advocates need to get more politically involved. He revealed Lobby3 DAO in February — designed to fund policy advocacy and educate lawmakers about the positive potential of Web3.

Bitcoin company NYDIG promoted Tejas Shah and Nate Conrad to become the firm’s CEO and president, respectively.

The move comes as the company said its bitcoin balances hit an all-time high during the third quarter. Shah and Conrad will focus on picking up the pace on NYDIG’s investments in its mining solutions and platform technology businesses.

The two are set to replace CEO Robert Gutmann and President Yan Zhao, who will remain at NYDIG parent company Stone Ridge Holdings Group, which they co-founded with Ross Stevens in 2012.

Shah was most recently NYDIG’s global head of institutional finance, while Conrad worked as global head of payments. Prior to joining NYDIG in 2020, Shah had a nearly 20-year career at Goldman Sachs. Conrad joined Stone Ridge in 2016 and NYDIG in 2020 after also beginning his career at Goldman Sachs.

Alexandre Kech, who is leaving his role as director of blockchain and digital assets at Citi Ventures, is set to join Six Digital Exchange.

“This week is my last at Citi Ventures, more than a year after launching the Blockchain & Digital Asset Studio practice,” he wrote in a LinkedIn post. “This may seem like a short tenure, and it is. But sometimes, an exceptional opportunity comes along.”

Before joining the Citigroup subsidiary in September 2021, Kech was a head of securities and foreign exchange markets at SWIFT and later co-founded Onchain Custodian, where he worked as CEO. 

The founder and former president of crypto miner HIVE Blockchain Technologies took a new position as the CEO of Valour, an issuer of crypto ETPs.  

Olivier Roussy Newton, who also co-founded Valour, replaces Russell Starr, who is set to re-assume the role of head of capital markets and maintain his role as executive chairman.

“My role was never intended to be permanent and having someone with Olivier’s pedigree step in is testimony to the quality of Valour as a company and the global team supporting Valour’s vision of being the dominant ETP player in the world,” Starr said in a statement.

Roussy Newton is a partner at investment fund Latent Capital and currently sits on the board of SEBA Bank AG.

Software development company Alluvial appointed a former Coinbase Cloud executive as its chief growth officer as the company continues its focus on building secure liquid staking solutions.

Mara Schmiedt joins Alluvial as its chief growth officer after serving as Coinbase Cloud’s head of sales, a role in which she oversaw customer relationships, strategic partnerships and corporate growth initiatives.

Prior to joining Coinbase, she managed business development at blockchain-based infrastructure company Bison Trails, which Coinbase bought in February 2021. Schmiedt also previously worked as a strategy manager at blockchain tech company ConsenSys from 2018 to 2020.

Crypto exchange LMAX Digital hired Bryan Christian as director of US sales and Cassandra Cox as director of institutional sales in Europe. 

Christian and Cox will oversee the growth and expansion of the company’s crypto product pipeline and lead sales coverage for institutional clients in the US and Europe, respectively. 

A former head of exchange at crypto exchange CrossTower, Christian was also previously a managing director at Nasdaq and head of US sales at Cboe Global Markets. Cox was at Société Générale from 2012 until September 2021, where she was a managing director focused on institutional foreign exchange and emerging market sales.

Maple, a platform where pooled capital is lent to crypto firms, brought aboard Chad Walls as the company’s new capital markets director and Daniel Lim as an associate director of capital markets. 

Walls was previously an institutional business development director of Celsius, a crypto lender that filed for bankruptcy in July. Lim most recently held product strategy roles at HPS Investment Partners and Riverstone Holdings, and also previously worked on Goldman Sachs’ cross-asset sales team.

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