Cash News
B2C2 — a company focused on institutional liquidity for digital assets — appointed Cactus Raazi as CEO of its US business this week.
Raazi previously worked as Amber Group’s US chief executive and co-head of the Americas, leading the crypto financial services firm’s revenue growth and regulatory engagement.
More recently, the executive was chief revenue officer at Kraus Motor Company and head of US strategy at Enhanced Digital Group, according to his LinkedIn page. Earlier in his career, Raazi spent stints as a managing director at both Nomura and Goldman Sachs.
“As the digital asset sector continues to mature, we see the convergence of the crypto native and TradFi worlds,” B2C2 CEO Thomas Restout said in a statement. “Cactus’s established commercial and regulatory relationships across both will deliver tremendous benefits to our clients and our firm.”
Stablecoin Standard hired Beth Haddock as its global policy lead. She is leading the drawing-up of standards set to be released at the organization’s event in Singapore later this month.
Haddock has worked as chief legal officer at AdvisorEngine and a managing partner at Warburton Advisers, according to her LinkedIn page.
“I’m excited to lead the industry dialogue on why stablecoins are a crucial innovation for cross-border payments — ranging from [business-to-business] transactions to institutional treasury management and retail remittances — and how they will improve on traditional finance options for consumers, entrepreneurs and others,” she said in a statement.
Board member additions
A former chief executive at a bitcoin mining giant is set to leverage that past expertise in a new board director role.
Synteq Digital appointed ex-Hut 8 Mining CEO Jaime Leverton and Robert Fedrock to its board of directors, the company said Thursday.
The combination of SunnySide Digital and Cryptech Solutions formed the new company. It focuses on offering infrastructure and services to the crypto mining and high-performance computing (HPC) data center sectors.
Fedrock is a managing director and partner at investment bank Origin Merchant Partners.
Leverton led Hut 8 until the company replaced her with Asher Genoot in February. She is currently chief executive of “a stealth mode company that is creating the next great opportunity in crypto,” Synteq said.
“I’ve seen first-hand the immense change that both digital mining and the data management sector have faced in recent years,” Leverton said. “Synteq Digital sits at the cusp of both of these industries and provides a unique proposition to drive progress for the future of digital assets.”
Read more: From BTC to HPC: Miners signal evolving focus after the halving
Also on the crypto mining board front, Marathon Digital appointed Janet George and Barbara Humpton to its board of directors. They replace Kevin DeNuccio and Said Ouissal, who have stepped down in a “planned transition.”
Current board member Doug Mellinger is shifting to the company’s lead independent director.
George most recently worked as Intel Corporation’s general manager of data center and AI. Humpton is president and CEO of Siemens USA.
“Given the increasing relevance of [Marathon’s] digital infrastructure technology and our AI data center co-location strategy to hyperscalers and AI data center operators, we recognized the need to bring AI and AI data center-specific expertise onto our board,” Marathon CEO Fred Thiel said in a statement. “Additionally, as our utility scale mining and energy harvesting business segments continue to expand, we saw the importance of adding global energy and power infrastructure expertise to guide our growth.”
Cutting staff
Not all crypto companies are adding to their ranks.
Matter Labs CEO Alex Gluchowski said in a Tuesday X post that the company was cutting about 16% of its staff as part of “restructuring the organization.”
Read more: Matter Labs to cut 16% of workforce
The market environment and business needs have changed this year, he wrote — adding that many teams building on ZKsync Era require a different type of technology and support than they had previously.
“The launch of the Elastic Chain and ZK Nation was the right moment to re-evaluate our strategy, goals and team composition,” Gluchowski noted. “We went through a large org planning exercise, and it became clear that the talent and roles we have today do not perfectly match our needs.”
And in case you missed it last week, crypto-friendly Custodia Bank was set to lay off nine employees, Fox Business reported — representing a quarter of its workforce.
The layoffs come amid regulatory hurdles for the Wyoming financial institution. The Federal Reserve Board last year denied Custodia’s application to become a member of the Federal Reserve System — noting the bank’s crypto focus “presented significant safety and soundness risks.”
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