Crypto Hiring: VC vet joins Abra board; Citi exec jumps ship

Crypto platform Abra has brought on a venture capitalist veteran to be co-chairman of its board of directors. 

Shervin Pishevar will work directly with Abra CEO Bill Barhydt — set to become the other co-chairman — on “strategic initiatives,” the company revealed Tuesday.

Pishevar co-founded Sherpa Capital (now known as Acme Capital), which has invested in Uber, Airbnb, SpaceX and Robinhood, among others. He was also a strategic adviser to Uber’s board of directors and company founder Travis Kalanick. 

“Shervin is not only one of the most successful venture capitalists in Silicon Valley but is also a true believer in the power of Bitcoin and crypto to create a future of financial services that is digital, open and borderless,” Barhydt said in a statement.

Abra planned to launch the first regulated crypto bank in the US in 2022 before making personnel cuts after FTX collapsed. It later received a cease and desist order from the Texas State Securities Board — ultimately reaching an agreement with regulators to allow users to withdraw funds from the platform. 

Read more: Abra will open customer withdrawals following Texas settlement 

Pishevar noted he is set to help the team “realize their vision of bringing banking, investing and lending into the 21st century.

“We have many exciting announcements to come that systemically change how the world works,” he added. 

In other news, Platonic appointed Altin Hoxha as its chief technology officer. The company seeks to help financial institutions participate in digitized common market infrastructure on a decentralized platform.

Hoxha was previously head of digital assets platform engineering for Citi Innovation Labs — leading the unified standard for digital asset use cases across Citi’s institutional clients. 

“Altin’s expertise will be invaluable as we continue to develop our decentralized tokenization platform and expand the possibilities in finance,” Platonic CEO Violet Abtahi said in a statement. 

Read more: Citi the latest TradFi player to test out asset tokenization

And in case you missed it last week, Tether hired Jesse Spiro as its head of government affairs. 

Spiro joins the stablecoin issuer from PayPal, where he led regulatory relations within the company’s blockchain and digital currencies division. Prior to that, he was a chief government affairs officer at blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.

“The ever-evolving legislative and regulatory landscape will continue to require strong collaboration between the public and private sectors,” he said.

Also last week, blockchain-powered real estate platform Propy said former SEC Commissioner Michael Piwowar would “play an integral role in guiding the team to navigate regulatory heterogeneity in key markets.”

“Real estate is a cornerstone of the global economy,” Piwowar said in a statement. “Leveraging cutting-edge technologies like blockchain and AI are essential to overcoming the many challenges the industry faces.”

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