Bitstamp Ltd., one of many world’s oldest cryptocurrency exchanges, has parted methods with two of its high in-house legal professionals, Mary Beth Buchanan and Caitlin Barnett.
Buchanan, hired by Bitstamp in early 2020 as its chief authorized officer, left the corporate earlier this yr to affix digital asset funding banking startup Menai Monetary Group LLC as chief authorized and compliance officer.
Barnett, who joined Bitstamp in mid-2019 as its U.S. chief compliance officer, additionally left final month to turn out to be director of regulation and compliance at blockchain evaluation, analysis, and threat administration startup Chainalysis Inc.
The departures got here as Bitstamp’s largest rival, San Francisco-based Coinbase International Inc., prepared to go public on the Nasdaq change. Based in 2011 and now based mostly in Luxembourg, Bitstamp was sold in 2018 to a European affiliate of South Korean conglomerate NXC Corp.
Bitstmap didn’t reply to requests for remark concerning the departures of Barnett and Buchanan. The corporate named a brand new European head of authorized in February in Agathes Laissus, a former Hogan Lovells affiliate it recruited final yr as a senior authorized officer in Luxembourg.
Menai, Buchanan’s new house, was based final yr by its CEO, Zoe Cruz, a former co-president of Morgan Stanley. Cruz additionally once served on the board of Ripple Labs Inc., a cryptocurrency firm the place she was additionally a senior strategic adviser.
Buchanan began her Menai job in January, in response to her LinkedIn profile. A March 3 securities filing by the corporate exhibits that Buchanan is amongst a number of former Wall Avenue executives now working with Cruz on the firm.
She didn’t reply to a request for remark about her resolution to go away Bitstamp, which on its web site has posted a gap for a U.S. legal chief position.
Buchanan is a former partner at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner in New York and one-time U.S. legal professional for Pennsylvania’s western district. Bitstamp hired her last year from Payward Inc., the dad or mum firm of cryptocurrency change Kraken, the place she had spent almost two years as common counsel.
Kraken subsequently changed Buchanan by hiring legal chief Marco Santori, a veteran digital currency lawyer. Kraken has lately ridden the soaring price of bitcoin to a valuation estimated at $10 billion, per Bloomberg News.
Barnett was employed March 1 by Chainalysis, mentioned Maddie Kennedy, a spokeswoman for the corporate. Kennedy advised Bloomberg Regulation that Chainalysis is seeking to bring on a general counsel in Washington to guide its in-house authorized division.
Barnett didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark about becoming a member of Chainalysis. The corporate was valued at $2 billion in March after receiving a $100 million funding from a bunch of buyers led by the funding fund of Salesforce.com Inc. co-founder and CEO Marc Benioff.
Amanda Wick, a former federal prosecutor who most lately served as a senior coverage adviser with the Treasury Division’s Monetary Crimes Enforcement Community, was hired by Chainalysis in October as its chief of authorized affairs.
Final yr, Chainalysis misplaced its former chief technical counsel, Michael Mosier, when he took the No. 2 job at FinCen. Mosier, who was a deputy director and digital innovation officer at FinCen, was named acting director of the bureau on April 2 after Kenneth Blanco resigned to take a monetary crimes compliance job at Citigroup Inc.
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