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Blockchain.com onboards Blackrock veteran as general counsel amid departures from other executives: Report

Fri, 04 Oct 2019, 03:11 am UTC

Cryptocurrency wallet provider Blockchain.com is reportedly about to lose two of its top executives, according to a report by The Information.

Citing sources familiar with the matter, the report revealed that the firm’s chief operating officer Liana Douillet Guzmán and executive vice president of finance Chris Lavery are expected to leave the London-based firm.

Should the report be accurate, then this would be the latest in the constant departures seen among team members of the firm. The news outlet revealed that in late 2018 and early 2019, several junior employees and at least five executives, including institutional markets global head, flagship wallet product general manager, security global head, and policy global head, have previously left the firm.

Notably, all of the executives reportedly departed less than a year from hiring. The publication suggested that this can be due to a lack of growth opportunities and uncertainties of the firm’s business model. Some employees also pointed out the management style of CEO Peter Smith, who allegedly belittles employees for minor mistakes and makes inappropriate comments of his dating life to female employees.

Amid the controversial departures, Howard Surloff has joined the crypto firm as the first general counsel to join Blockchain’s executive team. Surloff has 25 years of executive experience as BlackRock and Goldman Sachs.

Howard’s passion for legal, compliance, and operational excellence in new markets will be vital to executing our strategy globally,” Smith said.

Howard is tasked with advancing the company’s gold standard for legal, compliance, and corporate governance within the crypto industry.

Founded in 2011, Blockchain.com is among the oldest crypto company that offers a free wallet platform to store Bitcoin. It has a reported 40 million registered users; however, only 14 million are actively using the wallet platform.

Despite transacting more than $200 billion, the company is reportedly struggling to register any profits. However, a company representative claimed that Blockchain.com will become profitable next year.

In August, Blockchain partnered with BitPay to offer a new way of spending bitcoin. Under the deal, users can avail products and services through BitPay’s online network while maintaining ownership of the private keys via Blockchain Wallet.

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