Jake Chervinsky is a rare bird in the cryptocurrency industry: He is a passionate believer in blockchain technology, he is realistic about its limitations, and he is able to explain it in a simple, calm way. language to communicate.he is considered Must follow The raucous community known as Crypto Twitter for its well-informed coverage of legal and regulatory news.
Chervinsky made waves on Tuesday when he gave up his current position at the Blockchain Association to become chief legal officer at venture fund Variant.in a blog post declare After the news broke, Variant partner Jesse Walden described Chervinsky as “the Jimi Hendrix of crypto law: creative, boundary-pushing, and not afraid of the noise. .”
during an interview wealthChervinsky said his decision to leave the trade group after nearly two years was entirely amicable and that he wanted to devote his time to helping cryptocurrency companies launch products in the U.S. — a move given the harsh regulatory environment. Challenging tasks.
“You can’t succeed globally if you can’t take advantage of the U.S. market,” he said, dismissing recent claims by cryptocurrency companies to move overseas as unrealistic.
Chervinsky said he became passionate about cryptocurrencies after working in anti-money laundering at a major law firm and concluded that much of the financial industry was “rent-seeking rather than good service.” . He cited his work helping cryptocurrency companies deal with the regulatory backlash caused by the initial coin offering boom, a period between 2016 and 2018 when blockchain projects, many of them dubious, sold digital tokens to the public. job, which prompted him to fully enter the cryptocurrency field. time.
Chervinsky also cited a conversation with Robert Leshner, founder of DeFi company Compound, which inspired his belief that blockchain offers a superior new system for financial transactions.
The decision to hire Chervinsky is also a bold move for Variant, a relative newcomer to the cryptocurrency space, and Chervinsky is unlikely to come cheap.Founded in 2020 by a young Andreessen Horowitz alumnus, the company has raised nearly $600 million across three funds and is focused on creative economy And focus on early-stage companies. It has about 30 companies in its portfolio, including DeFi giant Uniswap and NFT stores Magic Eden and Zora.
According to Walden, Variant decided to add Chervinsky to its 18-person team as a “force multiplier” to help its portfolio companies develop legal strategies and launch products in a volatile regulatory environment. He added that the legal cloud over the industry is beginning to lift as SEC Chairman Gary Gensler’s policies are struck down in federal court, predicting that discussions around cryptocurrencies will once again become product-centric, rather than litigation.
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