tl;dr
Ira Auerbach, former Nasdaq digital assets head, has joined Offchain Labs to lead Tandem, the Ethereum scaling project's venture capital and partnership division. Auerbach's extensive experience in traditional finance and crypto will be leveraged in this role, overseeing operations and providing sup...
Ira Auerbach, former Nasdaq digital assets head, has joined Offchain Labs to lead Tandem, the Ethereum scaling project's venture capital and partnership division. Auerbach's extensive experience in traditional finance and crypto will be leveraged in this role, overseeing operations and providing support to selected projects.
The move reflects the trend of traditional finance talent transitioning to crypto while crypto projects are also seeking expertise from traditional finance for institutional offerings and compliance.
Auerbach brings extensive experience from traditional finance and crypto, previously serving as Senior Vice President and Head of Digital Assets at Nasdaq, as well as holding leadership positions at Gemini, Palantir Technologies, BGC Partners, and BNP Paribas.
Auerbach will oversee Tandem operations as a partner studio and venture capital arm, providing selected projects with technical expertise, research support, financing, and go-to-market strategy assistance. Projects under Tandem will work directly with Offchain Labs' executive team and core developers, also known for developing Prysm, an Ethereum consensus client.
Roughly three years since its launch, Arbitrum and the protocols around it have maintained a lead among Ethereum Layer 2 solutions, capturing over a quarter of the sector with $2.8 billion in total value locked, ranking data from CoinGecko shows.
Roughly 56% of Fortune 500 executives say that their companies are engaged with blockchain projects, while 48% believe that crypto has "the potential to increase access" to the financial system to create wealth, according to a 2024 industry report published by Coinbase.
Crypto projects are looking at traditional finance talents to expand their initiatives for institutional offerings, stablecoins, and ecosystem compliance. Recent examples include Galaxy Digital naming Tony Paquette as its new chief financial officer, and BitGo tapping Ben Reynolds, the former president of Silvergate Bank.