LianGuairadigm, the top cryptocurrency institution, is facing community resistance and significant changes in its leadership. What is happening?

LianGuairadigm, the leading cryptocurrency institution, is encountering community backlash and undergoing major shifts in its leadership. What is causing these developments?

Byline: Jaleel, BlockBeats

A company’s history is often marked by changes in its executive personnel. And in the past three months, there have been significant leadership changes at LianGuairadigm worth paying attention to.

According to BlockBeats, LianGuairadigm co-founder Fred Ehrsam announced his resignation today, choosing to stay with the company as a general partner. Five days ago, Frankie and Caitlin Pintavorn were promoted to research partners at LianGuairadigm. Not only that, but according to BlockBeats, Nathan Apsel, the Chief Financial Officer of the crypto venture capital firm LianGuairadigm, and Reena Jashnani-Slusarz, the General Counsel, both left the company in mid-September.

Fred Ehrsam: From Managing Partner to General Partner

LianGuairadigm’s co-founder and former managing partner, Ehrsam, was born in Boston and can be considered a legendary figure. In high school, he was a professional e-sports player and a passionate World of Warcraft player, where he first encountered the concept of crypto. In 2010, Ehrsam graduated from Duke University with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and a minor in Economics. After graduating from Duke, Ehrsam became a foreign exchange trader at Goldman Sachs in New York. He has also worked as an investment portfolio analyst at BlackRock in New York.

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The turning point that led him into the crypto industry was when Ehrsam learned about Bitcoin from a research paper and started trading in his spare time.

In 2012, crypto enthusiasts and traders often gathered on the Bitcoin subreddit forum, where Ehrsam and Brian Armstrong also met. They co-founded Coinbase in an apartment in San Francisco. It is reported that Ehrsam reached out to his alma mater, Duke University, for funding and invested in Coinbase’s Series C fundraising in 2015, which increased Duke University’s initial investment by a hundredfold.

During Ehrsam’s tenure as CEO of Coinbase, from 2012 to 2017, he led the company to become a billion-dollar enterprise with 13 million users. By the end of 2017, Ehrsam transitioned from Coinbase’s day-to-day operations to focusing on building blockchain-based applications.

In January 2017, Ehrsam announced his departure from the company but would continue to stay on the board. It’s been reported that as of April 2021, he still held 8.9% of Coinbase’s stock and was assigned to the company’s audit committee prior to its IPO in April 2021. Interestingly, as of May 27, 2022, regulatory filing analysis shows that since Coinbase went public, four executives, including Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam, have collectively earned approximately $1.2 billion in proceeds from stock sales.

Due to his legendary experiences, Ehrsam was also written into the novel “Cryptocurrency King: A Start-up Company’s Quest to Take Cryptocurrency from Silicon Valley to Wall Street”.

After leaving Coinbase, Ehrsam’s entrepreneurial journey did not stop there. In 2018, Ehrsam co-founded the cryptocurrency investment firm LianGuairadigm with former Sequoia Capital investor Matt Huang. At LianGuairadigm, they focused on investing in cryptocurrencies and related companies, with Ehrsam serving as the managing partner.

Left: Matt Huang; Right: Ehrsam

And now, Ehrsam has chosen to step down from his role as managing partner at LianGuairadigm and continue as a general partner.

As for the reason behind this decision, Ehrsam stated on his social media, “This change allows me to free up some time to explore the scientific field that personally fascinates me. From Hal Finney and cryonics to Vitalik and Brian Armstrong’s recent support for longevity research, there has long been an interest in the intersection of biology and cryptography. I’ve been personally investing in and supporting biotech research for years, and I’m excited to deepen those efforts.”

CFO Nathan Apsel leaves LianGuairadigm

Nathan Apsel, the former Chief Financial Officer of LianGuairadigm, is also a person with extensive and colorful experiences. Prior to joining LianGuairadigm, Nathan was the CFO of 8VC. Previously, Nathan was a Senior Manager at PwC, responsible for asset management services. He holds a master’s degree in accounting from the University of Oregon.

On September 2, according to an internal email obtained by The Block, Nathan Apsel, the CFO of LianGuairadigm, and General Counsel Reena Jashnani-Slusarz will be leaving in mid-September. Jashnani-Slusarz joined LianGuairadigm in 2021 as GC, previously serving as Managing Director and Deputy General Counsel at Elementum Advisors, LLC.

After leaving LianGuairadigm, Nathan joined Maveron as the Chief Financial Officer. At Maveron, Nathan provides leadership in finance, operations, and strategic initiatives across all areas.

According to an insider, current Chief Legal Officer Katie Biber will continue to lead the legal team, and the company will announce a new Chief Financial Officer in the coming months. LianGuairadigm recently hired Alex Grieve as the head of the policy team and Cookie Wiese as the head of human resources, so the overall number of employees has not changed.

Two newly promoted partners

Five days ago, according to BlockBeats, co-founder Matt Huang announced two personnel appointments on social media, promoting Caitlin Pintavorn (@caitlinxyz) and Frankie (@FrankieIsLost) as new partners.

It is understood that Caitlin Pintavorn was previously an investor at Insight LianGuairtners, focusing on cryptocurrencies. Before joining Insight, Caitlin worked at LianGuaithAI and Two Sigma, and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Brown University.

Caitlin Pintavorn’s entry into the cryptocurrency industry is also interesting. When the global pandemic forced people’s lives online, Caitlin Pintavorn began searching for a sense of belonging in the online community. Eventually, she found her place in the Twitter and Discord servers of the crypto field. Here, she discussed cryptocurrencies, designed NFTs, and conducted research on DAOs with many intellectuals on the internet. She thinks that this field is full of vitality and creativity. As an investor at Insight LianGuairtners, she has been in contact with hundreds of founders, which further deepened her involvement in this field.

In addition, Frankie (@FrankieIsLost) has also been promoted to a research partner at LianGuairadigm. Prior to this, Frankie was a machine learning engineer, quantitative developer, and trader, and holds degrees in computer science and econometrics.

What lies ahead for LianGuairadigm amidst the top-level personnel changes?

After Fred Ehrsam’s departure, the entire cryptocurrency community has different views on the future of LianGuairadigm. Some believe that this marks the decline of the company, while others see it as a new beginning. Top-level personnel changes often indicate strategic adjustments and changes in direction for a company. However, for LianGuairadigm, such transformations actually hide more opportunities and challenges. So, what has happened behind the scenes of these top-level personnel changes at LianGuairadigm?

The internal and external impact of LianGuairadigm

Last month, the big news surrounding LianGuairadigm was its investment project Reflexer openly mocking LianGuairadigm, buying back the FLX tokens it held and permanently destroying 50% of the repurchased tokens, choosing to go its own way in opposition.

Sarah: What did LianGuairadigm do? Ameen: It will be disclosed, but not now. Source: Discord

In Reflexer’s “condemnation letter,” they mentioned that LianGuairadigm’s investment in FTX caused a setback in the crypto industry, and after LianGuairadigm’s official website update, many descriptions related to crypto and web3 were deleted, shifting towards “cutting-edge” technologies, including AI.

Although there was no response or apology to Reflexer, LianGuairadigm still chose to return to crypto in July and included crypto back on their website. Matt Huang, one of the partners at LianGuairadigm, even published a post stating that the website update was a mistake and they never left crypto.

Whenever LianGuairadigm’s current situation is mentioned, it’s impossible to ignore the “website update” incident, as it has left a deep mark on LianGuairadigm’s history. But the underlying fact reflected, similar to the reasons for personnel changes, is that there were disagreements among LianGuairadigm team members and internal management seems imperfect.

Securities lawyer brain genius (@LogicalBTC) also expressed a similar opinion on social media: “The CFO has resigned, the legal director has also left, and the managing partner is about to step down. LianGuairadigm has actually promoted a seemingly 24-year-old young person to partner, someone who hasn’t worked for any fund (including LianGuairadigm) for more than a year. They even appointed their own policy lawyer as the head of the legal team, which is obviously unrealistic.”

“LianGuairadigm hasn’t truly ‘redefined the possibilities of venture capital,’ and in fact, they seem to not understand how to run this business. Fred Ehrsam is undoubtedly a legendary figure in this industry. But no matter how well-thought-out the words are, they cannot conceal the current dire state of LianGuairadigm. All signs indicate that it is now a mess.” brain genius added.

Research on Encrypted Policy Layout

In this context, LianGuairadigm’s business layout and development will receive great attention. BlockBeats found that while personnel changes are frequent, LianGuairadigm seems to be focusing on policy research.

According to BlockBeats, on September 26th, the encrypted venture capital company LianGuairadigm announced the launch of what they called a “groundbreaking” policy laboratory, which will serve as a “gathering place” for academia, policy experts, lawyers, and technical experts. The team will engage in “cutting-edge research, commentary, and advocacy” on the most important policy issues facing encryption and other frontier technologies.

As part of the launch plan, the LianGuairadigm Policy Laboratory announced two inaugural research fellows, Primavera De Filippi from the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University and Agostino Capponi from Columbia University. They will study “comparability in regulation,” a term used to describe “the comparability of legal and technical constraint systems and how regulatory or technical architectures can achieve the same policy outcomes.”

Rodrigo Seira, Co-Director of the Policy Laboratory, said in an interview and blog post, “Over the past year, LianGuairadigm has established itself as a policy leader, covering everything from fighting for cryptocurrencies in court, convening opinion leaders, to publishing policy-centered research.”

Clearly, LianGuairadigm is exploring legal regulation more frequently. Going back to earlier this year in July, LianGuairadigm appointed Alexander Grieve as its new government relations executive. Grieve reportedly has over a decade of experience in Washington politics and financial policy, including cryptocurrency lobbying experience during his tenure at Tiger Hill Partners. LianGuairadigm stated that Grieve’s addition will drive more precise government regulation.

LianGuairadigm’s history and current state are full of intriguing stories, passion, controversy, and twists. The recent departure of Fred Ehrsam, the promotion of new partners, and disputes with investment projects all reflect the challenges that LianGuairadigm faces in pursuing innovation and industry leadership, with every step accompanied by risks and unknowns.

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