Hut 8 exec set to take over Celsius mining company

It was a heavier hiring week in crypto as an expected January bump in new jobs came to fruition.

Notably, Hut 8 announced Chief Commercial Officer Matt Prusak will be leaving his post Jan. 31 to take over the mining company being spun out of the Celsius bankruptcy.

The move was previously disclosed in regulatory filings related to the bankruptcy.

A bankruptcy court in the Southern District of New York approved an unconventional plan to transform Celsius into a bitcoin mining company late last year. Celsius is expected to emerge from bankruptcy in early 2024.

Read more: SEC sues Celsius, former CEO for market manipulation, securities fraud

In a press release, Hut 8 said the company would provide “end-to-end managed services” for five Celsius-owned mining sites in Texas, with Prusak serving as CEO. The four-year agreement pledges Hut 8 a $20 million annual management fee “in addition to restricted stock and incentive equity in the new company.”

Prusak was previously the CCO of US Bitcoin Corp, which underwent a “merger of equals” with Hut 8 in November.

Celsius plowed hundreds of millions of dollars into mining rigs before going belly-up. The Texas sites will have 12 exahashes per second (EH/s) of mining capacity, according to the press release.

With a current global hashrate of 540 EH/s, according to a tracker on CoinWarz, Celsius’ new mining company could account for roughly 2% of global bitcoin mining power.

Crypto may be banking the unbanked, but it’s also making bank for ex-bankers.

Bitget released a report combing through applications for roles at the centralized crypto exchange that showed 33% of Bitget applicants came from the banking sector — up from 15% in 2022 and 10% in 2021. Ex-banking applicants most often sought jobs in know-your-customer (KYC) and compliance.

A survey of the ex-banker applicants found they were most interested in better pay as well as crypto’s innovativeness.

Bitget’s report cautions that crypto’s creep into the traditional finance world could cause the trend to happen in reverse, too.

“[W]ith successful transitions of banking and financial institutions into Web3, there’s a possibility of some attrition of professionals from leading crypto companies,” the report said.

* Kraken tapped Gilles BianRosa as chief operating and product officer and Marcus Hughes as global head of regulatory strategy. CEO David Ripley said the hires would help Kraken grow while “ensuring compliance with applicable regulatory requirements across the many markets we operate in.”

* Ben Edgington said he’d be leaving his role as principal product manager at Web3 development firm Consensys.

* Former Gitcoin head of impact Azeem Khan became chief operating officer at the layer-2 Morph.

* Katya Ternopolska became strategy lead at the Wormhole Foundation.

* R3 Digital Markets brought on Kate Karimson as its chief commercial officer.