(Bloomberg Opinion) — A former executive at troubled crypto lender BlockFi has taken a job at Google from Alphabet Inc. to work on Web3.

Bloomberg’s Most Read

Rishi Ramchandani, who was BlockFi’s vice president for Asia from June 2020 until this month, will take over as APAC Web3 lead at Google, according to his LinkedIn profile, as well as a post on the social media site by Mitesh Agarwal, director. manager. at Google focusing on its cloud services clients, partner engineering, and a related Web3 effort.

Google Cloud aims to enable the Web3 ecosystem, which encompasses companies looking to create new uses and web applications on blockchain technology, by supporting the development, transactions, storage and deployment of new products, a spokesperson said by email on last month. Its clients include major cryptocurrency and Web3-related teams, including Coinbase Global Inc., Dapper Labs Inc., Sky Mavis Inc., Nansen and Hedera, the spokesperson said.

BlockFi filed for bankruptcy last month after the rapid collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s empire, including the FTX exchange and Alameda Research trading store. He sold around $239 million worth of cryptocurrency and warned nearly 250 workers that they would lose their jobs before that event. A BlockFi lawyer said he will try to collect around $680 million owed to him by a part of Bankman-Fried’s failed crypto universe.

Bloomberg Businessweek Most Read

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.