James Cirrone

Phi Labs, a core contributor to the Archway Blockchain, announced this week that Dan Edlebeck will serve as its new director of ecosystem.



Edlebeck was previously in a similar role at Sei Labs, the company behind layer-1 blockchain Sei. While there, he led Sei’s go-to-market strategy and helped market the Cosmos-based ecosystem in North America and Asia.



<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/danedlebeck/">Edlebeck</a> also helped pioneer Sei’s Atlantis community, which allowed DeFi and crypto enthusiasts to get more involved in contributing to the ecosystem, he told Blockworks. He equated it to an ambassador program.&nbsp;



But now that he’s seen Sei’s community thrive, he said he’s ready to jump over to his new role as director of ecosystem at Phi Labs.&nbsp;



At Phi Labs, Edlebeck will help build out marketing efforts and media campaigns for Archway. But he said he also plans to create an engaged community around Archway, similar to what he did at Sei.&nbsp;



Blockworks reported in March 2022 that <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/phi-labs-secures-21m-seed-led-by-coinfund-and-hashed">Phi Labs raised $21 million</a> in a seed round, led by investment firms CoinFund and Hashed.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Crypto Council for Innovation adds to its ranks</h2>



Crypto Council for Innovation, an advocacy group that fights for sound industry regulation, announced four new hires — two leadership roles and two research roles.&nbsp;&nbsp;



<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/ji-hun-k-94568310/">Ji Kim</a> will serve as head of global policy, digital assets and general counsel. Ji is coming into the role with 15 years of experience advising mid-cap, large-cap and emerging tech companies. Prior to joining, Ji spent over three years as the acting general counsel for exchange and custodian Gemini, where Tyler Meade will succeed him.



Cameron Jones will be joining CCI to help the organization scale new programs as its strategic initiatives lead. Jones has fostered partnerships across the technology, philanthropy, and civil society sectors.&nbsp;



Renee Barton and Linda Jeng will be joining CCI’s research team. Barton will be the research manager, and Jeng will be the Head of Global Web3 Strategy. Jeng’s job is to stay on top of developments in tech and research ways to educate policymakers on such developments.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Other notable hires</h2>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Yuga Labs is bringing on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mseavers/">Mike Seavers</a> as chief technology officer. Seavers is departing his role as executive vice president at Fortnite creator Epic Games.</li>



<li>DeFi trading platform Hashflow is hiring <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewtsaunders/">Andrew Saunders</a> as its first chief marketing officer, where he’ll lead global marketing and communications efforts.</li>



<li>Former CEO of OKX <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayhaookx/">Jay Hao</a> will join the expert advisory board of Sensorium, a social virtual reality firm.</li>



<li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-seibert-a43204174/">Joseph Seibert</a>, the former head of digital assets at shuttered Signature Bank, is headed to crypto-focused financial provider Fortress Trust. Four members of the Signet Team, which he led, will be joining Seibert at Fortress.</li>
</ul>



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Crypto Hiring: Phi Labs Has New Ecosystem Head to Drive Archway Blockchain Growth

Morgan Chittum

<div id="highlights-block_623c63ccf5d5f" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Other participants in the raise include 1confirmation, IDEO CoLab, Blockchain Capital, Wintermute and Figment</li>
 <li>The team currently has around 20 full-time employees, with the hope of expanding to over 50 by year-end</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Phi Labs, a contributor to an incentivized smart contract built on Cosmos, announced a $21 million seed round on Thursday.&nbsp;



The raise, led by investment firms CoinFund and Hashed, will go towards staff expansion, product development and building on Phi Lab’s protocol Archway. The team currently has around 20 full-time employees, with the hope of hitting over 50 by year-end.&nbsp;



Other participants in the round include 1confirmation, IDEO CoLab, Figment, Blockchain Capital, Wintermute, Chorus One, stake.fish, Lemniscap, Cosmostation and Hypersphere Ventures.



<a href="https://docs.archway.io/docs/overview/about/">Archway</a> is “one of the first smart contracting chains where any [decentralized app] developer can build on top of, and then access all the other assets throughout the Cosmos ecosystem,” Phi Labs Chief Executive Griffin Anderson told Blockworks.&nbsp;



Archway, Anderson said, rewards developers via its protocol by sharing a portion of transaction fees and inflationary rewards generated on the Cosmos network.&nbsp;



“[Smart contract platforms] all been kind of ideating on the trilemma around scalability, decentralization and security,” Billy Dishman, Principal at CoinFund, said. “And what is largely ignored is the idea of ideating and improving tokenomics on blockchains.”



“There are three main constituents within a blockchain. You have the validators, the users and the developers, and so far, no one [has] prioritized the developers.” Archway is expected to launch sometime this year. The protocol’s tokens, according to <a href="https://docs.archway.io/docs/overview/faq">Archway’s website</a>, will not be offered in certain countries including the US, China, Zimbabwe, Albania and Venezuela.



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