Chainalysis Exec Heads to PayPal to Lead Crypto Regulatory Efforts

PayPal has poached a top policy exec from Chainalysis, the industry’s largest crypto-tracing company.

Jesse Spiro, formerly Chainalysis’ head of policy and regulatory affairs, is heading to PayPal's crypto wing to work on regulatory policy. He said the new role was "extremely attractive and exciting," citing the digital giant's size and potential to bring cryptocurrency to the payments sector.

"At PayPal I’ll be supporting regulatory affairs for their crypto business and I can’t tell you how exciting that is in relation to the future of crypto and what the future landscape is going to look like," Spiro told CoinDesk.

Spiro will begin the new role on Aug. 2.

PayPal debuted its bitcoin buying and selling functionality in October 2020 following reports by CoinDesk in June 2020 that a crypto service for the fintech giant was in the works.

The publicly traded company has since become a pillar of crypto's mainstream moment, acquiring a crypto custodian in March and announcing in May that it was working to enable crypto withdrawals. PayPal reports its second-quarter earning on July 28.

"The fact that PayPal has the global reach that they do, the technology and the resources behind them and the fact that as an MSB [money services business] of their size [they have] embraced cryptocurrency, I think it's so exciting," Spiro said.