Quick take:
- Rishi Ramchandani joined Google this month.
- He worked at BlockFi for more than two years.
- He began his career in traditional finance before his first Web3 role at BlockFi.
BlockFi’s former vice president for Asia, Rishi Ramchandani, has joined Google to lead its Web3 efforts in APAC.
Mitesh Agarwal, Google’s managing director for cloud customer, partner engineering and Web3, announced the news on Tuesday, welcoming Rishi to the team. Rishi also updated his LinkedIn profile with his new role and will be based in Singapore.
Prior to BlockFi, Rishi was the founder of Cafe Cash Flow, a non for profit financial coaching company and startup coach at F10, a FinTech Incubator and Accelerator.
He began his career in TradFi at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he spent more than a decade. During his tenure at the bank, he provided algorithm trading support to the Hong Kong portfolio trading desk, and provided portfolio sales trading coverage for global clients trading within the Asia Pacific region as well as globally.
Google Cloud has been establishing its Web3 footprint since launching its new digital assets team in January. It aims to provide cloud computing infrastructure to Web3 companies and support the development, transactions, storage and deployment of new products.
So far, Google Cloud has extended its partnership with Aptos, teamed up with Fortress Blockchain Technologies to launch private data storage for NFTs, partnered with NEAR to accelerate Web3 startups, and joined forces with Coinbase to introduce crypto payments for cloud services.
According to a Google Cloud spokesperson, its customers include Coinbase, Dapper Labs, Sky Mavis, Nansen and Hedera.
Cryptocurrency lender BlockFi filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Nov 28 for itself and its subsidiary following the FTX fallout, citing exposure to the failed crypto exchange. On the same day, BlockFi International filed for bankruptcy with the Supreme Court of Bermuda.
On Tuesday, it filed a motion to restart customer withdrawals and return frozen crypto to wallet users. In an email sent out to BlockFi users, the company stated: “It is our belief that clients unambiguously own the digital assets in their BlockFi Wallet Accounts.”
WOW, @BlockFi has already filed a motion requesting client withdrawals for assets held in BlockFi Wallet Accounts. S/O to BlockFi for moving exponentially more quickly than @CelsiusNetwork in Ch 11. pic.twitter.com/JvtWzMklNA
— Tiffany Fong (@TiffanyFong_) December 20, 2022
According to court documents, a hearing on whether the motion will be granted is scheduled on Jan 9. A separate hearing before the Supreme Court of Bermuda for BlockFi International, regarding user wallets, is scheduled for Jan 13.
****
Advertisement
Sign up to the world’s biggest crypto exchange Binance to buy and sell cryptocurrencies.
Stay up to date: