Coinbase Says Capital-Markets Head Brett Redfearn Has Left Company
Former SEC official was a high-profile hire by the cryptocurrency exchange this year
Brett Redfearn, a former federal regulator who joined Coinbase COIN +6.99% Global Inc. earlier this year, has left the cryptocurrency exchange after about four months on the job.
Mr. Redfearn had been head of Coinbase’s capital-markets group. He resigned from the company at the end of July. A Coinbase spokesman confirmed the departure, which hasn’t been previously reported.
Coinbase is the largest U.S. crypto exchange. It has played a major role in popularizing digital currencies, with over 56 million users.
Mr. Redfearn, a former official at the Securities and Exchange Commission, left the firm after Coinbase decided to shift its priorities away from digital-asset securities, people familiar with the matter said. He had been one of the company’s highest-profile hires this year.
Digital-asset securities are crypto tokens that fall within the legal definition of securities under U.S. law, like traditional stocks and bonds, and unlike bitcoin, which regulators consider a commodity.
Coinbase had said Mr. Redfearn would work on digital-asset securities when it announced his hire in late March. The Coinbase spokesman said on Monday the departure was amicable.
Last week, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler gave a speech pledging to rein in the “Wild West” of the crypto markets, using the full extent of the SEC’s authority. He suggested in his speech that many crypto trading platforms were offering unregistered securities in violation of U.S. law.
From 2017 to 2020, Mr. Redfearn led the SEC’s trading and markets division, which oversees exchanges and brokerages. Before that he had a long career on Wall Street, including as a top electronic-trading executive at JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Coinbase said it was hiring Mr. Redfearn as vice president of capital markets about two weeks before the company went public on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Coinbase’s capital-markets group includes exchange operations and capital-markets products.
News of Mr. Redfearn’s departure comes several days after another prominent ex-regulator left one of Coinbase’s rivals, also after just a few months on the job.
Brian Brooks resigned as chief executive of Binance.US, citing “differences over strategic direction” as he announced the departure on Twitter on Friday. Mr. Brooks had been acting head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a top banking regulator, under the Trump administration.
Binance.US is the U.S. affiliate of overseas crypto-exchange operator Binance Holdings Ltd. Changpeng Zhao, the founder and CEO of Binance, confirmed Mr. Brooks’s resignation and voiced confidence in Binance.US’s business.