Ex-SEC Chair Jay Clayton Joins Fireblocks’ Board of Advisors

Crypto custody provider Fireblocks has engaged former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Jay Clayton as a member of its board of advisors.

Clayton will work with Fireblocks on addressing market structure and customer needs, including support and deployment for the firm’s security technology, the company announced on Thursday. Clayton, who stepped down from his role at the SEC last December, is also on the board of Apollo Global Management and an advisor to One River Digital Asset Management.

Fireblocks is a software security solutions provider to custody digital assets, including multi-party computation (MPC) services. The firm also provides tools to speed up or otherwise streamline digital asset transaction settlement.

The latest hiring comes a month after Fireblocks raised more than $300 million in a Series D funding round that valued the company at $2 billion. DRW, Sequoia Capital, Spark Capital, Stripes and Coatue participated in the funding round.

Fireblocks clients include the digital bank Revolut, BNY Mellon and the yet-to-be-launched Diem stablecoin.

A number of former top government officials have been taking on roles in the digital asset sector since returning to private life. Former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chair Chris Giancarlo became an advisor to both the Chamber of Digital Commerce and BlockFi, and is one of the leaders of the Digital Dollar Foundation.

Some of those post-public service roles have turned out to have been short-lived. Former Acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks briefly served as Binance US’s chief executive, while former SEC Director of Trading and Markets Brett Redfearn spent a few months at Coinbase.