Circle hires former CFTC, US Treasury executive as chief legal officer

Circle, the stablecoin issuer, has prepared itself to combat the current regulatory pressures on crypto. By July 1, Heath Tarbert, a highly qualified lawyer with experience in all three branches of the US government, will be occupying the roles of Chief Legal Officer and Head of Corporate Affairs.

On June 8, it was announced that Tarbert has held prominent positions within the federal government and a number of regulatory bodies, such as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the International Organization of Securities Commissions, the U.S. Treasury, the Financial Stability Board, and the World Bank Group. Furthermore, he served as special counsel to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.

Tarbert has been appointed to the position of general counsel at Circle, almost two years after he began his tenure as chief legal officer at Citadel Securities, where he was responsible for global legal, compliance, surveillance and regulatory affairs. This follows the announcement of Flavia Naves’ planned departure from Circle earlier this year.

“We are delighted to have Heath join our executive team, which is a major milestone in Circle’s journey to becoming a worldwide firm,” said Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire.

The advent of Tarbert has brought about a resurgence of regulatory ambiguity concerning cryptocurrency in America. This week, the Securities and Exchange Commission took legal action against Coinbase and Binance, accusing them of various offenses. Ever since the FTX incident in November, the crypto industry has endured intense regulatory oversight, which has had a detrimental effect on companies and caused capital to flee the country.

In a recent conversation with Bloomberg, Allaire attributed the decrease in market capitalization of its stablecoin, USD Coin (USDC), to the crypto restrictions imposed by U.S. regulators. Over the past 12 months, USDC’s portion of the stablecoin market has decreased from 34.88% to 23.05%. On the other hand, the regulatory atmosphere in the U.S. has been more favorable to Tether (USDT), whose share of the market has increased to 65.89% from 47.04% a year ago.

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