Former BlockFi Exec Joins Google’s Web3 Project

A former BlockFi executive has left the company to work on Google’s Web3 initiative.

Rishi Ramchandani, who stepped down recently after two-and-a-half years as BlockFi’s vice president of Asia, is now Google’s Web3 lead for the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.

“Excited for the next step in my career!” he wrote on LinkedIn. “I look forward to growing Google Cloud’s #web3 efforts in APAC and working with the great people there.”

BlockFi announced last month that it would seek bankruptcy protection in the wake of its decision to pause activity on its site.

The company was a victim of the multibillion-dollar collapse of fellow cryptocurrency platform FTX. BlockFi suffered a solvency crisis during the summer after a plunge in crypto prices, shaking digital assets markets.

Seeking rescue, BlockFi accepted a lifeline from FTX in the form of a $400 million revolving credit facility. The company reportedly used a bulk of the credit facility to right its balance sheet, while also extending millions of dollars in loans using FTX’s now essentially worthless FTT tokens as collateral.

When announcing its bankruptcy, BlockFi said it would focus on recovering all obligations owed to it, including those owed by FTX.

PYMNTS has reported on Google’s Web3 efforts before, including the company’s October announcement that it was working with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase on a project to better serve Web3 developers.

The partnership will see Coinbase use Google Cloud’s computer platform to “process blockchain data at scale and enhance the global reach of its crypto services by leveraging Google’s premium fiber-optic network,” as the companies said at the time.

In addition, Coinbase will build its global data platform using Google Cloud’s infrastructure and leverage its data and analytics technologies to offer Coinbase customers “machine learning-driven crypto insights.”

Google Cloud will also allow some customers, starting with those in the Web3 ecosystem, to pay for its cloud services using certain cryptocurrencies. The companies said Google will use Coinbase Prime for institutional crypto services, such as secure custody and reporting.

There are a few unknowns about the technology following a report in September by McKinsey and Co. about Web3.

The way users and creators can gain an edge is through “open-source rather than proprietary applications” giving them “incentives to innovate, test, build and scale,” the report said.

“Which is great if you’re the techy type that knows how to use open-source technology,” PYMNTS wrote. “But as $2 billion in cryptocurrency bridge programs hacks this year alone have shown, open-source blockchain is tricky to use at best.”

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