Visa’s Crypto Product Lead Leaves for Payments Startup

Visa (V) crypto product lead Daniel Mottice has departed the company for the payments firm he co-founded and serves as CEO, Ansible Labs.

Mottice announced his decision to leave Visa in a Twitter thread Wednesday. According to his LinkedIn profile, Mottice had served as Visa’s crypto product lead since last May. Prior to that, managed Visa Direct’s account-based payment product.

“Quick life update: after 5.5 years, I have decided to leave Visa to pursue my own venture in web3/crypto. Visa has been an incredible place to learn the ins and outs of digital payments and money movement,” Mottice wrote.

Visa has been building up its crypto division over the past few years, and has also been seeking to advise traditional banking institutions on digital assets. In addition to enabling crypto payments, Visa has been working on facilitating purchases of cryptocurrencies, creating a utility for crypto via stablecoin providers and allowing financial institutions and fintechs to offer crypto access and custody.

In his tweet thread, Mottice said he spent most of his recent time at Visa on how the payments giant could “optimize & improve its global money movement engine [with] crypto and create more flexible network capabilities for crypto-native clients.”

Ansible Labs is focused on payments technology, with its website saying it is “the first of its kind to enable payouts to and from web3 blockchain accounts”

Visa did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Mottice’s departure.

In a tweet, Visa head of crypto Cuy Sheffield thanked Mottice for his contributions.

Read more: Visa Launches Crypto Advisory Services for Banks as Demand for Digital Assets Grows

UPDATE (March 23, 23:52 UTC): Updated with tweet from Cuy Sheffield.