Stack Overflow VP Joins Crypto Lending Firm as Chief Product Officer

Cryptocurrency financial services firm Unchained Capital has hired Will Cole of the Wyoming Blockchain Task Force as its new chief product officer, the firm announced Thursday.

Cole leaves Stack Overflow, a resource site for programmers, where he's been vice president of product since 2012. Becoming familiar with bitcoin that same year, Cole was tapped for the Wyoming Taskforce for his expertise on the subject and helped create state jurisdictional rules for bitcoin and blockchain adoption.

With Unchained, Cole will help further develop bitcoin-related financial products.

“I think it’s a bit of a misnomer that bitcoin makes banks obsolete,” Cole said in an interview. “[Bitcoin] certainly negates several banking business models. But as long as there is money, there will be loans custody, and other financial services that support that money.”

The Austin, Texas-based Unchained Capital was founded in 2017 and offers a slew of products based on multi-signature security models such as fiat-for-bitcoin lending and bitcoin cold storage. The company says its platform has facilitated over $100 million in aggregate transaction volume.

Collaborative custody remains a premier service for the firm, such as inheritance protocols that allow family members access to private wallets after the owner has died.

Unchained has been working with the former Blockstream architect and cryptographic pioneer Christopher Allen as a sponsor of the #SmartCustody project and supports related work such as social key recovery, Allen told CoinDesk.