Trust Machines appoints Coinbase Veteran Asiff Hirji as advisor and 2 new all-stars: Reddit Engineer Igor Sylvester and BNY Deputy General Counsel Manas Mohapatra

Trust Machines, a crypto tech startup founded by Princeton computer scientists Dr. Muneeb Ali and Professor J.P. Singh, announced today the addition of two new all-stars to its growing team of talent. Manas Mohapatra and Igor Sylvester join the Trust Machines team and Asiff Hirji will operate as an advisor.

This announcement follows the news of recent key additions, including Aubrey Strobel and Rena Shah, communications advisor and head of operations and strategy respectively. The appointment is part of the leading Bitcoin apps company’s goal of hiring all-star talent in H2 2022 as the startup continues to build applications that make Bitcoin productive and unlock the trillion-dollar Bitcoin economy.

In a statement, Trust Machines CEO Muneeb Ali said: “I’m excited to share that Trust Machines continues to attract world-class talent during this bear market to help build the world’s largest ecosystem of Bitcoin applications. I’m thrilled to have both Manas and Igor join the core team and to work with Asiff to further our mission of growing the Bitcoin economy.”

Manas Mohapatra joins Trust Machines as General Counsel. Mohapatra previously held multiple senior-level positions at Twitter and ViacomCBS. Mohapatra joins from BNY Mellon, where he served as Deputy General Counsel and managed a team responsible for providing support on issues relating to the Bank’s use of technology, including its Digital Assets Unit.

Igor Sylvester joins the Trust Machines engineering team following his tenure as a Staff Software Engineer at Reddit. Sylvester formerly led a Machine Learning Infrastructure team at Facebook, and had a previous engineering career at several High-Frequency Trading firms. Igor holds Bachelors and Masters degrees in Computer Science and Physics from MIT. He will contribute to core infrastructure like the performance of Stacks smart contract layer, and other reference implementations like miners.

Additionally, Asiff Hirji joins the company as an advisor. Hirji is a highly-regarded founder and investor with deep experience in cryptocurrencies. He currently serves as the President of Figure, a financial services firm. Hirji held similar roles at Coinbase and Ameritrade. Further, Hirji has experience on the venture capital side through firms like a16z and TPG.

Trust Machines Advisor, Asiff Hirji said: “Bringing smart contracts capability to Bitcoin is a unique untapped market. Muneeb and his team are leading that work through both EVM compatible and other safe programming environments through the Stacks layer for Bitcoin. I look forward to working with Muneeb to help grow the Bitcoin economy.”

Trust Machines builds Bitcoin applications such as a fully decentralized Bitcoin lending app, a Bitcoin DAO tooling solution, and others. Trust Machines contributes to critical infrastructure enabling such Bitcoin applications, like the Stacks layer for smart contracts, and other technologies like DLCs.

General Counsel at Trust Machines, Manas Mohapatra said: “I’m thrilled to join the world-class team at Trust Machines and look forward to helping navigate the ever-changing legal and regulatory landscape.”

Trust Machines raised $150 million in February from Digital Currency Group, Breyer Capital, Union Square Ventures and others. The company plans to make additional key hires in H2 2022 in order to expand its growing roster of talent.

Founded Co-founded by Princeton computer scientists Dr. Muneeb Ali and Professor J.P. Singh, Trust Machines is building the largest ecosystem of Bitcoin applications. Its mission is to create the largest ecosystem of Bitcoin apps and grow the Bitcoin economy.