MoonPay appoints Asiff Hirji, former Coinbase President, as COO

Former Coinbase Global executive Asiff Hirji has joined MoonPay as its new President and Chief Operating Officer (COO), media reports said.

Hirji has been roped in by the firm amid its push into the non-fungible (NFT) token market.

Before taking over MoonPay President's mantle this month, he worked as a President of blockchain financial services firm Figure Technologies and was President and COO of crypto exchange Coinbase from 2017 until 2019. 

MoonPay had said in July last year that Hirji was set to join as advisor to Ivan Soto-Wright, the company's CEO. The company announced a slew of other executive hires at the same time. 

He said he joined MoonPay because he thinks the company is well-positioned to help bring digital assets to mainstream consumers, despite the market downturn and concerns from lawmakers.

“The only thing we’ve proven in crypto so far is that we can do fraud better than anybody else,” he said.

Miami-based MoonPay aims to make it easy for customers to buy and sell cryptocurrencies with a credit card and has recently broadened its offerings to include NFTs. 

The company announced in June that it was partnering with major entertainment brands like Fox and Universal Pictures to create NFT collections using its HyperMint platform.

Despite slumping sales for NFTs, Hirji said he thinks these assets will eventually outstrip other types of tokens in terms of popularity because of their ability to connect artists and entertainment brands more directly with fans. 

Ultimately, this will help broaden the use of blockchain among average consumers, he said.

“The regulatory environment is going to prevent the breakthrough use case from being in financial services,” he said. “It’s going to be in the culture.”

Earlier this month, MoonPay said it had hired Lindsey Haswell from Blockchain.com as its first chief legal officer.