Mick Mulvaney, who worked as acting White House chief of staff for former President Donald Trump, has joined the crypto compliance firm Astra Protocol as a strategic advisor.
Astra provides DeFi, or decentralized finance, platforms with software to comply with government regulations, such as know-your-customer requirements — identity verification standards designed to prevent fraud, money laundering and terrorism financing.
Mulvaney told Bloomberg that for the last several months he’s been mostly focused on connecting the Astra team to potential investors to aid their capital raising efforts. But eventually he plans to leverage his government expertise to help the Zurich-based firm navigate U.S. regulations. He’ll also provide guidance on filling senior leadership positions.
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Mulvaney held several positions under the Trump administration, including U.S. special envoy for Northern Ireland, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Before that, he was a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives for a district in South Carolina.
“Adding him as a strategic adviser will enable Astra Protocol to tap into his expertise across a variety of regulatory environments and help us deliver on our mission to provide the industry’s leading KYC/AML solution for DeFi protocols around the world,” Phil Hogan, head of Astra Protocol’s advisory board, said in a statement Wednesday.
DeFi platforms allow users to trade, borrow, and lend digital assets without having to go through an intermediary. The platforms, which surged in popularity over the past year, have garnered the attention of financial regulators, like the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, that have been calling for more oversight.
Firms like Astra are what regulators want to see, Mulvaney said. They “can take some of the cloak-and-dagger out of crypto and take some of the mystery out of blockchain.”
