Polygon Recruits Top Aave Lawyer Rettig for Crypto Policy Role

Polygon Labs, a blockchain company that has been adding executives despite a tough cryptocurrency market, has named digital finance lawyer Rebecca Rettig as its first chief policy officer.

Rettig joins Polygon after spending nearly the past two years as chief legal and policy officer for Aave Ltd., a decentralized financial lending project. Her new position will require Rettig to meet with policymakers and regulators around the world to advocate for Polygon’s interests.

“Ensuring mass adoption of any new and paradigm-shifting technology takes time, and so does policy adoption,” Rettig said. “I tell skeptics that there is great promise in a blockchain-based internet and that getting policy right means the possibilities are endless.”

Polygon’s operations include decentralized finance, non-fungible tokens, stablecoins, and gaming for Web3—the name for the digital infrastructure behind the next World Wide Web. Polygon, which works with financial services companies like accounting and consulting firm EY, is behind a scaling platform for the Ethereum blockchain.

Her move to Polygon reunites Rettig with Marc Boiron, a private practice colleague who joined the company last year as chief legal officer.

Rettig, a litigator by training, and Boiron, a corporate lawyer, previously worked together at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips and FisherBroyles, where they focused on representing crypto and blockchain clients.

“He’s one of the sharpest legal minds in the Web3 space, and we have been discussing policy questions for many years,” Rettig said of Boiron. “We’re both really excited to jump into the work.”

Rettig will report to Ryan Wyatt, president of Polygon Labs, which is the development and growth team for the decentralized Polygon protocol. Wyatt said in a statement that Rettig will help Polygon “drive mass adoption of blockchain-based frameworks.”

Polygon restructured its various operations earlier this year under the Polygon Labs umbrella, according to the company. Polygon itself, as a protocol, has no employees, all of whom now work for Polygon Labs, which works with various law firms but whose primary outside counsel is Latham & Watkins, the company said.

In recent months, Polygon has embarked on a hiring spree, including adding Nicholas Snow from Amazon.com Inc. to be its general counsel. Polygon also picked up Alexander Rozman, a former head of financial crime compliance at CLS Bank International, to be its global head of compliance.

Last year Rettig joined the board of Silvergate Capital Corp., a bank that has been caught up in the fallout from the collapse of crypto exchange FTX.