Trust Machines, a developer building applications to grow the Bitcoin (BTC) economy, has hired Manas Mohapatra and Asiff Hirji, formerly of BNY Mellon (BK) and Coinbase (COIN) respectively, in legal and advisory roles.

Mohapatra joins as the company's general counsel, having served in a similar role at BNY Mellon, while former Coinbase chief operating officer Hirji will operate as an advisor, Trust Machines announced on Wednesday.Trust Machines was co-founded by Stacks founder Muneeb Ali and Princeton University computer science professor J.P. Singh. It raised $150 million to expand Bitcoin as a Web3 platform in February with Breyer Capital, Digital Currency Group (the parent company of CoinDesk) and Union Square Ventures among the investors.The firm aims to build on the work of Stacks, a programming layer for Bitcoin, in making the network compatible for smart contracts.“Bringing smart contracts capability to Bitcoin is a unique untapped market," Hirji said. "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 has also hired to its engineering team Igor Sylvester, formerly of Facebook (FB) and Reddit.

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