By John E. Deaton, Founder and Host of CryptoLaw.
Former SEC Director of Corporation Finance William Hinman continues his journey around the golden revolving door. The man who helped take Alibaba public in 2014 as a partner at the Ethereum-connected law firm Simpson Thacher went into the SEC in order to give public regulatory clarity to only one cryptocurrency – ETH – to then exit the SEC and return to Simpson Thacher. Well, he was not finished.
Today, the tech venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz announced Hinman has joined their firm as an advisory partner in their $2.2 billion “a16z crypto” fund. The company said that Hinman “will provide valuable insights to us and our portfolio companies as well as play a key role in shaping the future regulatory environment in which we and they operate.”
Hinman’s new fund is among the largest crypto investment funds in history, about four times the size of Andreessen’s previous crypto fund. It’s easy to see why Andreessen would ask him to “shape the future of the regulatory environment” to turn their chosen investments into winners. Look at all he did to send the price of ETH soaring when he was a public official who happened to be receiving $15 million in payments from Simpson Thacher while in office. ETH started soaring from around $477 the day before he gave his “ETH is not a security” speech in June 2018 as an SEC official, to over $4000 last month. Simpson Thacher also cashed in on Hinman’s 2018 speech when it took the Chinese crypto mining equipment maker Canaan into an IPO that raised $100 million in late 2019. The regulatory clarity for a mined cryptocurrency like ETH after Hinman’s speech certainly helped boost Canaan’s value, and the IPO certainly made Simpson Thacher richer – and Hinman, thanks to the millions they were paying him.
Hinman is no longer at the SEC, but the experience of riding the most brazen revolving door in recent memory must have some experiential value for his new firm. However, the folks at Andreessen Horowitz might consider the darkening cloud over their new advisory partner, particularly as the discovery phase of the Ripple case proceeds and depositions are ordered. Regardless of the ultimate case outcome, the questions around Hinman’s financial conflicts of interest while he served at the SEC will travel with him wherever he goes until they are answered.
If the SEC gets its way, those questions will remain outstanding, as the SEC has been fighting to prevent Hinman from facing deposition. This begs yet another question — is this fight worthy of taxpayer dollars? Surely Simpson Thacher can find a qualified attorney or two, so why should the taxpayers have to carry the water in preventing the truth from being exposed?