Legal Counsel

About Wintermute

At Wintermute our mission is to enable, empower and advance the truly decentralized world for more transparent and efficient markets and products. We do this by providing liquidity algorithmically across most trading venues in crypto, supporting all major centralized and decentralized trading venues, AMMs, RFQs, aggregators and chains.

Wintermute’s customer-facing business includes various OTC products such as electronic trading API and single-dealer platform for a wide range of counterparties from crypto native whales to large traditional finance institutions. Wintermute is also providing market making services for blockchain projects where we support most of the world’s largest and most prominent launches. In addition to providing the best in class liquidity products, Wintermute is actively participating in the building and development of the blockchain ecosystem through investments from Wintermute Ventures, partnerships and co-development with upcoming protocols and incubation of own projects.

Wintermute is a hyper-growth highly profitable business with a very ambitious vision and roadmap. We manage billions of dollars in assets and trade more than $5B/day. We are backed by Lightspeed, Pantera Capital, Sino Global Capital, Blockchain.com Ventures, Avon Ventures by Fidelity Investments, DeFi Alliance and other top tier investors. We are run as a technology company, not a financial service provider, and we build our culture around core values of ambition, collaboration, entrepreneurship, transparency and meritocracy.

The Role

We are a hyper-growth startup in one of the most dynamic industries today. We are looking for a Legal Counsel who has experience in traditional financial markets and can easily adapt to the entrepreneurial, varied and highly dynamic nature of Wintermute’s business, as well as to the challenges and opportunities specific to the cryptocurrency business. This role will work closely with the General Counsel and Associate GC and cover all jurisdictions where Wintermute is currently active (UK, Singapore, USA), as well as all products and relevant areas of law. In this role, you will have a high level of responsibility and autonomy.

Responsibilities

• Commercial agreements: draft and negotiate agreements in relation to our business lines (OTC, liquidity provision), borrowing/lending partnerships, and other agreements between entities


• Regulatory compliance: work closely with the General Counsel and Associate GC to monitor the regulatory landscape across jurisdictions and assist with ensuring financial regulatory compliance under each regulatory regime ( FCA, MAS, SEC, CTFC, etc.)


• Corporate structuring: manage the corporate structure across multiple entities and jurisdictions.


• Corporate law: support fundraising & transactions, equity investments in third-party companies, M&A activity


• Commercial disputes: assist the legal team and the business to resolve any commercial disputes efficiently while protecting the Company’s interests

Other Responsibilities

• External counsel: Manage external counsel as required, e.g. employment law, counsel in relation to other jurisdictions, etc. Assist with managing legal spending and reviewing legal bills

Hard Skills Requirements

• 3-6 years of experience practising law (qualified) at a top-tier law firm or as in-house counsel for a firm specialized in financial services, fintech and/or crypto;


• Experience working in a high-performance, dynamic and high-growth environment is strongly preferred


• Strong grasp of commercial law in relation to financial services, e.g. ISDAs, financial services contracts (OTC, structured products, lending agreements etc.)


• In-depth knowledge of FCA regulations in relation to proprietary trading, financial services and crypto; general knowledge of regulations in other jurisdictions, specifically Singapore and US a plus


• Experience/understanding of DeFi i.e. types of tokens, token governance, DAOs, blockchain foundations and decentralized organizations is a significant advantage


• Experience with commercial litigation or dispute resolution is a plus


• Ability and interest to learn other areas of law quickly, at least at a general level


• Proven ability to see the bigger picture and commercial strategy; quickly understand new functional areas and have a cross-functional mindset


• Strong interest and curiosity in algorithmic trading and decentralized finance

Other Skills Requirements

• Owner mentality: you focus on the ultimate result (short- and long-term P&L for the company); understand the importance of strategically growing the business for the future and the overall business beyond your own functional expertise, while overseeing the protection of the company from regulatory and other legal risks


• Proven ability to be both a strategic thinker and excellent executer; willing to be hands-on and have the drive to do whatever it takes to get things done


• Understand the fine balance between commercial objectives and legal/compliance risk


• Share Wintermute culture values: determination/ambition and humility; drive to action, ability to both influence others and listen/ learn from others


• Like meritocracy and being ready to be judged by what you deliver (vs pedigree or former experience)


• Have an entrepreneurial mindset vs 9-to-5 mentality; prepared to work non-standard working hours as required


• Like working in the team environment from our London/Singapore office