Brett Redfearn, a former federal regulator who joined Coinbase Global Inc. earlier this year, has left the cryptocurrency exchange after about four months on the job.
Mr. Redfearn had been head of Coinbase’s capital-markets group. He resigned from the company at the end of July. A Coinbase spokesman confirmed the departure, which hasn’t been previously reported.
Coinbase is the largest U.S. crypto exchange. It has played a major role in popularizing digital currencies, with over 56 million users.
Mr. Redfearn, a former official at the Securities and Exchange Commission, left the firm after Coinbase decided to shift its priorities away from digital-asset securities, people familiar with the matter said. He had been one of the company’s highest-profile hires this year.
Digital-asset securities are crypto tokens that fall within the legal definition of securities under U.S. law, like traditional stocks and bonds, and unlike bitcoin, which regulators consider a commodity.