Mantle Network named Brian Trunzo its chief growth officer on February 11, 2025. He came over from Polygon Labs, where he had served as global head of business development1. Mantle's own post described that old job in specific terms. He had “led the industry-recognised team responsible for enterprise and institutional onboarding to Web3, while driving technical business development for Polygon's L2 stack, CDK, and interoperability protocol AggLayer,” the post said.
59 executive hires on the record in 2025, the most of any year
Executive hires CryptoLately has verified, by year; 2026 through Oct. 2, 2026
- 2025: 59
- 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2026
Moves: The Moves Ledger, CryptoLately's record of verified leadership moves, Oct. 3, 2016 to Oct. 2, 2026.
Read the chart as a table
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 11 |
| 2020 | 12 |
| 2021 | 27 |
| 2022 | 37 |
| 2023 | 20 |
| 2024 | 39 |
| 2025 | 59 |
| 2026 | 45 |
Layer 1s & Infrastructure led executive hires in 2025, with 15
Executive hires CryptoLately has verified in 2025, by the sector of the company
Moves: The Moves Ledger, CryptoLately's record of verified leadership moves, Oct. 3, 2016 to Oct. 2, 2026.
Read the chart as a table
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Layer 1s & Infrastructure | 15 |
| Trading Venues & Brokerage | 9 |
| Bitcoin & Mining | 8 |
| Capital Markets & Treasury | 4 |
| Institutional Custody & Asset Management | 3 |
| AI and Crypto | 2 |
| Wallets & Consumer Apps | 1 |
| Regulation & Enforcement | 1 |
The move
Trunzo arrived as part of a five-name wave. Mantle's announcement named him alongside a new chief executive for its Function unit, two new leaders of its Enhanced Index Fund and a co-founder of Bybit set to guide a banking product, all introduced on February 111. CoinPasar's independent report on February 12 confirmed the title directly. “Brian Trunzo, former Polygon Labs VP, will be taking the position of Chief Growth Officer of Mantle Network,” the outlet wrote2.
Jordi Alexander, Mantle's chief alchemist, spoke for the whole group of hires rather than Trunzo alone. “These appointments reflect Mantle's evolution into a comprehensive platform for institutional-grade on-chain finance,” Alexander said. “Our veteran leadership team brings unparalleled expertise in digital assets, enterprise adoption, and structured products.”1
Before and after the hire
Mantle's post credited Trunzo's work at Polygon Labs with a specific team. He had helped build the group behind "enterprise and institutional onboarding to Web3," at a company that manages a layer-2 stack and an interoperability protocol called AggLayer1. Mantle framed his new mandate as combining "financial regulation, consumer insights, and blockchain technology" to expand the network's institutional adoption.
The same announcement placed Trunzo's hire inside a stated list of six priorities for Mantle in 2025. Those were its core Mantle Network chain, a liquid staking product called mETH Protocol, a Bitcoin yield product called fBTC, the Enhanced Index Fund, Mantle Banking and an AI division called MantleX1.
What came next
Mantle reported its institutional growth in a mid-2026 update, 17 months after Trunzo's hire. Its July 2, 2026 release said Mantle had surpassed $1 billion in on-chain decentralized finance assets locked by the end of the first half of 20263. Mantle had also expanded to 155 tokenized equities and posted 230 percent growth in that locked-asset figure during the same half. Emily Bao, a key advisor at Mantle, framed the period as a shift away from issuing tokens and toward building markets around them. “The future won't be defined by who tokenizes the most assets, but by who builds the markets around them,” Bao said. "That's the shift underway today, and it's where Mantle is focused." The July 2026 release spread that credit across teams and left individual executives unnamed.
Sources
- Mantle, "Mantle Strengthens Global Leadership in Commitment to Growing On-Chain Finance," Mantle, Feb. 11, 2025, https://group.mantle.xyz/blog/announcements/mantle-strengthens-global-leadership
- Jesper Leong, "Mantle Expands Team With Key TradFi Leaders and VCs," CoinPasar, Feb. 12, 2025, https://coinpasar.sg/mantle-expands-team-with-key-tradfi-leaders-and-vc/
- Mantle, "Mantle H1 2026: Building the Financial System in Full Force for Real-World Assets," Mantle (PR Newswire), Jul. 2, 2026, https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMi0gFBVV95cUxPemdNRkpZTWJlMWpQUDVxcXA4b2g2M3JBeHR4d213WnNmV2ZLdlBZa3I5amJFNWVqYTFBWFlfaVJzNHJQYkNLajBXb1NUTGlfWWpCZmlEbTg1T1F3NUxtWkVYUHhZWmV4M0dTb3dKU1ktLXpKTVRQX29pWmtkVzNIOExBZ0dySHdmX2VKQmNvREpCM2dXMUR2czVDdklfX0dwaUluVzlCeG1IMnV1LUdEOEZYVEcxRk83R3ppSjZCNGdYVXU1REQyYVNFTkZpMXhxZnc?oc=5