Reserve co-founder Nevin Freeman named Thomas Mattimore chief executive of ABC Labs on Jan. 25, 2024, in a post on the protocol's Medium blog1. ABC Labs became one of two new companies Freeman introduced on Jan. 25, 2024, alongside Confusion Capital. Both took over work Freeman had run himself since Reserve's protocol launched. Bitget's news desk picked up the announcement on Jan. 26, 2024. Bitget wrote that Reserve had "established new companies ABC Labs and Confusion Capital" to join the ecosystem's existing firms, MobileCoin and Best Friend Finance2.
39 executive hires on the record in 2024
Executive hires CryptoLately has verified, by year; 2026 through Oct. 2, 2026
- 2024: 39
- 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2025, 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 2024, with eight
Executive hires CryptoLately has verified in 2024, 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 | 8 |
| Institutional Custody & Asset Management | 7 |
| Trading Venues & Brokerage | 6 |
| Capital Markets & Treasury | 3 |
| DeFi Protocols | 2 |
| AI and Crypto | 1 |
| Stablecoins & Payments | 1 |
| Bitcoin & Mining | 1 |
The move
Freeman handed ABC Labs a job he said had grown past what he could run alone. “I'm excited to share that Thomas Mattimore will be the CEO of ABC Labs,” Freeman wrote. “When Thomas joined the Reserve core team almost two years ago, it was our mutual intention for him to eventually take on this role, and he's been operationally leading the protocol team that is now ABC Labs for quite some time already”1. Freeman named his own limits as the reason he looked for a successor. “While I had the qualities needed to initially get Reserve off the ground, I knew I needed to find someone who could oversee the ongoing growth and development of the protocol and surrounding ecosystem with a degree of clarity and structure that I've never been able to achieve,” he wrote. He called the choice a formality by the time it came. “I don't think we even had a conversation about who would be its CEO, because it was just obvious that it'd be Thomas,” Freeman wrote.
Reserve before and after
Before the split, Freeman ran protocol development and the ecosystem's funding decisions out of one role at Reserve. The post described ABC Labs' mandate as developing “auxiliary software to support usage of the protocol and nurturing the ecosystem of RToken deployers, LPs, farmers, and users”1. ABC Labs kept its goals separate from RSR token price or any financial return to RSR holders, the post said. Freeman kept a separate seat for himself. He became president of the sister company, Confusion Capital, which took over the protocol's grant program and its RSR token reserves. During 2023, Reserve's eUSD stablecoin came through the USDC depeg, Freeman wrote. By the close of 2023, Reserve's protocol, deployed on the Base network, managed close to $40 million in value held by its smart contracts, Freeman wrote.
What came next
Reserve's protocol kept expanding under the structure Freeman announced on Jan. 25, 2024. By 2025, Freeman was promoting the Reserve Index Protocol and its DTF, or Decentralized Token Folio, products, UseTheBitcoin's August 3, 2026 profile of him reported3. In March 2026, he posted updates on X detailing Index Protocol 5.0 and new yield products built on the same ecosystem, the same profile said. That profile confirmed Freeman remained Reserve's co-founder and chief executive as of the March 2026 update. He also served as president of Confusion Capital, the profile said, and it leaves Mattimore's status at ABC Labs unstated.
Sources
- Nevin Freeman, "2024: Two new companies, a new grant program, the new Slower Wallet, and new RSR incentives," Reserve (Medium), Jan. 25, 2024, https://blog.reserve.org/2024-two-new-companies-a-new-grant-program-the-new-slower-wallet-and-new-rsr-incentives-caae4cfd706b
- "Stablecoin protocol Reserve has launched a $10 million grant program, and applications are currently open," Bitget, Jan. 26, 2024, https://www.bitget.com/news/detail/12560603888570
- "Nevin Freeman: From Bitcoin Skeptic to Stablecoin Builder," UseTheBitcoin, Aug. 3, 2026, https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMid0FVX3lxTE5BWG5yT0lrbDJqcGpMRkprQ1ZUWXlXRTA2YTRfd1BXNjZLbzQwOVYyVFBneWE3SzEtdkhsYk5JUWk3NW5KejF3OE9UVUpUQWlfLWFXM05zdW5HV1ZQSGJYd1RXQVh3cm96QWY2aGp0dHZqRWVQWjhF?oc=5