Cryptocurrency custody specialist Fireblocks is continuing to build out its executive team by hiring a new chief marketing officer, Michal Ferguson, as the firm prepares for a bull market-powered onboarding of retail and institutional customers this year.

Ferguson joins Fireblocks from cybersecurity platform Snyk on the heels of other key additions, including Michael Levine from Payoneer (NASDAQ: PAYO) as CFO and Madan Gadde, formerly of FIS, as Chief Customer Officer.

Prior to the downturn of the past couple of years, crypto-native firms expanded with ease, commanding high valuations in the process. For instance, Fireblocks, in early 2022, raised $550 million at an $8 billion valuation.

The firm has been making significant hires over the past 12 months in anticipation of a sturdy growth trajectory returning to crypto, said Fireblocks CEO Michael Shaulov.

“We didn’t know exactly when the market would start expanding again, but it was clear to us it would happen sooner or later,” Shaulov said in an interview. “Our mission in supporting crypto is not around where the price of bitcoin is going to be, but the underlying usage of crypto rails for payments, tokenization, and big brands.”

Beefing up the C-Suite, particularly the addition of a CFO from a big U.S.-listed fintech, might suggest Fireblocks has its goals set on appealing to the public markets in the future, as the likes of Circle and possibly Galaxy may hope to soon do.

Shaulov pointed out that Fireblocks is very well funded with most of the money raised still in reserve, but said he will be watching other crypto firms looking to list in the U.S. closely.

“It’s reasonable that we will see more crypto companies that have the right financials IPO. We don't have any urgency to do it, but it’s definitely something from an optionality standpoint, we will be looking at – not this year, but maybe in two years or three years or something like that.”