Product Counsel
Liam Horne is an English-born, Canadian-raised software entrepreneur and engineer who has spent his career building Ethereum scaling technology, from state channels to Optimism and Base, and is now building Tempo, a payments-focused L1 blockchain.
About Liam Horne
Liam Horne studied Computer Science at the University of Waterloo before dropping out to start a startup. He spent most of his twenties working on Ethereum technology, beginning with scaling payments via state channels (building projects like Web3Torrent), then pivoting to build Optimism, one of the defining projects of the Layer 2 rollup ecosystem, and co-launching Base with Coinbase on the OP Stack. Around 2023 he shifted focus to stablecoins, writing and working on projects such as World Chain, Stable, and Build Canada: Crypto after observing that Tether on Tron dominated real-world stablecoin usage despite Ethereum scaling efforts. This work led him to Tempo, a payments-first infrastructure L1 blockchain project he is currently building and hiring for. He is also an active startup investor, having invested in companies including Othership, QA Wolf, Daimo, Erebor, Stable, Farcaster, Ambrook, Mercantile, Software Applications Incorporated, Conduit, Splits, Axiom, OpenSea, Agora, and Flex.
Skills
About the Role
You will serve as a strategic legal partner to the business, tackling a broad range of matters across product counseling, regulatory compliance, and crypto-native issues. You'll work closely with product, engineering, and research teams to help the business move fast with confidence, providing practical, risk-based guidance and keeping the company ahead of evolving legal and regulatory requirements.
Requirements
- J.D. and admission to at least one U.S. state bar
- 8+ years of legal experience, including substantial time in-house at a high growth tech company and/or crypto project
- Deep product counseling experience
- Fluency in crypto legal issues, including substantial time advising on regulatory considerations for blockchain developers and networks
- Ability to balance legal risk with practical business judgment
Responsibilities
- Provide practical, risk-based guidance throughout the product development lifecycle to product, engineering, and research teams
- Refine and implement compliance frameworks, policies, and procedures to keep the business ahead of evolving requirements and novel issues
- Support broader legal initiatives spanning intellectual property, privacy, and other operational needs
- Monitor developments in crypto, fintech, and tradfi to advise the business on trends and evolving legal standards
- Take on additional tasks as needed