---
title: 'General Counsel at Unto Labs'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/general-counsel-unto-labs-tdr4n5jrssc0'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-11-06'
---

# General Counsel at Unto Labs

- **Company:** Unto Labs
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-06-05
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-06
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/unto-labs/25708e3d-f518-45ab-84cf-c763cffa4611

## Job description

## About Unto Labs

Unto Labs is a team of low-level engineers pushing distributed systems to the physical limits of modern hardware. We're building the next generation of blockchain technology, from core consensus primitives to performance-tuned networking stacks, on commodity servers.

## About the Role

As General Counsel, you will establish and lead the company's legal strategy with the founders across a broad range of areas, including regulatory compliance, corporate governance, commercial transactions, employment matters, intellectual property, and dispute resolution. You'll build and lead the company's legal function across a wide range of areas, including regulatory compliance, corporate matters, commercial agreements, employment issues, intellectual property, and disputes. You'll be a trusted partner to the founders and work closely with everyone. As part of a small, high caliber team, this is a critical, hands-on, cross-functional role that goes beyond traditional legal advice. You'll create practical compliance programs, develop internal policies, and put processes in place that support the launch and growth of innovative financial products. We're looking for someone who enjoys tackling complex regulatory challenges, turning legal requirements into workable solutions, and helping the company scale responsibly.

## Responsibilities

- Lead the company's approach to legal and regulatory matters across the U.S. ((SEC, CFTC, FinCEN, OFAC, state MTLs)) and internationally (MiCA, FCA, MAS), while staying ahead of regulatory developments and working directly with regulators when necessary.
- Lead deal work: M&A, strategic investments, financings, joint ventures, etc. and draft, negotiate, and operationalize the full commercial contract stack: customer, partner, vendor, BD, integration, and protocol partnership agreements.
- Own the company's intellectual property strategy, including trademarks, licensing, and open-source software considerations.
- Manage disputes, regulatory inquiries, subpoenas, investigations, and other legal matters as they arise. Select and oversee outside counsel and ensure legal resources are used effectively, when necessary.
- Structure and maintain the company's corporate architecture and governance across multiple entities.
- Build legal and compliance processes that can scale with the company while balancing risk, regulatory requirements, and speed of execution.
- Advise and work with founders on best practices for entity structuring, digital tokens and onchain incentivestokenomics and securities, innovative business models, and compliance solutions.

## Requirements

Candidates must have both a Bachelor’s Degree and Juris Doctor from top schools, experience at a top law firm, and 7+ years of experience with:

- Counseling financial services companies on a broad range of matters, including general business matters, regulatory matters, corporate governance, and technology transfers, with a focus on strategic transactions, and mergers and acquisitions.
- Proactive business mindset: someone who operates effectively as the sole lawyer, with impeccable organization, project management, and communication skills.
- Translating complex regulatory requirements into practical product and operational guidance for non-lawyer business partners and colleagues.
- Advising senior executives on nuanced matters with limited information, and is comfortable being the last set of eyes before product ships.
- Improving processes and building out new systems from scratch.
- Toggling between strategic thinking and tactical execution, and adjusting priorities in response to unanticipated events with minimal oversight.

We are even more interested in chatting if you have

- In-house experience at a product-led crypto, DeFi, or fintech company—especially if you helped it to grow.
- Deep understanding of CFTC regulation, including experience advising on, preparing, or managing CFTC regulatory filings, rule submissions, or examination responses.
- Established and maintained multi-entity corporate structures, including offshore affiliates and operating subsidiaries across multiple jurisdictions.

Why Join Us?

- Shape and own legal structure and strategy at a startup at the frontier of distributed systems, the future of financial innovation, and blockchain infrastructure
- Work directly with a founding team of world-class engineers to position innovative technology for widespread adoption
- Own the entire legal function as an early hire with substantial influence over company direction
- Competitive compensation, equity, and generous benefits

## EEO Statement

We are an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran or military status, marital status, gender identity, sexual orientation, pregnancy, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

## About Unto Labs

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Unto Labs is building Thru, a next-generation base-layer blockchain that applies high-performance computing principles to achieve unprecedented scale.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Seed stage – $14.4M raised)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2024
- **Founders**: Liam Heeger and Will Yoo

## Core Business
- **Primary industries**: Blockchain infrastructure, decentralized finance (DeFi), distributed systems
- **Target customers**: Developers and projects building on a high-performance Layer‑1 blockchain (B2B/developer‑focused)
- **Mission/purpose**: Pushing the physical limits of distributed systems to create a high‑performance, accessible base layer for the next generation of decentralized applications.

## Products & Services
- **Thru**: A next‑generation Layer‑1 blockchain that uses a highly accessible virtual machine based on the RISC‑V standard. Designed for extreme performance by applying high‑performance computing (HPC) principles to distributed systems. The platform is intended for developers seeking low latency and high throughput.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed
- **Key Metric**: Total funding – **$14.4M** (Seed round, April 2025)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Framework Ventures (led the seed round), Electric Capital
- **Growth Signals**: 
  - 7 employees (100% YoY growth)
  - LinkedIn followers grew 273.6% year‑over‑year (269 followers)
  - Monthly website traffic grew 18.1% (915 visits/month)
  - 6 active job openings as of mid‑2025 (up 500% quarter‑over‑quarter)
  - Physical office in San Francisco; presence in Canada and Mexico

## Competitive Advantages
- Built on the RISC‑V instruction set, making the virtual machine more accessible and open compared to proprietary VM designs.
- Founders and early team come from high‑profile distributed‑systems backgrounds (e.g., Jump Crypto’s Firedancer, Solana core engineering).
- Focus on extreme performance (“pushing the limits of distributed systems”) differentiates Thru from other Layer‑1s that prioritise other trade‑offs.
- Backed by top‑tier crypto VCs (Framework Ventures, Electric Capital), signalling strong institutional confidence.

## Strategic Focus
- **Current priority**: Launch and scale the Thru blockchain – hiring across engineering, design, marketing, and platform/devops to build out the ecosystem.
- **Direction**: Continue to apply HPC techniques to blockchain design and attract developers to the RISC‑V‑based L1. Early legal challenges (Jump Crypto lawsuit) indicate a competitive, fast‑moving environment.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Small, highly technical team (7 people) where every employee has outsized impact. Emphasis on deep distributed‑systems knowledge and innovation.
- **Work environment**: **In‑office** in San Francisco (2261 Market St). The team values close collaboration to iterate on cutting‑edge infrastructure.
- **Perks & development**: Not detailed publicly, but as a well‑funded startup, likely includes equity, competitive compensation, and direct exposure to blockchain core development.
- **Engineering culture**: Ideal for engineers who want to build at the physical limits of computing – roles include Systems Engineer, Product Engineer, Design Engineer, Platform/DevOps Engineer.
- **Career opportunity**: Early‑stage hires can shape the technical direction of a potentially major infrastructure layer; fast growth trajectory.

## Sources
1. [untolabs.com](https://untolabs.com/)
2. [linkedin.com/company/unto-labs](https://www.linkedin.com/company/unto-labs)
3. [fortune.com](https://fortune.com/crypto/2025/04/29/unto-labs-fundraising-framework-ventures-electric-capital/)
4. [builtin.com/company/unto-labs](https://builtin.com/company/unto-labs)
5. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/unto-labs](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/unto-labs)

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