Michael McCaffrey

Fortune’s 2022 40 Under 40 profile says McCaffrey began his career in finance at Goldman SachsGoldman SachsGoldman Sachs is an American financial services group headquartered in New York whose businesses include investment banking, securities trading, asset management, and wealth management. It traces its origins to the commercial paper business Marcus Goldman founded in 1869; it listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1999 under the ticker GS and became a bank holding company in 2008. David Solomon serves as chairman and chief executive officer.Open the full entry and Citi.⁠[1]

Fortune said he joined The Block in 2018, when it was a small team publishing on Medium, as one of its first employees, and later became chief operating officer.⁠[1][2]

The Block announced that chief operating officer McCaffrey would succeed founder Mike Dudas as chief executive, with Dudas moving to a newly formed role as chairman of the board. Fortune reported that McCaffrey was 24.⁠[2][3]

He told Fortune that the company had no revenue in 2018 but several million dollars in 2019, had halved its burn rate and had 24 staff, adding that none of its sponsors had wavered.⁠[3]

In April 2021 The Block announced the close of a management buyout led by McCaffrey, saying it was now “100% employee-owned” with an employee equity pool; it had just under 40 staff and did not disclose terms. McCaffrey said employee ownership best drives value.⁠[4]

Axios later reported that after the buyout McCaffrey became the majority shareholder and sole board member.⁠[5]

Axios reported on December 9, 2022 that McCaffrey had begun discussing financing for a buyout with Sam Bankman-FriedSam Bankman-FriedSam Bankman-Fried (SBF) is an American entrepreneur and the co-founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX and the crypto hedge fund Alameda Research. After FTX collapsed in November 2022, he was charged in the United States with misappropriating customer funds; in November 2023 a jury found him guilty on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy, in March 2024 he was sentenced to 25 years in prison and ordered to forfeit about $11 billion, and in 2026 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected his appeal.Open the full entry in early February 2021, and that Alameda Research then made three loans totalling about $43 million to LLCs he controlled: $12 million to MJMCCAFFREY LLC in April 2021 to fund the buyout, $15 million to Lonely Road LLC in January 2022 as operating capital for The Block, and $16 million to Red Sea LLC in spring 2022, used in part to buy an apartment in the Bahamas for McCaffrey. It said staff had not known about the loans.⁠[5]

The Block confirmed the loans in its own report, saying the third was used for McCaffrey’s personal real estate in the Bahamas.⁠[6]

Fortune named McCaffrey, then 27, to its 2022 40 Under 40 in finance, saying his goal was to make The Block the “Bloomberg of crypto.”⁠[1]

Axios reported that The Block became the first newsroom to launch a tokenized paywall on the Access Protocol, letting readers stake tokens to unlock content, initially covering about 20% of its articles; McCaffrey said The Block had thousands of consumer subscriptions and hundreds of enterprise clients, and estimated it could take 5 to 10 years to extend the model to all content.⁠[7]

McCaffrey told Axios, "This is all done in the vein of increasing distribution of our content to more people," and asked readers to "imagine a world where you have one wallet in which you access all of these various publishers." Fortune's 2022 40 Under 40 profile likewise listed the Access Protocol partnership among his current projects.⁠[7][1]

Bobby MoranBobby MoranBobby Moran is an American media revenue executive who was chief revenue officer at Politico and EverFi, became the crypto media company The Block’s first chief revenue officer in 2021, took over as chief executive in December 2022 after his predecessor resigned over loans from Alameda, and was succeeded by Larry Cermak in March 2023.Open the full entry wrote on The Block’s Medium page that McCaffrey disclosed the loans to him shortly before Thanksgiving. On the day of the Axios report McCaffrey resigned as chief executive and from the board, and chief revenue officer Moran took over immediately; The Block said it had asked him to resign.⁠[8][6]

McCaffrey wrote on Twitter, “I have difficult news to share. I’m stepping down as The Block’s CEO.” He said the company had been in dire straits in early 2021 and that the Bankman-Fried loan was “the only option that materialized,” that he had not disclosed it so as not to appear to compromise coverage, and that he “never attempted to influence coverage of FTX, Alameda or SBF.”⁠[9][10]

Moran said in his statement that no one at The Block besides McCaffrey had known about the arrangement and that the company had seen no evidence that McCaffrey ever sought to improperly influence the newsroom or research teams.⁠[8]

Bobby Moran wrote that McCaffrey told him he had weighed a merger, sale or restructuring in early 2021 and financed the restructuring through Alameda loans to LLCs he controlled, totaling $27 million; Axios put the total at about $43 million, including a third loan partly used for a Bahamas property.⁠[8][5]

The Block's founder Mike Dudas told TechCrunch that at the time of the sale his "understanding was that Mike McCaffrey's family was wealthy and loaned him money to buy out [his stake] and the VCs."⁠[11]

Axios reported a company spokesperson as confirming that McCaffrey, though no longer involved in operations or on the board, remained the majority shareholder with the associated rights.⁠[12]

Singapore-based Foresight Ventures bought about 80% of The Block at a $70 million valuation. Unchained reported that most of the money went to buying out McCaffrey’s shares, and Axios said in January 2025 that most of the sale proceeds went to buying out the former chief executive’s stake.⁠[13][14]

Unchained reported that Foresight Ventures bought an 80% stake in The Block worth about $60 million, with most of the new capital going to buy out McCaffrey's shares; it also said McCaffrey had used FTX client funds, in part, to buy out The Block's non-employee shareholders in 2021.⁠[13]

The Block: Official website: https://www.theblock.co/ (opens in a new window)⁠[6]

X: Personal account: https://x.com/McCaffrMike (opens in a new window)⁠[1]