The Tezos Foundation has appointed a new president to manage the +$1 billion funds of its embattled cryptocurrency project. Ryan Jesperson, a contributor of the Blockchain -based Startup , will replace Johann Gevers, who departs after a prolonged spat with the inventors of the Tezos technology, Arthur and Kathleen Breitman.
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The Swiss foundation has also added Michel Mauny, a French computer programming academic, to its three-person directorship panel. He succeeded the outgoing board member Diego Olivier Fernandez Pons.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the foundation said that the decision to appoint Jesperson and Mauny had been unanimous. The duo joins Lars Haussmann, who was appointed last month, as new members to the board.
The management spat and the limited progress in developing its product has sent derivatives on Tezos tokens sharply lower as anxious investors unwound bets that the project would be launched while the actual tokens, known as ‘tezzies’, have yet to be created.
“With the appointment of the two new members to the Board, the Foundation is preparing itself to assist in the timely launch of the Tezos network,” the startup said.
The outgoing chief is also facing his own set of problems after his digital payment start-up Monetas was declared bankrupt by a court in Zug. He previously announced plans to create an executive board to handle the day-to-day running of the foundation’s responsibilities
Tezos has set up a complex governance structure whereby the token’s developers own the code, but the $232 million raised in the ICO, which has now grown to more than $1 billion, will be managed and controlled by an independent Swiss foundation - the foundation now headed by Ryan Jesperson.
