September 10, 2026

Capitalizations Index – B ∞/21M

Tezos Foundation Adds Four New Members, Paving Way for Platform Launch

Tezos foundation adds four new members, paving way for platform launch

Tezos Foundation Adds Four New Members, Paving Way for Platform Launch

Tezos foundation adds four new members, paving way for platform launch

Tezos Foundation, the Zug, Switzerland-based nonprofit that governs the now $1 billion worth of assets for Tezos, a blockchain project that has yet to launch, just added to its board four new members: Olaf Carlson-Wee, Pascal Cléré, Marylene Micheloud and Hubertus Thonhauser. In addition to the two new members announced last week, this brings the total number of people sitting on the foundation board to seven.

“The four new board members bring a tremendous amount of experience and know-how into the foundation, both in terms of technology and leadership. I am looking forward to working closely with them to assist in the timely launch of the Tezos network,” said Ryan Jasperson, Tezos Foundation president, in a statement.

The Foundation now has reorganized completely with all three of the original members, including former president Johann Gevers, gone. It also strongly resembles T2, the seven-member rival foundation introduced by Jasperson last month in an effort to wrestle control away from Gevers, the previous president. Since October 2017, Gevers and Tezos founders Arthur and Kathleen Breitman, who control the Tezos proprietary code through a Delaware corporation, were locked in a bitter battle.

Among the new members of the Tezos Foundation is Carlson-Wee, the founder of Polychain Capital, a cryptocurrency hedge fund and early backer for the Tezos project, having purchased tokens well in advance of the ICO. Carlson-Wee offered to serve on the Tezos Foundation board in December 2017 but apparently was rejected by Gevers.

Micheloud, the only woman on the board, is a retired Swiss computer scientist; Cléré is an executive at Alstom Digital Mobility; and Thonhauser is a partner at a venture capital firm in Dubai.

The addition of the new members should help to clear a path for the long-awaited launch of the Tezos network, which will enable contributors to the project to redeem their “tezzies” tokens and begin trading, perhaps getting a return on some of the funds they put into the ICO, originally pitched as a “fundraiser.”

In its statement announcing the new members, the Foundation did not mention a timeline for the launch. Although, Kathleen Breitman may have hinted at a launch in the next few weeks, last week, she told The Wall Street Journal that Tezos does not have a launch date yet.

While the emergence of an all-new Tezos Foundation appears to indicate a win for the organizers of the Tezos project, the Breitmans have yet to make any official statements on the rapid change of events in the last week. The couple have also not said anything about whether they have reached a settlement over the large bonus that Gevers tried to claim for himself in September 2017. The project is still facing several class action lawsuits accusing them of selling securities. Although the Breitmans previously asked the foundation for help in covering the legal fees surrounding those lawsuits, the new foundation board members have not yet commented on what their policy will be in footing those bills.

Published at Tue, 27 Feb 2018 15:48:57 +0000

bitcoin[wpr5_ebay kw=”bitcoin” num=”1″ ebcat=”” cid=”5338043562″ lang=”en-US” country=”0″ sort=”bestmatch”]

Previous Article

Sandblock crowdsale announced

Next Article

XEM-Friendly Belgian Restaurant Proves a Hit in Tokyo

You might be interested in …

7 Reasons Why BTC Price is Now Climbing to $1300

bitcoin price now appears to be shrugging off politics that have split the community as it looks to test the critical $1,300 mark yet again.


Key Resistance Level at $1,300

BTC price is again coming within striking distance of the critical $1,300 mark, currently sitting at $1,250 at press time. 

Back on March 6, bitcoin set the all-time closing high of $1,277 with a record-high spike of around $1,330 a few days later fueled by ETF hype before crashing more than 25% after the rejection by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

But the world’s first decentralized cryptocurrency has rallied since its March 24 low of $960 when divisive politics and heightened fears of a hard fork put downward pressure on the price. 

What’s more, the resurgence also comes at a time when Chinese exchanges have still not resumed their bitcoin withdrawals.

In addition to being up 30% so far in 2017, bitcoin’s market capitalization is now looking to break its all-time high of about $20.6 billion as it climbs towards the critical $1,300 resistance level.

“$1300 is a significant psychological price point,” Civic CEO, Vinny Lingham, wrote back in February. “This is the point that arguably no one who had previously bought coins during the last ‘bubble’ is under water.”

7 Positive Trends Driving BTC Price

With Litecoin coming closer to SegWit activation, many hope that the ‘silver to bitcoin’s gold’ will become a testbed for this promising technology. This has made Litecoin price rise significantly in recent weeks while also raising hopes for SegWit activation on bitcoin while allaying fears of a contentious hardfork.

However, this is only one positive factor in what has been a string of good news for bitcoin in recent weeks.

First, Japanese businesses and several major retailers already seem enthusiastic about experimenting with bitcoin payments following their legalization in the country on April 1st.

Second, bitcoin adoption appears to be growing everywhere in the world from P2P trading to remittances to the amount of people actually using it for payments, according to a recent Cambridge University study, which noted:

[T]he number of people using cryptocurrency today has seen significant growth and rivals the population of small countries.

Third, following increasing regulatory clarity from China, Russia may also be planning to ‘legalize’ bitcoin by as early as 2018. Meanwhile, another major economy, India, is seeing major growth with people increasingly using bitcoin as a store-of-value and for online purchases in the wake of the demonetization disaster.

Fourth, the traditional global banking system including SWIFT appears to be under constant attack from hackers, not to mention the NSA. As a rule, any weakness and uncertainty in the traditional financial spells good for a potentially better alternative that’s more secure due to its decentralized, pseudonymous natures and immutability aspect.

Fifth, major companies such as Microsoft are beginning to actually use the bitcoin blockchain for other things besides money such as record time-stamping and document verification. This could introduce more use cases for the bitcoin network, boosting its development, growth, and overall value as a result. 

Bitfinex Sticking Out Like a Sore Thumb

Another major factor in the upward pressure on BTC price is bitcoin exchange Bitfinex, which seems to be experiencing problems on the fiat side due to recent complications with partner banks. There also seem to be problems with liquidating the USDT (Tether) cryptocurrency token that replaces the USD currency on the Poloniex exchange.

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Therefore, it comes as no surprise that bitcoin on Bitfinex is trading at nearly $1,330 or $80 above market price as traders seek safety. Of course, the solvency of the Bitfinex exchange is also coming increasingly under question despite official statements to the contrary.

[Editor’s note: It remains to be seen whether this is a positive or a negative factor for the BTC price in the short term. However, shaking out insolvent businesses should be a healthy step for the bitcoin economy moving forward.] 

In any case, bitcoin should continue to chug along as its overall growth since 2014 has made it more resilient and much more capable of withstanding another ‘Mt.Gox’ scenario if it arises.

Will bitcoin finally break the $1300 psychological barrier? Share your thoughts below!


Images courtesy of coinmarketcap.com, shutterstock 

The post 7 Reasons Why BTC Price is Now Climbing to $1300 appeared first on Bitcoinist.com.