Cardano News: Cardano foundation released on official statement on Tuesday, 13th November, stating that Michael Parsons, the current chair of the Cardano Foundation is set to resign and Pascal Schmid will take his place. It seems that most Cardano enthusiasts including Charles Hoskinson, the mastermind behind Cardano (ADA) have received this news with great enthusiasm. So much so that Hoskinson went on to state that the “The Babylonian Captivity of Cardano Has Ended”
Amidst the several accusations that were thrown at Parsons for not being loyal to the community, most of the community members demanded his resignation. Under such circumstances, the official Twitter account of the foundation was dormant for almost one month. It came online to give the news of Parsons much-desired resignation.
We can announce that there has been a change in the Cardano Foundation Council. Michael Parsons has resigned with immediate effect, Pascal Schmid takes over as Chairman on an interim basis. https://t.co/hg8bvVykQy
— Cardano Foundation (@CardanoStiftung) November 13, 2018
Per a public statement issued by the Foundation on its site, Parsons has stepped down willingly and the change is effective immediately. It is no news that two of the most prominent figures of Cardano community, Charles Hoskinson and Emurgo CEO Ken Kodama did not approve of Parson’s administrative actions.
Hoskinson’s take
Soon after the announcement, the standing CEO of Hong Kong-based Input Output (IOHK), performed a Youtube livestream to explain the integrities of the situation. While he painted positive picture for the future of ADA and its ecosystem, he managed to put some shade on Parsons, as he put it “The Babylonian Captivity of Cardano Has Ended”
I'll be going live in a few minutes for a community update: https://t.co/YocyipS0u9
— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) November 14, 2018
In Mid- October, Hoskinson and Kodama accused the foundation about their failure to bolster the Cardano ecosystem. In the letter, the duo listed some pertinent qualms, which are as follows:
- A lack of strategic vision
- Failure to disclose how the Foundation’s war chest would be spent to benefit the community at large and where the ADA it owns is located.
- Lack of transparency regarding the Foundation’s operations (ex. no public meeting minutes)
- False claims (ex. ‘the Foundation owns Cardano’s trademark)
- An absence of a viable internal governance structure
Pascal Schmid
Stepping into the shoes of Pascals, Pascal Schmid will take over as chairman in the interim. The post further informed that Schmid is a 2004 graduate from the University of St. Gallen with an M. A. HSG in Finance, Accounting and Controlling and has many years of professional experience. It was further affirmed that the
“Foundation is working to supplement the Foundation Council with suitable persons as soon as possible”.
Hoskinson also discussed the role that Schmid has to perform, he states that Schmid will be “reinvigorating” and reconstructing the Foundation as the foundation is still ways away from becoming an “effective” entity. He explained that a “litany” of administrative work and mounds of paperwork is their first preference. While restoring the credibility of the Cardano Foundation should be one of the most key objectives. Expressing his optimism towards a better future he claimed:
Now that Parsons is gone, the Foundation needs to work very hard to restore its trust, faith, and credibility within the Cardano community… The Foundation also needs to be a good citizen within the Swiss jurisdiction and my belief is that it needs to make some investments to build up its presence in the region.
He further added:
The Foundation can take this recent crisis [in stride and] take an opportunity to reinvent itself and become a bastion of good governance. It has been quite unforunate that for two years, the Foundation was rather ineffective from exchange listings to lobbying to regulatory outreach to basic community management goals, but now, it can no longer rest of the laurels of prior directors.
To keep his followers updated about Cardano’s latest developments, Hoskinson also divulged that Ledger support is “coming soon,” and the development of the so-called “Daedalus” wallet is going along quite well.
Quite similar to the power struggle faced by the Cardano Foundation, Bitmain, a Beijing-based crypto mining-focused startup, also observed its CEO, Jihan Wu, reportedly lose his executive position, quite recently. Though the reason for the same wasn’t revealed, it is suspected that Bitmain’s is planning to introduce an IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, if so this will mark as industry’s biggest events in months.
