Michael Parsons, Chairman of the Foundation Council of the Cardano Foundation, has relinquished his title, according to an official announcement.
Council Member of the Foundation Council of the Cardano Foundation to Chairman of the Foundation Council of the Cardano Foundation
He is replaced by one Pascal Schmid, formerly Council Member of the Foundation Council of the Cardano Foundation. Schmid, of Switzerland, is a qualified accountant.
This is significant because Cardano’s cryptocurrency, ADA, is one of the more valuable coins, with a market value of $1.8 billion according to coinmarketcap.com.
The Cardano Foundation is one of the three organisations involved in the development of the Cardano “developed from a scientific philosophy” blockchain, which, despite its high market value, is still being developed.
The foundation is a non-profit organisation based in Zug, Switzerland. The other two are IOHK, the engineering company that is developing the blockchain, and EmurgoHK, which promotes the creation of decentralised applications on Cardano from Hong Kong.
The whole setup was begun b, who also co-founded Ethereum. He is the CEO of IOHK.
I’ll be going live in a few minutes for a community update:
— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles)
Regarding the resignation, Hoskinson said: “Now that Parsons is gone, the Foundation needs to work very hard to restore its trust, faith, and credibility within the Cardano community…”
What was the problem?
Hoskinson and Ken Kodoma (CEO of EmurgoHK) co-authored an open letter in October in which they complained that the Cardano Foundation was not pulling its weight. Its aim is “to promote the Cardano protocol, to grow and inform our community and address the needs of the community,” but “a lack of activity and progress on the assigned responsibilities of the Cardano Foundation and its council” have led to “great frustration”.
They explain that the foundation had failed to lay out its goals, failed to be transparent in its working methods, and misleadingly claimed that it owned the Cardano trademark. It had been behaving in a “puzzling” way – for example, failing to attend a meeting with the Ethiopian Ministry of Science and Technology with IOHK and informing IOHK via email that it “was to be the single guardian of the Cardano brand and protocols”.
More damningly, the letter says that the foundation refused to reveal where it holds its funds, and Parsons (the founding chairman as of September 2016) installed his stepson as general manager, and his stepson’s wife as his (Parson’s) assistant. Parsons also failed to refill vacancies on the board, so that there were eventually only two members, with him being the principle.
These are but a selection of the complaints detailed. IOHK ceased working with the foundation and demanded that it submit to an audit by the Swiss authorities, noting that Parsons could not be compelled to step down because the foundation is an independent legal entity.
It also noted that the separation of powers in the Cardano network was deliberate, so there was no risk of Parsons’ behaviour destroying the project. It proposed that IOHK and EmurgoHK take over the functions that the foundation was supposed to execute.
In May, ratings firm Weiss placed Cardano (and EOS) in terms of ‘technology/adoption’ and ‘investment risk/reward’.
ADA has been selected to be the base currency of, the new cryptocurrency exchange of foreign exchange broker IronFX.
You’re telling the CEO of iohk, founder of cardano and ethereum to use the support email? Just wanted to ask about the chrome delisting.
— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles)
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