Daily News 19

Tag: CEO transition

  • Bitpanda CEO to Step Down as Crypto Broker Delays Frankfurt IPO

    Bitpanda CEO to Step Down as Crypto Broker Delays Frankfurt IPO

    Bitpanda is preparing for another leadership transition less than a year after Lukas Enzersdorfer-Konrad assumed the role of sole CEO. The Austrian crypto broker announced the change as it delays a potential initial public offering (IPO) originally targeted for 2026.

    Co-Founder Christian Trummer Appointed Co-CEO

    Effective immediately, co-founder and Chief Scientist Christian Trummer will serve as Co-CEO alongside Enzersdorfer-Konrad. According to the company, Trummer will add executive focus to Bitpanda’s multi-asset offering and infrastructure business for financial institutions during the transition period. The board has opened a succession process that covers both internal and external candidates.

    Enzersdorfer-Konrad to Join Erste Group in 2026

    Enzersdorfer-Konrad intends to step down in the first quarter of 2027. He will join Austrian lender Erste Group early next year in a new group-wide asset-management and digital-investing role, Bloomberg reported.

    Short Tenure at the Helm

    Enzersdorfer-Konrad joined Bitpanda in 2018 and was promoted to Deputy CEO in July 2022. He became Co-CEO in August 2025 and assumed the sole CEO position in November when co-founder Eric Demuth moved to the board as Executive Chairman.

    IPO Plans on Hold Amid Market Conditions

    The leadership change follows a shift in Bitpanda’s listing timetable. Reports in January indicated the company was preparing for a Frankfurt IPO in the first half of 2026 at a potential valuation of €4 billion to €5 billion. Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Deutsche Bank were reportedly selected to arrange the offering, though no final decision had been made.

    The listing remains on the agenda but has been halted due to adverse market conditions. Enzersdorfer-Konrad told Bloomberg: “We are ready but we need to consider what the right market timing is and what’s best for the company.”

    Revenue Rises While EBITDA Falls Sharply

    Bitpanda reported €371 million in adjusted revenue for 2025, representing a 16% increase year-over-year. However, adjusted EBITDA fell 75% to €13 million as the company increased spending on product development, regulatory expansion, and international growth.

    Regulatory Fine for MiCAR Breaches

    In August, Austria’s Financial Market Authority (FMA) fined Bitpanda GmbH €70,000 for MiCAR disclosure and marketing breaches. The decision concerned a late crypto-asset white paper and marketing issued before the required disclosure. The regulator noted the violation did not involve custody, withdrawals, or restrictions on Bitpanda’s licence.

    Succession Timeline Unclear

    Bitpanda has not disclosed when it expects to name a permanent CEO, whether Trummer is being considered for the permanent role, or what position he would hold after Enzersdorfer-Konrad’s successor is appointed.

  • Zora Co-Founder Dee Goens Replaces Jacob Horne as CEO

    Zora Co-Founder Dee Goens Replaces Jacob Horne as CEO

    Dee Goens has assumed the role of chief executive at Zora, succeeding co-founder Jacob Horne, who is departing after more than six years at the helm. Goens announced the leadership transition in a post on Wednesday.

    Leadership Change

    “After more than six incredible years as the company’s co-founder and CEO, Jacob is transitioning out of Zora and onto his next chapter,” Goens wrote. “I will be stepping into the CEO role as we continue building and stewarding Zora.”

    Staff Reductions and AI Integration

    Goens said Zora reduced headcount earlier this year and now operates with fewer than 10 people, a smaller team than at the start of the year. He did not disclose the previous headcount or the number of departures.

    “As a result, we’ve gotten more AI native with agents running throughout Slack, writing code, and resolving incidents,” he wrote.

    Shift to Custom Pairs

    The company has pivoted from the Creator Coins model it launched on Base last year to a focus on trading pairs across multiple networks. Zora opened Custom Pairs on August 20, allowing users to choose the asset a new token is paired against rather than defaulting to $ZORA or a Creator Coin. The feature is live on Base, Robinhood Chain, and Solana and carries a 1% trading fee, of which 0.70% goes to the token’s creator, according to Zora’s documentation.

    Goens said more than 4,000 pairs have been created since launch; Zora reported over 2,000 as of August 28. Over the summer, the protocol expanded to Robinhood Chain and Solana, added cross-chain trading across those two networks and BNB Chain, enabled trading through its agent in direct messages, and removed fees previously applied to DMs and comments. Zora also launched attention markets on Solana in February.

    Fee data from DefiLlama shows a steep decline on Zora’s Base deployment, the only one tracked. Fees totaled $14,768 in August, down 99.4% from $2.51 million in August 2025. Over the past 30 days, the deployment collected $14,971 in fees, of which $6,165 went to Zora, while its pools traded $551,284 in volume.

    Buyback Plans and Priorities

    Goens outlined five priorities for the remainder of the year, starting with “aligning our business with $ZORA token holders by implementing buybacks / rewards.” He provided no details on size, funding source, timetable, or mechanism. The remaining priorities are:

    • Rebuilding community trust by over-communicating progress
    • Onboarding new users with an emphasis on the mobile app
    • Restarting distribution of community incentives
    • Acting on feedback

    “There’s a ton of work for us to get through as we eye the end of the year,” he wrote.

    ZORA Token Performance

    $ZORA traded at $0.00814 at 19:52 UTC on Wednesday, down 8.5% over 24 hours, up 11.5% over seven days, and up 55% over 30 days, for a market capitalization of $36.3 million and a fully diluted valuation of $81.3 million, according to CoinGecko. The token remains 94.4% below its record high of $0.1456 reached on August 11, 2025.

    In the five minutes before Goens’ post at 18:02 UTC, the token was at $0.00831, implying a roughly 2% move since the announcement. Daily trading volume stood at $21.4 million. Ether traded at $2,466.98, down 0.4% over 24 hours.

    Horne’s Departure

    Horne describes himself on his personal site as “cofounder of Zora, previously at Coinbase.” He and Goens have worked together for more than six years. Horne led Zora through an NFT marketplace, an Ethereum Layer 2, and the June 2025 shift to Creator Coins, which made every Zora profile a tradable token. The Defiant reported in December that $ZORA slipped to $0.038 as the model’s highest-profile launch, the creator coin of journalist Nick Shirley, fell 79% from its record within 48 hours; the token has lost a further 79% since.

    “I’ll be sharing more on what I’m spending my time on next in the near future,” Horne wrote. “In the meantime I’m eternally grateful for the community, experiments, lessons and crazy journey over the past few years.”

    Goens said Horne is “not going too far” from crypto.