Alex Appleton is the most recent bitcoin executive to resign from his post.
Alex Appleton, the CFO and Executive Director of top bitcoin miner Argo Blockchain, said he was leaving the company.
During the prolonged drop in the market, several more CEOs of cryptocurrency or related companies have quit. Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX, Alex Mashinsky of Celsius Network, Jesse Powell of Kraken, Michael Saylor of MicroStrategy, and many more are examples.
Alex Appleton, the company’s CFO for the past two and a half years, will step down. According to a tweet, he will focus on options outside the crypto mining industry.
Appleton expressed his pride in his accomplishments at the business when he left. He said the niche had “huge promise” and wished his former colleagues the best.
His departure comes after Argo Blockchain decided to sell its Helios facility to Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital for $65 million, which cut the company’s overall debt.
The firm’s activities were significantly hampered by the harsh winter and a storm that blew over Texas around Christmas. As a result, it mined just 147 BTC in December, around 25% less than the output in November. Argo had 141 BTC at the end of 2022, worth nearly $3.2 million.
There is a long list of crypto industry leaders who quit their jobs. Here are some of the most well-known names on that list.
The exodus began with Jack Dorsey, the former CEO of Twitter and ardent supporter of bitcoin, who left at the end of 2021.
During the 2022 bear market, the tendency accelerated. Whit Gibbs, CEO of Compass Mining, and CFO Jodie Fisher resigned in June, while Bill Qian, CEO of Binance Labs, resigned. Steven Kokinos, CEO of blockchain firm Algorand, followed suit in July.
The month of August began with the resignation of bitcoin enthusiast Michael Saylor. He was promoted to Executive Chairman of MicroStrategy from CEO.
Jesse Powell, the founder of Kraken, joined the club in September after working as CEO of the bitcoin exchange for almost a decade.
Genesis’ Michael Moro left a few days later, but the platform’s status needed to improve. So at the end of January 2023, it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Alex Mashinsky of Celsius, Alexander Höptner of BitMEX, and Gavin Wood of Polkadot all resigned.
In November of last year, the historic FTX disaster resulted in a fresh wave of resigning executives. Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang, the owners of Alameda Research, were fired and eventually pleaded guilty to federal criminal allegations that they assisted Sam Bankman-Fried in a fraudulent operation.
SBF resigned as CEO of FTX as well. Still, it said he should not be held responsible for the massive collapse of his trading venue, which resulted in multi-billion dollar investor losses.
