Page 1 of 2

One year after a fight broke out over Tezos’ $232 million coin fundraising, finews.com revisits the once-troubled cryptocurrency project.

When Ryan Jesperson spoke recently in Zurich, the head of Tezos’ Swiss foundation asked for how many listeners were aware of the cryptocurrency project’s troubles – everyone in the room raised their hands.

Almost no hands went up when Jesperson asked how many people knew what had happened since a new board took over the foundation.

«A lot of people say 'I havent heard a lot about Tezos’ and that’s actually a really good thing,» Jesperson told a packed room at Trust Square, a shared workspace for blockchain and crypto firms on Zurich’s prestigious Bahnhofstrasse, which is lined with private banks.

«The foundation is on a great track now, we’ve been focusing on the technology and some really incredible things have happened since then.»

Calm Presence vs Turmoil

The 37-year-old moved his family from Salt Lake City to Zug in April, two months after he was appointed president of the Tezos Foundation.

Jesperson is a relative newcomer to the crypto scene – the former healthcare turnaround specialist and technology founder first began looking into blockchain and digital assets last year. However, he represents Tezos’ «grown-up» side and has a clear mandate to restore calm after the bitter fight between his foundation predecessor and Tezos’ authors, Arthur Breitman and his wife, Kathleen.

A father of three, Jesperson said he elected to shun the hyperbole traditional to cryptocurrency start-ups in favor of helping Tezos’ technology make it. «We focused on the technology. Ultimately, really nothing else mattered unless the technology shipped,» the preternaturally calm executive said.

Class Action Woes

The technology did «ship»: Tezos went online in September. If its network runs without disruption for three months, a distribution mechanism triggers, as finews.com reported last year. That means the Breitmans, who are not involved in the Swiss foundation and fell out with its previous head, are in for a rich payday before Christmas.

What Jesperson glosses over is that the foundation, the Breitmans, and several others are still waist-deep in class action litigation in the U.S. (investor Tim Draper and Bitcoin Suisse, which midwifed Tezos’ initial coin offering last year, were dismissed from the skirmish three months ago).

Jesperson’s efforts at diplomacy contrast with franker words from the Breitmans. The couple shored up Tezos’ development with their own funding when a bitter fight between the couple and previous foundation head Johann Gevers blocked the money flow. The two are to credit for Tezos’ launch, albeit delayed, in September.

«Tezzie» Securities?

Gevers, founder of payments start-up Monetas, relinquished the job in February, reportedly for a $400,000 kiss-off (presumably, the money will come in handy, since he is also party to the class action suits in the U.S.).