Despite stepping down as CEO for three years, Yuzo continued to have a
significant influence on the company being the firm’s largest
stakeholder.
Yuzo Kano, the co-founder of Japan-based cryptocurrency exchange
bitFlyer, is seeking to reinstate himself as CEO in a shareholders
meeting next month, in an apparent bid to reinvigorate what he claims is
a stagnating firm.
Kano resigned in 2019 following a series of
management disputes but is now determined to reinvigorate the crypto
firm and lead it toward an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in the coming
months, according to a Feb. 26 report by Bloomberg.
The former CEO also said he also wants to put Japan back on the map in the world of cryptocurrency.
“I will make it capable of fighting on the international stage,” the bitFlyer co-founder said in a recent interview.
According
to the interview, if reinstated, he intends on introducing stablecoins
to the trading platform, build a token-issuance operation, and
open-source bitFlyer’s “miyabi” blockchain to the public, along with
pursuing an IPO in the coming months.
Kano — who retained a 40%
stake in the company despite stepping down — explained that during his
time away as CEO, bitFlyer stopped innovating and launching new products
and services, which he intends on changing.
It is “a company that produces nothing new,” he claimed.
With
over 2.5 million accounts, bitFlyer is one of the larger cryptocurrency
exchanges in Japan. Some of its competitors, such as Kraken, recently announced the closure of its Japan business on Dec. 28, 2022, while Coinbase halted its operations in the country on Jan. 18, 2023.
Related: Japanese Exchange bitFlyer Blockchain Arm Launches Consulting Service
Much
of the management issues experienced at the firm came in part due to
regulatory pressures imposed by Japan’s Financial Services Agency in
2018 as a means to adopt more stringent money laundering policies.
He
added that multiple CEOs have come and gone since then because they
Kano, being bitFlyer’s largest shareholder, pointed out where they were
falling short:
“It’s my responsibility to point out
issues and demand improvement [...] I reprimand people when they cause
problems, make false reports or fail to do whatever they are supposed to
do.”
Nonetheless, the former CEO believes the “very
strict regulations” set in place can serve as a “model for the rest of
the world.”
source link : https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitflyer-founder-seeks-to-reinstate-self-as-ceo-leading-firm-to-ipo-report
