Ethereum co-founder quits cryptocurrency industry over security concerns

According to a July 17 report from Bloomberg, Di Iorio is looking to sell his digital asset company Decentral and sever ties with all other cryptocurrency projects he is currently involved in, saying he no longer feels safe due to his high profile in the crypto space.

"I don't really like the risk profile of it. I don't feel necessarily safe in this space. If I focus on the bigger problems, I think I'll be safer."

Di Iorio has a background in web development and was one of the eight co-founders who started working on Ethereum in 2014. He became chief digital officer at the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2016 and has focused on venture capital and startup consulting in recent years.

In 2016, the 48-year-old Canadian entrepreneur founded blockchain company Decentral, which operates Jaxx Liberty, a multi-platform cryptocurrency wallet with more than 1 million users.

Di Iorio has been traveling with a security team since 2017. In 2018, Forbes estimated his net worth at $1 billion. Di Iorio was listed on the 2017 Crypto Rich List. In the same year, Di Iorio further came into the spotlight after purchasing Canada's largest apartment for $22 million and paying part of the payment with cryptocurrency.

Di Iorio now expects to sell Decentral for “hundreds of millions,” and stressed that he would only accept cash or equity in another company as settlement and would not consider offers made in cryptocurrency.

The entrepreneur also stressed that he does not want to invest in blockchain startups in the future.

Looking for more philanthropic causes, Iorio has joined the Arrow Project, which plans to build Canada’s first zero-emission car. The entrepreneur claims that cryptocurrencies can only help solve a small part of the world’s problems:

“I want to diversify and move away from being a crypto guy and into being a complex problem solver,” he said. “I’ll be in crypto when it’s needed, but a lot of the time, it’s not… It’s really just a small part of what the world needs.”

Of the eight co-founders of Ethereum, only Vitalik Buterin is still actively working on the Ethereum blockchain platform.

Charles Hoskinson and Gavin Wood have launched competing blockchains, namely Cardano and Polkadot. Mihai Alisie and Joeseph Lubin have founded companies focused on Ethereum applications and development, launching the AKASHA project and ConsenSys, respectively.

The remaining founders, Amir Chetrit and Jeffrey Wilcke, also made a similar move to Di Iorio and exited the cryptocurrency industry to focus on other industries.