Voorhees Applauds Cryptos Hypercapitalism As ShapeShift Goes Gray

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The run-in with regulators was one of the motivations behind ShapeShift’s plan to shut down and convert to a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), said founder Erik Voorhees.

In an appearance on CoinDesk TV’s “First Mover” on Thursday, the day after the crypto exchange’s bombing was announced, Voorhees also provided more details on what will happen to the company, including its employees.

“Regulatory frictions absolutely have a role to play in this decision,” said Voorhees, who started the exchange in 2014.

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“I wish there were more people willing to be brave, push the boundaries and fight for principle instead of just trying to get along and make a profit,” he said. said, adding that this sometimes means companies have to operate in a “gray area”. “

One of the first crypto entrepreneurs, Voorhees has battled with regulators since one of his oldest companies, SatoshiDice, fined the United States Securities and Exchange Commission $ 50,000 in 2014 for not having registered an offer.

The crypto industry is still dominated by centralized firms, but Voorhees said on Thursday that he expects more to follow ShapeShift’s lead.

“At the end of the day, if you’re a gatekeeper, you never really bring the most important attributes of cryptocurrency to your users,” he said, referring to the contradiction between decentralized and centralized businesses. like Coinbase.

Related: Bitcoin Doesn’t Care If You Think It’s Right

Voorhees himself will no longer be the CEO of ShapeShift and will move from a 30% stake in the company to a 5% controller of his FOX tokens. This still makes him an influential member of the project, but he can easily be outvoted and controlled by other stakeholders, he said.

All existing employees will receive a “healthy” supply of FOX tokens and receive a portion of the proceeds from the sale of company assets over time, Voorhees said. He reiterated that this is not the main concern and that “all those who have invested are there for the revolution” and to “try something new”.

The story continues

Staff members will terminate their traditional W2 employment in three waves throughout the year; while some will continue to be part of the project, others may move on to other projects. All employees also received a “healthy” supply of FOX tokens.

Voorhees seemed excited to attract new talent. “[We’ll] have thousands of diverse people around the world, ”he said. Instead of working 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., employees will be able to work flexibly, say 30 minutes once a month, and they will be paid in FOX tokens.

“It makes them all entrepreneurs,” he said, noting that this kind of work involves a lot of risk, but that he has met a lot of people who have the right entrepreneurial and creative energy for such work. .

Voorhees declined to comment further on discussions with regulators. From the point of view of the company, the transformation of the company is treated as a liquidation of the balance sheet of the company and the disappearance of a legal person.

Voorhees also commented on Jackson Palmer’s tweet thread calling the cryptocurrency industry a “scam” and said he agreed with a lot of what the Dogecoin founder said, particularly the idea that crypto is “hyper capitalist”. But for Voorhees, it’s a feature, not a bug.

“It’s hyper-capitalist, and thank goodness there’s actually a hyper-capitalist system that’s supposed to be what America was, […] a free market, a capitalist country, ”he said. The good thing about crypto is that, unlike fiat and the banking establishment, it is purely voluntary, he said, and the industry will remain a “peaceful” place as long as the self-employed. guard is maintained.

“If the cryptocurrency ends up in a group of custodians only, it will lose the most important properties it brought in,” he said.

CORRECTION (Jul 15, 10:15 p.m. UTC): Wording updated in 10th paragraph indicating that ShapeShift employees have left the organization. Although they are free to do so, Erik Voorhees said after the post that no one had resigned yet.

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