Johnson has served as an interim CEO of Overstock since the end of August when Patrick Byrne stepped down. Presently, Johnson also acts as the company’s member of the board of directors, president at Overstock’s venture capital arm Medici Ventures, and chairman of the board at its blockchain-focused subsidiary tZERO Group.
American e-commerce giant Overstock.com has appointed Jonathan Johnson as the company’s new chief executive officer, according to an announcement on Sept. 23.
Overstock also revealed that it appointed former principal financial officer Robert Hughes as acting chief financial officer, who replaced Greg Iverson.
Johnson stated:
“Overstock has two unique businesses. … I have run both, and I know how to unlock the value in each. I’m confident we can rapidly return our retail business to profitable growth. Our transformative blockchain businesses continue to lead their respective industries by getting real products into production.”
Impetus behind Byrne’s resignation
As previously reported, Byrne cited the announcement of his controversial relationship with Maria Butina as the impetus for cutting ties with Overstock. In his letter of resignation, Byrne reaffirmed his faith that “the blockchain revolution will reshape key social institutions.” However, it is questionable to what degree this faith will direct Overstock’s future in Byrne’s absence.
Earlier in September, Byrne cashed out nearly 4.8 million Overstock (OSTK) shares, which accounted for more than 13% of the company. Byrne later published a public letter, in which he revealed his plans to stop trading anything else except the three assets that are “counter-cyclical to the economy”, including gold, silver and “two flavors of crypto.”
EOS’ First Hard Fork Successfully Completed Today
EOS, the seventh-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, performed its first hard fork earlier today.
The EOS update tracking tool maintained by the chain’s block producer, EOSNation, reports that EOS block producers (BP) signaled their intent to implement the update on the EOS Mainnet on Sept. 23 at 13:00 UTC.
According to the website, this is the largest upgrade that the network has seen so far, and the first one that required a hard fork. Lastly, EOS Nation also claims that 29 of the 30 top BPs committed to upgrading at press time.
Not the only major upcoming upgrade
As Cointelegraph noted earlier this month, two more blockchains are awaiting notable upgrades. Neo will have a major upgrade to NEO 3.0 in the second quarter of 2020. The network is expected to feature cheaper transactions and deployment of smart contracts, as well as a faster blockchain powered by a unified transaction model.
Tron is soon expected to release an update for the Sun Network that was officially launched on Aug. 11. Tron claims that the update will deliver unlimited scaling capacity for the Tron network.
Last week, Tron’s founder Justin Sun announced a new plan for the proof-of-stake mechanism for the network’s associated cryptocurrency, TRON (TRX). Sun said that the company will consider “a fair, decentralized distribution of staking revenues” to increase user participation.
