The company suspended CEO Paul Chou and COO/CRO Juthica Chou last month, with no explanation. The two were also co-founders of the company. Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation vice chairman Larry Thompson was named interim CEO and lead director of Ledger Holdings.
LedgerX announced Friday co-founder and former chief technology officer Zach Dexter has been named the new chief executive of the bitcoin derivatives company.
In a statement, Thompson said, «since my involvement with the company began, we have kept in close contact with all of the company’s stakeholders including employees, investors and regulators and have kept the CFTC fully apprised of the company’s actions including the recent financing.»
His statements would appear to conflict with a letter sent to LedgerX’s board and the CFTC Office of the Inspector General by a member of its board of directors. In the letter, Nicholas Owen Gunden wrote that as an investor, he had received limited communications from the company, and was concerned about its operations.
LedgerX also announced that it closed a «significant» financing round «led by the company’s largest investors including Digital Finance Group.» The amount raised was not disclosed, but the funds will be used to bring on more senior executives, the release said.
Dexter was a part of the LedgerX team for the first five and a half years of the company’s operations, leaving in May 2019 to join Mirror, a tech fitness startup.
Thompson and Dexter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Legacy Trust’s Crypto Spin-Off Receives $3M to Roll Out Asian Settlement Platform
An Asian digital assets custodian, which is building a crypto settlement layer to offer a local alternative to Silvergate Bank, has announced a new lead investor ahead of its coming launch.Hong Kong-based First Digital Trust (FDT) announced Monday it had received a $3 million investment from Taiwanese venture studio firm Nogle. The funding will support FDT’s offering, including the Rapid Settlement and Clearing Network (RSCN), an institutional-orientated trading platform for the Asia region to launch in May.
«A lot of the funding will be deployed to building out the First Digital Trust tech stack,» First Digital COO Gunnar Jaerv said in a statement to CoinDesk. «We are also deploying capital into compliance building for financial services that, not only meet our global clientele requirements, but also worldwide regulatory standards.»
FDT started out as the digital asset subsidiary for Legacy Trust, a major Asian trust and custody company, but spun out in September 2018.
When it unveiled plans for the RSCN in February, FDT said its settlement layer would provide an alternative regional solution to the Silvergate Exchange Network (SEN), which forces crypto firms to make settlements under tough U.S. regulations by virtue of Silvergate Bank’s stateside location. RSCN would also support local currencies alongside the U.S. dollar, according to Jaerv.
Established in 2014, Nogle has supported projects that it believes will help develop the future digital payment landscape. Its portfolio includes payment gateways, digital ID providers and a proprietary cryptocurrency exchange, BTSE.
Nogle founder Jonathan Leong told CoinDesk that they had seen the value in First Digital as both custodian solution and institutional settlement layer. Beyond just funding, Leong said Nogle will assist in tech development and third-party collaborations.
«Based on their current platform, we’re looking to build up their settlement layer and put up more formal partnerships,» Leong said. «Basically to have more businesses plug into the settlement layer.»
Nogle also invested $2.5 million in the first round of Telegram’s (now troubled) ICO, which raised a total of $850 million in January 2018.
