Barry Silbert Resigned as Chairman of Grayscale

Barry Silbert resigned as chairman of Grayscale

Grayscale Investments, an investment management company waiting for the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to approve its application to convert Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) into a Bitcoin spot ETF, has just announced important changes in fund management board.

Mr. Barry Silbert, founder of Grayscale and Founder/CEO of Digital Currency Group (DCG) will resign from his current position. Instead, Mr. Mark Shifke, currently holding the position of Chief Financial Officer of DCG, will replace Mr. Silbert from January 1, 2024.

In addition to Mr. Shifke and Michael Sonnenshein – current CEO, Grayscale will also have new members on the board of directors, including:

Matt Kummell, 47, Senior Vice President of Operations at DCG;
Edward McGee, 40 years old, Chief Financial Officer of Grayscale.

The SEC registration filing also said that Mr. Mark Murphy, who previously held the position of COO of DCG, will also resign his position.

Grayscale today announced changes to its board of directors. Barry E. Silbert and Mark Murphy will resign from the Board of Directors effective January 1, 2024. Mark Shifke will succeed Barry E. Silbert as Chairman of the Board of Directors. Mark Shifke is Chief Financial Officer…

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) December 26, 2023

Although the SEC filing does not provide an official reason for the change in Grayscale’s board of directors, many sources believe that the decision stems from lawsuits involving Barry Silbert and DCG – the company that owns Grayscale.

In October 2023, both DCG and CEO Barry Silbert were sued by the New York Attorney General (NYAG) for defrauding more than 230,000 investors, including at least 29,000 New Yorkers, of money worth worth more than 1 billion USD.

Previously in September 2023, Genesis Global Capital, a cryptocurrency lending company, went bankrupt in early 2023 and filed a lawsuit against parent company DCG to reclaim Bitcoin debt of up to 600 million USD, indirectly leading to to Genesis’s bankruptcy. Later, DCG announced a new plan for Gemini Earn users, allowing them to recover assets with an estimated 70-90% of the value.

In the latest developments, DCG agreed to pay an additional 275 million USD to subsidiary Genesis to reach an agreement to end the lawsuit between the two parties. This amount will be paid in 3 installments, using cash and BTC, with a deadline of April 2024. However, this settlement still needs approval from creditors.

In total, this amount has not yet reached the initial figure of 600 million USD, but this is probably the most positive result for Genesis. If the lawsuit continues, both sides will waste a lot of time and money, only increasing profits for legal consulting firms without any benefits for users and creditors.