CEO of Starknet Foundation Steps Down Amid Controversial Layer 2 Airdrop

Key Points:

• Diego Oliva, the first CEO of Starknet Foundation, is stepping down after establishing a strong team and structure.
• James Strudwick, currently Head of Ecosystem Growth, will succeed him as Executive Director.
• The Starknet community has faced criticism over the timing of the STRK token unlock and the criteria for the token airdrop.

Diego Oliva will be stepping down as the first CEO of Starknet Foundation (SNF) following a highly successful tenure during which he built a strong team and organizational structure.

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CEO of Starknet Foundation Diego Oliva to Step Down

Appointed in March of 2023, on Oliva’s watch, the foundation expanded from two part-time people to more than thirty full-time professional staff. His selection for this post was based on his long history as an entrepreneur and already established successes in scaling businesses.

Oliva leaves behind a foundation that is on the cusp of accelerating and growing. His replacement, James Strudwick, who joined SNF in January 2024 as head of ecosystem growth, will take over as Executive Director.

With years of experience in Web3, especially leading DeFi, L1, and L2 scaling projects, it would further inflate the growth and mainstream adoption of the Starknet ecosystem. Before being at Starknet, Strudwick founded Paradigm Securities and worked on popular crypto projects, including Alpaca Finance, Tezos, and Mina.

Oliva to Help Guide Leadership Transition as Strudwick Takes Post

The former CEO of Starknet Foundation will stay on for another month to ensure a smooth transition. The change at the top comes amidst some controversy in the Starknet community over the STRK token unlock timing and its market impact, in which 1.3 billion tokens are released to core contributors and investors, as well as dissatisfaction with the qualifications for the Starknet token airdrop.

Moreover, the sudden shutdown of the decentralized exchange ZKX, a protocol constructed on top of the Starknet, has raised criticism against its poor communication and lack of transparency among some big investors.