The post Digital Currency Group boss Barry Silbert out as Grayscale chair appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.

Barry Silbert is out as chairman of Grayscale Investments, the latest blow in the downward spiral of the once mighty Digital Currency Group (DCG) founder. In a December 26 filing, Grayscale informed the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that Silbert and DCG president Mark Murphy had resigned their seats on Grayscale’s board of directors. As of January 1, Silbert’s role as Grayscale chairman will be filled by Mark Shifke, a financial services veteran who currently serves as DCG’s chief financial officer. Grayscale also announced the appointment of two new board members: DCG’s senior VP of operations, Matt Kummell, and Grayscale CFO Edward McGee. Silbert has so far said nothing publicly regarding the motives behind his decision to resign, including whether he jumped or was pushed out the window. But the news came the same day Grayscale filed an amended version of its application to convert its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) into a spot-based exchange traded fund (ETF). The two Grayscale filings on Boxing Day followed a flurry of meetings between the company and SEC representatives in recent weeks. It’s unclear whether the SEC put the squeeze on Grayscale to purge Silbert from its ranks as a precondition for consideration of its latest ETF application. But given the hits that Silbert’s reputation has taken over the past couple of years, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility. In October, New York Attorney General Letitia James charged Silbert, DCG, DCG’s bankrupt digital asset lender Genesis Global Capital, and the Gemini digital asset exchange with defrauding 230,000 investors out of $1.1 billion. The charges came following the early 2022 collapse of ‘crypto’ hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC), to which Genesis had lent hundreds of millions of dollars of its customers’ funds. Genesis was also loaning hundreds of millions to its parent company, DCG, that the latter firm couldn’t repay when 3AC’s collapse put a major squeeze on Genesis.…

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Filed under: News - @ December 28, 2023 3:12 pm