Giorgio Zinetti, the Chief Technology Officer of the Cardano Foundation, announced on August 10 that he will leave the organization at the end of August, after 2.5 years in the role. Zinetti shared the news on X, stating he was proud of the team’s achievements and planned a new venture in September after a brief break to welcome his daughter.
He joined the Foundation in 2024, spearheading technical efforts to scale enterprise adoption. The Foundation confirmed the departure in a separate X post, noting that no replacement has been named. The board and executive team pledged to work closely with senior technical and business development leaders to maintain the enterprise focus, stating: “In line with our current roadmap, The Foundation Board and Executive team continues to work closely with our technical and senior business development leaders to maintain a direct focus on enterprise adoption.”
In a related development, Emurgo – one of the three founding entities behind Cardano alongside the Foundation and IOG – announced in July it would step down from the governance group following an exploit of its wallet SecondFi that resulted in a $2.4 million ADA loss. Cardano sits as the 29th-largest chain by total value locked ($69.62 million across 69 DeFi protocols), with ADA trading at $0.1961 and a $7.16 billion market cap at the time of reporting.
