Announcing the MELD Foundation as part of a reorganization

MELD has seen phenomenal growth over the past eight months with a breakneck speed in building our products, and our brand and developing strategic partnerships. With the recent successful launch of the MELD token, MELDapp, and MELD protocol the organization is shifting from business building to product development.

Now that the basic groundwork has been laid, MELD is pleased to announce the creation of the MELD Foundation which will be based in Zug Switzerland. The MELD Foundation will take full control of the MELD protocol and govern its development in the coming years. Moving the protocol into the foundation means that MELD development will be guided based on the best interests of the ecosystem. The MELD foundation will receive 100% of the ADA rewards generated by the ISPO and one billion MELD tokens.

Now that we have launched the base protocol the MELD team will be focusing all of its attention on product development and regulatory matters to realize the MELD offering of crypto-to-fiat lending and borrowing.

The MELD Labs board voted unanimously to create and fund the foundation with MELD tokens and the ADA rewards from the ISPO. This shows our commitment to using the ISPO rewards to build the protocol and develop the ecosystem in line with the current standards of crypto protocols.

As part of this reorganization and change in focus, we are announcing some senior staff changes in line with our new focus. First, we would like to welcome Andrew Klein as the new MELD CMO taking over for Lise Wessel. Andrew has more than 12 years of experience in digital marketing and five of those in crypto marketing working as Marketing Director for Bitpay and Nervos as well as consulting for all of the major blockchains such as Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche, and Polkadot. Andrew has been working with MELD since December and we are happy to welcome him on board with his wealth of knowledge and experience.

As part of this refocus, we are also announcing the appointment of Patrick Ramsauer as interim CFO. Patrick has been a Financial Advisor to MELD since its earliest inception and brings more than 20 years of finance experience. Patrick has been instrumental in working with Ken Olling on the financial regulatory side of the MELD protocol. The position is temporary because Patrick will take on a key role in the fiat side of the MELD business once the regulatory components are in place. Until then, he will help guide the finances, continue to advise MELD, and help find a permanent CFO.

Finally, we would like to welcome Joris Langewouters as the new MELD Partnership Manager. Joris has been a very early supporter of MELD and an ISPO participant. He has advised and supported Ken Olling in the development of many of the key MELD partnerships over the past several months. Joris is a well-known deal maker in the Cardano ecosystem and is respected in the crypto space. While the development of new partnerships will slow down as the focus moves to product development Joris will manage the existing partnership and make sure our ecosystem is healthy.

We will be removing the positions of Chief Commercial Officer and Chief Partnership Officer currently held by Thomas Tallis and Nicholas Collinson respectively. Thomas and Nick have done fantastic work on the private sale and partnership development in the startup phase of MELD’s life.

With this reorganization, MELD is demonstrating that we are committed to the long-term development of the MELD ecosystem through the MELD Foundation, our laser focus on product development, and our commitment to fulfilling the promises we have made to the Cardano community. Going forward, MELD is focused on developing a world-class DeFi protocol for lending and borrowing. To achieve this we are setting our sights on product development and product delivery over the next 12 months.

Update: This article at the time of writing had stated that the MELD Foundation will be based in Zug Switzerland. The MELD Foundation is based in the Cayman Islands.