Ryan X Charles has been let go from his post as digital currency engineer on social platform Reddit.
Ryan Charles, the former cryptocurrency engineer hired by Reddit to work on a digital currency for the front page of the Internet, has been let go from his post. Charles announced the news in a Reddit post today:
“I have complete confidence in the new leadership, but cryptocurrency is no longer in their plans. This is not surprising, because they basically have their hands full with all sorts of other stuff.”
Besides, his Thursday tweet shows a change of heart by Reddit regarding digital currency, which he said “is not a part of reddit’s near-term plans.” Charles called the decision “unfortunate but understandable.”
Looking back, Ryan Charles left his job as lead developer at BitPay after being contacted by Reddit’s former CEO Yishan Wong. He explained that his motivations for leaving BitPay were to join up as the world’s first digital currency engineer:
“I was won-over by the then-CEO Yishan, who had an awesome vision for the future of reddit, including cryptocurrency as the financial system of the internet city that is reddit. However, Yishan suddenly and unexpectedly resigned his position a month or two later, probably due to exhaustion.”
The developer said that he is “fairly confident cryptocurrency will return to Reddit in the coming years”, but it will “have to wait a while for things to calm down” – a reference to the company’s current situation after the sudden departure of CEO Yishan Wong.
Charles wished “the best of luck” to “everyone who will get to witness the new era of reddit from the inside”. He concluded saying that it had been “cool to be part of the historic front-page of the Internet, at least for a while”.
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