Success comes at a price, and the co-founder of the world's second largest cryptocurrency knows this too well. In a move that sent the cryptocurrency markets turning, Canadian entrepreneur and Ethereum co-founder Anthony Di Iorio is set to abandon the crypto world due to what he emphasized as "safety concerns" of his family, Markets Insider reported.
The billionaire said his high profile role as the "crypto guy" brought unwanted attention, stressing it was time to ditch the space.
Di Iorio told Bloomberg in an interview that he "got a risk profile that I am not too enthused about." As such, he doesn't "feel necessarily safe in the space" and said if he had been "focused on larger problems, I'd be safer."
Ethereum Price Plummets by 7.13 Percent Due to Anthony Di Iorio Exit
His decision caused the Ethereum value to plummet 7.13 percent Tuesday, according to Coindesk. Ethereum's price as of this writing is $1,789.35, a further 1.57 percent drop in the last 24 hours.
The 48-year-old crypto mogul also revealed in the interview that he would sell his blockchain venture, DeCentral, and instead concentrate on philanthropy and other meaningful projects outside crypto, Yahoo! Finance noted.
Decentral is a Toronto-based digital asset services firm offering the multi-blockchain wallet Jaxx Liberty, which has over 1 million customers.
Di Iorio, who said DeCentral is worth "hundreds of millions," expects to seal a huge deal in fiat money or equity, and not in crypto.
The entrepreneur, who Forbes listed as having a net worth of over $1 billion, indicated he will focus on such initiatives as Project Arrow, which is pushing for a zero-emission concept vehicle.
In 2014, Di Iorio created Ethereum along with seven others in a rented house they called "spaceship" in Switzerland. Co-founder Vitalik Buterin is the remaining founder working on the blockchain, which is valued with a market cap as of Wednesday at $209.13 billion, Coindesk further noted.
Ethereum Value's Incredible Rise Due to Use Cases
Due to its immense use cases, such as decentralized finance (DeFi) apps and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) trading on the blockchain, Ethereum skyrocketed by 1,000 percent this year and even reached $2,500 per token and near $300 billion market cap in June. Analysts also forecasted that it would even surpass Bitcoin in terms of value.
Trading volumes have risen 53 percent quarter-on-quarter to an average of $3.25 billion a day on crypto exchanges worldwide, Coinbase reported. During this period, Bitcoin fell 14 percent to $4.01 billion.
In his decision to abandon Ethereum, Di Iorio further said in the Bloomberg interview that he would just "incorporate crypto when needed, but a lot of times, it's not." He then emphasized that crypto is "just a small percentage of what the world needs."
Di lorio made headlines in 2018 when he purchased the largest and most expensive condos in Canada, per Yahoo! Finance. One of which is worth an estimated $22 million, which is a luxury penthouse at Toronto's St. Regis Residence. It was seen that such high-profile display of wealth led to concerns for his safety. He also travels with several security personnel surrounding him.
