Morph is an L2 incubated by Bitget and aims to be a competitor in the modular blockchain space.
But as Blockworks previously reported, it hits a series of road bumps and is now facing another shakeup, namely a CEO’s departure.
CEO Cecilia Hsueh told Blockworks that he was moving to the advisor role in Layer-2, which Bitget incubated.
Hsueh has yet to publicly announce her departure from blockchain startups, but she personally conveyed her leadership at the startup behind Bitget’s L2 and said she plans to step down in March this year.
“I spoke with Dragonfly on the first day I made this decision,” he told Ethdenver in late February. Dragonfly, who led the Morph seed round last year, declined to comment.
“I don’t want to do too much damage as I’m a Morph face. “In the last two months I haven’t been much involved in my daily routine.”
But she said that after the Blockworks investigation was published earlier this month, she only told employees about future changes.
Dozens of current and former employees spoke to Blockworks about Morph’s working environment, including alleged power struggles between Hsueh and co-founder Azeem Khan.
The source also told BlockWorks that he felt that Hsueh and Foresight Ventures partner Forest Bai were at the helm of Morph. Foresight is both Bitget’s venture arm and Morph’s investors. The Bai also functions as a block chair.
Blockworks previously reported that Bai was added to Slack in February before he came aside, and according to the Slack message Blockworks saw, employees were asked to add him to the ecosystem and marketing meetings.
For familiar people, Bai acts more than just an investor, with multiple people calling him “Shadow CEO.”
Morph, Hsueh will be led by Colin Goltra, formerly chief growth officer.. Bye will also remain as a consultant, she said. In addition to publishing the report, Hseuh said he had planned a formal announcement in June.
Hsueh said Goltra was a “great” successor.
“He has been in the field for over a decade, so he is even more experienced than me and he is very close to both the Asian and Western markets,” she told Blockworks.
Goltra said he joined Morph earlier this year.
“Their talent team, Dragonfly, stitched Cecilia, Morph and me together,” he said. “In late February, Cecilia decided to take a step back and do some kind of initiation… a transition of power.”
Since then, Goltra has been working with the BAI and other members of the leadership team to make the transition possible.
Goltra said Bai “doesn’t actually have a formal role” but has become “an important part of this transition.”
Hsueh said she will remain as Morph’s “outside advisor”, but revealed that her role is different from that of Bai’s consultant.
Goltra said Bai’s long-term goal was to “not get involved much in the future,” but added that he played a heavier role at Morph due to the transition.
According to Hsueh, Morph has a “stable team” that helped him make the decision to resign after experiencing sleep-related “health issues.”
As for Morph’s future, Goltra wants to continue focusing on Consumer Crypto, but wants to be more specific with the L2 approach.
“I think our first approach to that is on-chain consumer finance,” he explained. “Stablecoins… it’s been a while. We’ve added a lot of defi. We really want to play big on the pay.”
When he took on the CEO role, Goltra said he spent the last few quarters focusing on what consumer code means and in the direction he thinks Morph will make him more successful.
They plan to focus not only on Asia, but also on the US. The team believes, “We want to expand that into a global mission that is even more global, but for now Asia and us are our best.”
Goltra declined to comment on the timing of the token launch, but told BlockWorks that it was looking at “Moon to Moon.”
The team is currently not trying to raise Series A. “We reserve the right to do so at some point,” but for now it is not the focus of the L2.
