Tech giant Alibaba announces crypto-friendly chair following Daniel Zhang stepping down

Joe Tsai, the future former executive vice president of the China-based tech giant Alibaba, will replace Daniel Zhang as the company's president.

In a June 20 announcement, Alibaba saying Zhang would step down as the company's chairman and chief executive officer effective September 10, after which he will continue to serve as chairman and chief executive officer of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group. Tsai, through wealth manager Blue Pool Capital, has been behind investments in several crypto firms including FTX, Polygon's Round of funding of $450 million in February and the firm Web3 Artifact Labs.

i like crypto

—Joe Tsai (@joetsai1999) December 28, 2021

Eddie Yongming Wu, chairman of Taobao and Tmall Group, will succeed Zhang as Alibaba chief executive and replace him on the company's board of directors. Alibaba is one of the world's largest companies, with a market capitalization of more than $225 billion at press time, trailing Tencent, Kweichow Moutai, and ICBC among China-based companies.

“I look forward to working with Eddie to drive our next phase of growth through technology and innovation,” said Tsai.

Related: Tech giant Alibaba will launch the AI ​​of its competitor ChatGPT

China has had a mixed relationship with crypto and blockchain. The country was famous for cracking down on mining companies in 2021, prompting an exodus of companies to other jurisdictions, but it has also been pushing evidence of a digital yuan through the People's Bank of China.

However, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) appear to operate in a regulatory gray area in China. Alibaba started an NFT marketplace for copyright trading in 2021, as well as an NFT solution under its cloud business unit; the latter was removed without explanation shortly after its release.

Magazine: Chinese wave of ChatGPT rivals Alibaba goes multi-chain: Asia Express