Tech giant Alibaba announces crypto-friendly chair after Daniel Zhang steps down

Joe Tsai, the soon-to-be former executive vice president of China-based technology giant Alibaba, will replace Daniel Zhang as the company’s chairman.

In the June 20 announcement, Alibaba Said Zhang will step down as president and CEO of the company on September 10, after which he will continue to serve as president and CEO of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group. Tsai, through wealth manager Blue Pool Capital, has been behind investments in several crypto firms, including FTX, Polygon’s $450 million funding round in February, and Web3 firm Artifact Labs.

i like crypto

– Joe Tsai (@joetsai1999) December 28, 2021

Eddie Yongming Wu, chairman of Taobao and Tmall Group, will follow Zhang as Alibaba’s CEO as well as replace him on the company’s board of directors. Alibaba is one of the world’s largest companies with a market capitalization of over $225 billion at the time of publication, behind China-based firms Tencent, Kweichow Moutai and ICBC.

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

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China has had a mixed relationship with crypto and blockchain. The country was infamous for cracking down on mining firms in 2021, leading to an exodus of companies to other jurisdictions, but it is also pushing ahead with testing a digital yuan through the People’s Bank of China.

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

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