Zilliqa CEO steps down two months after X-Bridge exploit

Zilliqa CEO Matt Dyer steps down as the team focuses on delivering Zilliqa 2.0 following recent bridge recovery efforts.

Matt Dyer has stepped down as chief executive officer of Zilliqa Technology, the company announced, as the project moves toward a key transition to its upgraded Zilliqa 2.0 network.

In an X post on Tuesday, the company said that during the interim period, “internal leadership will oversee daily operations as we progress toward the migration to Zilliqa 2.0.” The Zilliqa team didn’t specify the reason for the leadership change but said a “long-term strategy for the company’s leadership” will be shared after the network’s transition.

“We extend our gratitude for his contributions and wish him success in his future endeavours.”

Zilliqa

Dyer’s exit follows a difficult period for the company. In early February, Zilliqa identified a critical exploit on X-Bridge, a cross-chain bridge for transferring assets between BNB Chain and Ethereum. The exploit enabled the attacker to mint the Zilliqa-bridged versions of native currencies on Ethereum and BNB Chain without locking the corresponding amount of assets on these networks.

Zilliqa responded by shutting down the relayer, pausing token manager contracts, and deploying new zETH and zBNB contracts. While that incident didn’t crash the ZIL (ZIL) token price immediately, it still contributed to its decline, with the token now down over 90% from its 2021 all-time high, per data from crypto.news’ price tracking page.

Commenting on the latest transitionary move, the team said it remains focused on the network upgrade, adding that its “primary focus remains on the successful delivery of the enhanced Zilliqa 2.0 network, in alignment with our updated roadmap and timeline.”