Blockchain payments business SatoshiPay has appointed a new chief executive officer.
Meinhard Benn, co-founder and current CEO, is changing his role to chairman to focus on guiding the company’s long-term vision, strategic networking and high-level community building.
Alexander Wilke, the company’s current chief operating officer, will take over the leading executive position.
SatoshiPay has developed a B2B cross-border money transfer service, DTransfer, and last year received a research and development grant from the Stellar Development Foundation to start development of the Pendulum network — a new second-layer blockchain that connects Stellar to the wider DeFi ecosystem by adding smart contract support and bridges to Ethereum and Polkadot.
Stellar is an open-source network for currencies and payments which processes more than six million operations daily and is widely used in the payments space and for asset tokenisation.
DTransfer is now being readied for its first Pendulum-based test money transfers and it is preparing transfer corridors with solid fiat stable coins in place.
Meanwhile, SatoshiPay has sent out an updated token launch strategy to Pendulum’s presale participants in which it advised that it has decided to become a parachain – a blockchain running on the decentralised node infrastructure of the Polkadot network.
Wilke is an entrepreneur and operations executive with more than 13 years’ industry experience leading technical and business teams focusing on payments, mobile and business intelligence.
As COO he has steered large parts of SatoshiPay, headed the strategic change in focus to cross-border payments via DTransfer and brokered large client projects, including Axel Springer and Börsenmedien.
Benn will continue to serve as a director in the group holding company, SatoshiPay Ltd, and, as a result, its current board structure will remain unchanged. He is the largest shareholder in the firm.
Former chief product officer, Dr Aaron Lindner, has become chief strategy officer with strong focus on Pendulum; Erasmus Hagen, who has been with SatoshiPay for more than six years, has been promoted to head of product with a strong focus on Pendulum; Tansel Inanc, who over the last three years oversaw the completion of several funding rounds, financial planning and investor relations, has become head of finance; Minh Thu Dang has been promoted to head of operations; and Daniel Kisluk is joining as the company’s first chief marketing officer.
“SatoshiPay has always been a team effort and I am very fortunate to have brought together such a talented and motivated group of pioneers, thinkers and creators. I fully trust the team to deliver on our mission of connecting the world through instant payments,” said Benn.
“It has been an adventure navigating SatoshiPay through an emerging industry, always pushing the boundaries of what is technically possible. With Pendulum we are now initiating the development of a novel blockchain – a new chapter for the whole company, which I am excited to be part of in my new role as chairman of the board.
“As a digital payments company, regulatory compliance and strict corporate governance is a strong focus for SatoshiPay. The resulting policies and procedures guarantee a smooth transition to our new management structure and prepare the company for the expected rapid growth.”