Ahmad Shadid, one of the founders of io.net, left the position "effective immediately" but said it was not related to allegations about his past.
Solana-based decentralized infrastructure provider io.net, which allows users to rent their GPU power in exchange for money, replaced its CEO two days before the project's token launch.
Ahmad Shadid, one of the founders of io.net, left his position “effective immediately” and was replaced by the co-founder and former COO; Tory Green.
The Solana-based AI project adds GPU offerings to create a network that machine learning startups can leverage to access computing power at a fraction of the cost compared to the traditional cloud.
"While there have been allegations about my past, I want to emphasize that I am stepping down as CEO to allow io.net to move forward without distractions and focus on its growth and success," Shadid posted on X on June 9.
Shadid did not directly address those “allegations,” although critics believe he had misled the community about how many GPU chips io.net actually offers.
The network also suffered a GPU metadata attack on April 28, causing the number of active GPU connections to temporarily drop from 600,000 to 10,000.
io.net token launch
The io.net token, IO, is scheduled to launch on the Binance Launchpool on June 11 at 12:00 am UTC. 95,000,000 IO tokens will be released, and a maximum supply of 800,000,000 IO tokens will be able to enter circulation.
The timing of Shadid's departure sparked concern that Shadid could “sell” his IO coins at launch and “disappear.”
“It's as suspicious as the DePIN thing,” industry commentator badenglishtea told his 15,300 followers on X.
But Shadid responded to the accusation, stating that his IO tokens are subject to a 4-year lock and that no investor, advisor or team member can sell his monthly tokens acquired until June 2025.
Shadid also said he would personally contribute one million IO tokens to the firm's GPU Internet Foundation to “help grow the ecosystem.”
The outgoing CEO did not explain whether he would remain connected to the io.net ecosystem. Cointelegraph contacted io.net but did not receive an immediate response.
More changes to io.net leadership will be announced in the “coming days,” too, according to new CEO Green.
Green said the token launch “marks the beginning of a new phase of growth for the network.”
“We remain steadfast in our mission to build the world's largest decentralized AI computing network and expect to focus heavily on acquiring and retaining suppliers and onboarding new customers.”
Io.net has onboarded approximately 20,000 cluster-ready GPUs and is offering end-to-end AI inference and model training workloads to several AI-focused companies, Green explained.
