DeFiance Capital exec departs to join blockchain project Chromia

Arthur Cheong-led crypto investment firm DeFiance Capital is losing its head of portfolio growth, Yeou Jie Goh.

Goh resigned from DeFiance last week and is set to join the blockchain project Chromia CHR +4.86% as its head of the Asia Pacific region next month, Goh told The Block. He worked for DeFiance for over two years.

Cheong confirmed Goh's departure to The Block, saying that he is leaving "to pursue opportunities in the project building side, something he's interested in given his experience working with our portfolio companies."

Chromia co-founder Or Perelman also confirmed Goh's appointment, saying that his "experience and industry acumen" will help position Chromia for "continued success" as it prepares for the mainnet launch next year.

Goh departing DeFiance

Goh's departure comes as DeFiance has been locked in a legal dispute with Teneo — the liquidators of the now-bankrupt crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital — for over $140 million worth of assets.

DeFiance was affected by 3AC's collapse as it operated as a "sub-fund and share class" of 3AC. Teneo claims that DeFiance's assets should be held as part of the 3AC estate and distributed to creditors. Meanwhile, DeFiance says that the assets should be treated separately and returned to its own investors.

Emerging from the shadows of its 3AC setbacks, DeFiance earlier this year raised a portion of a new $100 million liquid token fund. Shortly after Goh resigned, Cheong announced a job opening for a portfolio management and investment associate at DeFiance.

Goh joining Chromia

Chromia is developing a blockchain network with its proprietary programming language called Rell which draws from the widely known web2 language SQL and aims to help developers easily build web3 applications.

"Chromia is developing the first-ever relational feeless (no transaction fees for end users) modular blockchain," Perelman said. The Rell smart contract language is "very similar to SQL, just seven times more compact," he added.

Chromia is a project of ChromaWay, a Swedish blockchain startup founded in 2014, which initially developed an enterprise blockchain platform called Postchain. Chromia is based on the Postchain framework.

Even before Postchain, ChromaWay's founders — Perelman, Alex Mizrahi, Iddo Bentov, and Henrik Hjelte — built Colored Coins, an open-source protocol that allows issuing tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin was also involved in the Colored Coins project before he worked on Ethereum.

Mizrahi, Perelman, and Hjelte then moved to found Chromia in 2018, and the network has been under development since then. Once launched, Chromia can be used as a Layer 1 or an Ethereum Layer 2 network, according to its website. Chromia expects to launch its mainnet next year.

Chromia's token CHR is already listed on top crypto exchanges, including Binance and Kraken. Currently, CHR is an ERC20 token, but when the Chromia mainnet is launched, there will be a transition from an ERC20 token to a native one, according to Chromia's website.

As Chromia's APAC head, Goh looks to grow its ecosystem by creating awareness of the project and attracting more developers and users to it, he said.