Messari's CEO Gets the Boot, Staff Gets Trimmed, and AI Gets the Throne—Just Another Week in Crypto

Messari’s CTO Diran Li casually slid into the X timeline on Monday to announce that co-founder-turned-CEO Matt Turner is stepping down. Following some boardroom chatter, Li will now juggle the CEO crown, while Turner gets to hang around with the vague but comfortable title of "advisor."

Turner had only just grabbed the wheel in 2024, taking over from founder Ryan Selkis, who famously rage-quit the CEO role after a series of X posts that could charitably be described as "unfiltered."

The executive musical chairs came with a side of layoffs, because what's a crypto restructuring without a little headcount pruning? Messari's grand plan is to now rebrand as an "AI-first" shop, aiming to serve institutional clients with research and AI tools, presumably because "human-first" was getting too expensive.

Messari is just joining the latest industry trend of cutting jobs to find product-market fit. Last week, OP Labs, the brains behind Optimism, decided to "streamline" by showing roughly 20% of its team the door. This follows Block Inc.'s "strategic realignment" of nearly 4,000 people and Gemini's move to axe 25% of its crew to go all-in on the U.S., proving that even in crypto, the only constant is change—and occasional pink slips.

Founded during the last crypto winter in 2018, Messari has spent years building cred with its notoriously detailed blockchain reports, market data feeds, and its annual Mainnet conference in NYC, which is basically Coachella for people who think airdrops are a valid form of musical entertainment.