Anthony Di Iorio, the founder of the Bitcoin Alliance of Canada (BAC), has resigned from its position as Executive Director and member of the Board to focus on his businesses. He will continue to help support the organization in an advisory position.

"I believe I've done my share of community building over the past 2 years with the BAC and doing the weekly Toronto Bitcoin Meetups, which I'll be continuing," said Di Iorio in a conversation with Cointelegraph.

In 2012, Di Iorio founded the Bitcoin Alliance of Canada, a non-profit organization "dedicated to raising awareness of Bitcoin among Canadian consumers, merchants and policy makers." Di Iorio widely contributed to the growth of Canada's Bitcoin community, notably through the founding of the Alliance, as well as the Toronto Bitcoin Meetup. He was also responsible for successfully organizing Canada's first Bitcoin conference, Bitcoin Expo 2014, which occurred last April in Toronto.

Going back through his achievements at the BAC, Di Iorio stated:

"My greatest accomplishment was organizing and funding the Bitcoin Expo 2014 earlier this year, with 100% of the profits going back to the Alliance. We raised 80 BTC for the Alliance. These funds will be very useful in spreading Bitcoin awareness throughout Canada."

After two years of devotion, Di Iorio has stepped down from his position as Executive Director and member of the Board at the BAC light-hearted, but still with a small regret:

"I would have liked to have represented the BAC in front of the Canadian senate, however it just wasn't in the cards. Aside from that, no regrets."

Di Iorio's resignation let the BAC board to appoint Kyle Kemper as interim Executive Director. "I know [Kyle Kemper] is passionate about the space and will fill the role until a permanent [Executive Director] is selected," commented Di Iorio.

Kemper has served as a board member since April 2014 and has a background in business, finance, technology, and politics. He is known in the crypto space notably through his work at the Bitcoin Strategy Group, and at Canada's first and leading Bitcoin exchange, the Canadian Virtual Exchange (CAVIRTEX).

Commenting on his recent appointment, Kemper stated in a release:

"I am honoured to accept this appointment. Anthony Di Iorio was a great leader and will be missed; the Alliance thanks him for his tireless efforts. Moving forward, I hope to continue growing our membership while promoting bitcoin across Canada. The bitcoin ecosystem evolves dynamically and I think it’s important that we, as an Alliance, focus our efforts to maximize this opportunity."

Focus on Decental, Ethereum and KryptoKit

Di Iorio said the main reason behind his resignation was to focus on his priority projects: "The time has come for me to focus on my businesses and my personal brand and I expect 2015 to be a big year for Decentral, KryptoKit, and Ethereum," he stated.

Founded in 2013 by Di Iorio and Steven Dakh, KryptoKit is a Toronto-based company specializing in encryption and digital currencies aiming to provide secure, easy-to-use and frictionless hardware and software solutions.

Di Iorio said he had bought out his partner and now owns 100% of the company. "[I] will be ramping up the development," he said. "Our hardware wallet will be announced soon, along with the launch of our iPhone and android apps and redesign of the [KryptoKit] extension."

In January 2014, Di Iorio launched Decentral, a co-working and incubator space dedicated to decentralized technologies. The organization offers many resources to the companies working out of Decentral, including legal, accounting, administrative, UI/UE, security and more. It also provides a mentor network that assists these companies. This network counts among its mentors Ethereum and Bitcoin Magazine's Vitalik Buterin, security expert Andreas Antonopoulos, BitPay's Tony Gallippi and the Bitcoin Foundation's Brock Pierce. So far, several dozen startups have applied for Decentral's incubator program, said Di Iorio, but they have only selected a few, he added.

For this coming year, Di Iorio will allocate a prominent part of his time to Ethereum, notably in the first quarter, as the expected date of the launch is at the end of March, he concluded. 

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