HIVE Blockchain Technologies' board appointed Aydin Kilic president and chief executive officer on January 17, 20231. The company announced the move in a press release that day. Kilic had joined HIVE as president and chief operating officer in the summer of 2021. The release said the board always planned for Kilic to succeed Executive Chairman Frank Holmes as full-time chief executive. BCBusiness reported in 2024 that Kilic had guided HIVE through the Ethereum network's shift to proof of stake in September 2022 before he earned the top job2.
Four leadership moves at HIVE Digital Technologies on the record since 2018
Every move CryptoLately has verified there, by the day it became public
Moves: The Moves Ledger, CryptoLately's record of verified leadership moves, Oct. 3, 2016 to Oct. 2, 2026.
Read the chart as a table
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Nov. 20, 2018 | Daubaras became CFO. Darcy Daubaras was named Chief Financial Officer of HIVE Digital Technologies |
| Nov. 20, 2018 | Akker left as CFO. Jessica Van Den Akker left as Chief Financial Officer of HIVE Digital Technologies |
| Jan. 17, 2023 | Kilic became CEO. Aydin Kilic was named President and Chief Executive Officer of HIVE Digital Technologies |
| Jan. 17, 2023 | Holmes left as Interim CEO. Frank Holmes left as Interim Chief Executive Officer of HIVE Digital Technologies |
17 CEO appointments on the record in 2023
CEO appointments CryptoLately has verified, by year; 2026 through Oct. 2, 2026
- 2023: 17
- 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2024, 2025, 2026
Moves: The Moves Ledger, CryptoLately's record of verified leadership moves, Oct. 3, 2016 to Oct. 2, 2026.
Read the chart as a table
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 8 |
| 2020 | 7 |
| 2021 | 6 |
| 2022 | 18 |
| 2023 | 17 |
| 2024 | 26 |
| 2025 | 35 |
| 2026 | 18 |
The move
Holmes had served as interim chief executive before the handoff, and he explained it in the release. “Mr. Kilic was onboarded in the summer of 2021 as President & Chief Operating Officer of HIVE with the vision to replace me as the Interim Chief Executive Officer to be the full time Chief Executive Officer,” Holmes said1. “I can proudly state that Aydin has exceeded expectations and has proven himself to the Board of Directors, the employees under his leadership, shareholders and to myself that he has what it takes to provide senior executive leadership to HIVE.”
Kilic credited Holmes directly in his own statement. “Frank Holmes is a great mentor with invaluable experience and a highly respected innovative track record in the global capital markets, and I am grateful for the opportunity that Frank and the HIVE Board of Directors has provided me.”1
HIVE before and after
The release listed what HIVE did during Kilic's 18 months as chief operating officer. Bitcoin mining hashrate grew more than 200 percent, from 700 petahash per second in the summer of 2021 to 2.4 exahash by November 20221. The company also completed a 70-megawatt data center in New Brunswick. HIVE mined digital assets worth the equivalent of 4,572 Bitcoin during the 2022 calendar year, a 13 percent increase over 2021. That gain came even as Bitcoin's network difficulty rose 46 percent, the release said.
Holmes stayed on as Executive Chairman. Kilic reported to him on what the release called "the tactical execution of the Company's global strategies"1. His own approach to the mining business came through in his own words. “We believe that shareholders value the economies of efficiency, not just scale, as essential to flourish in Bitcoin mining,” he said.
What came next
HIVE's business changed direction within a year of Kilic's appointment. BCBusiness reported on June 24, 2024, that HIVE shifted its GPU fleet from mining alternative coins toward artificial intelligence computing in 20232. The shift followed a drop in daily earnings from that business, from $150,000 to $30,000, the outlet reported. “Imagine a business unit doing $55M USD of annual revenue suddenly ceasing to exist,” Kilic told BCBusiness, describing the end of Ethereum mining. "How do you survive? Innovation, of course." Eighteen months into his tenure as chief executive, Kilic told the outlet that AI revenues ran roughly five times higher than the lost Ethereum mining business. HIVE had grown its high-performance computing power tenfold over the prior year, he said.
Sources
- "HIVE Blockchain Announces Appointment of Aydin Kilic as Chief Executive Officer," HIVE Digital Technologies, January 17, 2023, https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/151526/HIVE-Blockchain-Announces-Appointment-of-Aydin-Kilic-as-Chief-Executive-Officer
- Jessica Kirby, "HIVE Digital Technologies President and CEO Aydin Kilic wants to drive the future of AI in Canada," BCBusiness, June 24, 2024, https://www.bcbusiness.ca/people/finance/aydin-kilic-hive-digital-technologies/