Tory Green posted on X on June 9, 2024, that he was stepping into the chief executive role at io.net "effective immediately"1. The Block reported on June 9, 2024, that Green, io.net's co-founder and former chief operating officer, was replacing Ahmad Shadid, who had announced his own departure from the CEO role that same Sunday2. That handoff landed two days before io.net's $IO token launch on June 11, 2024.
Three leadership moves at io.net on the record since 2024
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 |
|---|---|
| June 9, 2024 | Green became CEO. Tory Green was named Chief Executive Officer of io.net |
| April 23, 2025 | Green left as CEO. Tory Green left as Chief Executive Officer of io.net |
| April 23, 2025 | Sharma became CEO. Gaurav Sharma was named Chief Executive Officer of io.net |
26 CEO appointments on the record in 2024
CEO appointments CryptoLately has verified, by year; 2026 through Oct. 2, 2026
- 2024: 26
- 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 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
Shadid tied his exit to allegations about his past, which he left unspecified in the statement The Block quoted. “While there have been allegations regarding my past, I want to emphasize that I am stepping down as CEO to allow io.net move forward without distraction and to focus on its growth and success,” Shadid wrote, according to The Block2. The outlet reported that io.net “has faced pointed criticism from rivals in the DePIN space over the past months regarding whether the service truly offered as many GPU chips as it claimed”. Shadid also addressed his own financial stake, pointing to the four-year lockup and vesting schedule that governs his token allocation. “I have 4 years lockup + vesting, no investor, advisor or team member gets his monthly vested tokens before 2025/June,” he wrote in a reply on X cited by The Block.
Green's own post framed the move as continuity rather than a reset. “Going forward, we will continue to execute on the vision that Ahmad set forth when he founded io.net - to become the world's largest AI compute network and bring AI to the world,” Green wrote1. He said io.net had onboarded "approximately 20K cluster-ready GPUs" by June 9, 2024, and was serving AI companies including WonderAI, Krea and Leonardo.
Before and after at io.net
Green described six months of groundwork ahead of the switch. “For the last 6 months, I have worked closely with Ahmad, the io.net team, and our incredible roster of backers to streamline the day to day operations of io.net as the COO,” he wrote1. The Block credited Green with the same prior title, "co-founder and former COO," taking over the top job from Shadid2. Green wrote that operations had "been transitioned to the leadership team under my oversight," with further leadership changes to follow "over the coming days".
What came next
Green held the role for less than a year. io.net announced on April 23, 2025, that Green would move to chair the io.net Foundation, while Gaurav Sharma, the company's chief technology officer, became chief executive3. The release credited Sharma with building "the technical force behind the company's decentralised cloud platform" and said he would "continue to lead the company's rapid growth and product innovation".
Sources
- Tory Green, post announcing his appointment as io.net chief executive, X, June 9, 2024, https://x.com/MTorygreen/status/1799779461665263983
- Zack Abrams, "Io.net CEO Ahmad Shadid steps down from CEO role days before token launch," The Block, June 9, 2024, https://www.theblock.co/post/299182/io-net-ceo-ahmad-shadid-steps-down-from-ceo-role-days-before-token-launch
- io.net, "io.net Co-founder Tory Green Appointed as Chair of io.net Foundation; Gaurav Sharma Appointed CEO to Drive Next Phase of Growth," Chainwire, April 23, 2025, https://chainwire.org/2025/04/23/io-net-co-founder-tory-green-appointed-as-chair-of-io-net-foundation-gaurav-sharma-appointed-ceo-to-drive-next-phase-of-growth/