Tiantian Kullander, the influential co-founder of cryptocurrency company Amber Group, was found dead in his sleep last Wednesday (23 Nov 2022), the company confirmed. He was only 30 years old.
The company put out an obituary statement describing Kullander as a “respected thought leader and widely recognized pioneer for the industry”.
“His depth of knowledge, his willingness to collaborate and his desire to always help others benefited countless start-ups and individuals. His insights and creativity inspired many projects, people and communities,” it added.
The company also said that Kullander’s “legacy will live on and we will work even harder to make Amber the category-defining leader of our industry, as this was TT’s ambition and dream.”
Further details surrounding Kullander’s death were unavailable except that he died in his sleep.
Amber requests the public’s respect for the privacy of TT’s family during this difficult time.
Temasek invests in Amber Group
Nine months ago in February this year, Temasek Holdings was among the investors in a funding round that valued the cryptocurrency-trading platform Amber Group at US$3 billion.
A total of US$200 million was raised for the company but it wasn’t known how much Temasek had invested in the company.
Actually, the Amber Group was very keen to take up Temasek’s investment. It even extended its Series B funding round, originally announced in June last year, to this year specifically to bring Temasek on board as an investor.
“They (Temasek) are very strategic, so we made this special effort to bring them in,” a company spokesperson said.
With more investments, Amber wanted to do more hiring in Europe and the Americas.
Temasek has been actively dabbling in crypto investments lately. Two weeks ago, Temasek had just written off US$275 million due to a bad investment in the now-bankrupted cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
FTX is yet another crypto-trading platform touted to be the third-biggest crypto exchange in the world by trading volume. When FTX went bankrupt, Temasek blamed misplaced belief in the FTX founder for its failed investment
Later, Mdm Ho Ching, wife of Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, broke her silence over the US$275 write-off saying, “And Temasek can afford to be contrarian bcos it has its own balance sheet and can think long term.”
Kullander is the second young crypto whiz to shock the industry with his death in recent weeks.
Last month, 29-year-old Nikolas Mushegian, co-founder of the cryptocurrency lending platform MakerDAO and the decentralized Dai stablecoin, was found washed ashore on a Puerto Rican beach after an apparent drowning, just hours after tweeting about an alleged murder plot to take his life.
