Image: © Rafael Henrique/Stock.adobe.com
Ben Chestnut, co-founder and CEO of Mailchimp for 21 years, also announced he is stepping down. He will be succeeded by Rania Succar.
Mailchimp has been suspending newsletter services for several businesses involved in crypto this week in an effort to crackdown on ‘risk’ associated with the accounts.
First reported by Decrypt, which has had its own four-year-old Mailchimp account suspended, the incident has affected other crypto businesses such as crypto intelligence company Messari and crypto asset management platform Edge, among others.
Jesse Friedland, founder of NFT collection Cryptoon Goonz, tweeted a screenshot of an account suspension email he received from Mailchimp informing him that “the risk associated with the account is too great for us to support sending”.
Banned by Mailchimp today.
Apparently there's too much "risk" servicing companies involved in crypto. Despite applying as an Apparel brand.
Extremely disappointing. pic.twitter.com/iFG7HQeZM4
— Jesse "🎲🎲" Friedland👺 (@JesseFriedland) August 5, 2022
“We cannot allow businesses involved in the sale, transaction, trading, exchange, storage, marketing or production of cryptocurrencies, virtual currencies and any digital assets,” it read, citing the email marketing company’s acceptable use policy.
Messari founder Ryan Selkis also took to Twitter to express his disappointment at Mailchimp’s sudden suspension of Messari’s account “for no reason”.
“Thank you for deplatforming some of crypto’s most reputable brands in the past 48 hours,” Selkis tweeted at Mailchimp. “You’re proving our point. Mailchimp – and all speech censors – must be destroyed.”
The company’s marketing lead Jared Ronis went on to add that apart from there being “zero warning”, Messari was unable to access its subscriber lists saved on Mailchimp.
“If Mailchimp’s management of crypto clients is this haphazard, I shiver to think of what enforcement looks like for actual nefarious actors,” he tweeted.
Selkis confirmed in a tweet update yesterday that there was “still no word” from Mailchimp after 48 hours of the Messari account being suspended.
48 hours and still no word from @Mailchimp.
They and @Intuit are complete scumbags. They've stolen tens of thousands of dollars from us during the highest ROI marketing period for Mainnet 2022. With no notice, reason, or response.
Mailchimp and all of Web2 must be destroyed.
— Ryan Selkis 🥷 (@twobitidiot) August 11, 2022
Mailchimp was acquired by financial software provider Intuit last September in a deal valued at $12bn. Founded in 2001 and based in Atlanta, it employed 1,200 people at the time.
The company was targeted in a hack in April to steal sensitive customer data. An unidentified group of hackers gained access to an internal customer support and account management tool after a successful social engineering attack on Mailchimp employees that saw credentials being compromised.
While the crypto crackdown continues, there has also been a shuffling of roles in the highest echelons of the company.
After 21 years as Mailchimp CEO, co-founder Ben Chestnut announced on Twitter that he is stepping down from his role and moving into a “founder-advisor” role. Rania Succar, who leads the QuickBooks Money team, will take over from Chestnut as the new Mailchimp CEO.
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