The Magic Newton Foundation, a Cayman Islands foundation company, was formed in October 2024 to drive adoption, enable open development, and support decentralization of the Newton Protocol. It wholly owns two key operating subsidiaries: Magic Newton Foundry Ltd., responsible for token issuance, and Magic Newton Operations Ltd., which manages developmental and operational needs for the Protocol. Both subsidiaries are incorporated in the British Virgin Islands. 

The NEWT multifunctional utility token is issued by Magic Newton Foundry Ltd.  The Newton Protocol (including use of NEWT) is made available globally, excluding jurisdictions that are subject to international sanctions or other applicable legal restrictions as stated in the Magic Newton Operations Ltd.’s Terms of Use, accessible at newt.foundation.

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Foundation Management

Governance of the Magic Newton Foundation is overseen by a Board of Directors.

Mohammad Akhavannik serves as the Foundation’s Managing Director. He brings over a decade of experience across law, technology, and policy, with prior roles at Magic Labs, Meta, and top law firms including Latham & Watkins and Kirkland & Ellis. 

Jacobus Pietersen serves as Director of the Magic Newton Foundation and is a highly experienced independent director with over 14 years in the offshore financial services industry. He specializes in DAOs and foundation companies, and has served on the boards of several major Web3 organisations including Arbitrum Gaming, Kava, and Lido. Recognised as an early mover in the digital assets space, he has been instrumental in the development and governance of Cayman Islands structures for blockchain-based ventures. His prior experience includes launching and heading up the corporate Web3 practice at global offshore law firm Walkers, and senior roles at leading global firms such as KPMG, UBS, and MUFG where he developed deep expertise across traditional finance and digital assets.

David Jeong serves as Director of the Magic Newton Foundation. He is the CEO of Tread.fi, a company building distributed trading and lending infrastructure for digital assets. Prior to founding Tread.fi, David spent more than seven years at Morgan Stanley as a Vice President in Quantitative Research within the Institutional Equity Division. There, he specialized in algorithmic execution, transaction cost analysis, and execution consulting. David brings deep technical and ecosystem expertise at the intersection of traditional finance and decentralized trading systems.

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Role of Key Participants and Third Parties

Magic Labs is a key contributor to the development of the Newton Protocol. As an independent company contracted by the Magic Newton Foundation, Magic Labs assists with building and maintaining core protocol infrastructure and tooling, supporting the technical evolution of the ecosystem.  The engagement between the Foundation and Magic Labs is structured as an arm’s-length agreement at market rates, designed to ensure alignment with the Protocol’s long-term development goals. All payments made to Magic Labs under this agreement will be disclosed as part of the Foundation’s aggregate reporting on third-party service provider expenditures in its quarterly transparency reports, consistent with its broader commitment to accountability and openness.  

Founded in 2018, Magic Labs is a leading infrastructure company that invented embedded wallet technology and defined the modern Web3 onboarding experiences. The company has created over 50 million non-custodial wallets for a variety of clients and supports a global community of more than 200,000 developers, with 2M+ average monthly active wallets. Its tools are widely used to enable seamless and secure wallet integration across widely recognizable consumer-facing applications today. As a contributor to the Newton Protocol, Magic Labs brings deep technical expertise and a proven track record in blockchain infrastructure at scale.

The Foundation also receives strategic and operational support from Cayman based advisory firms and vendors that support crypto foundations on governance, operations, and ecosystem development in order to help design scalable structures and implement best practices. Their support helps the Foundation navigate key areas such as governance implementation, budgeting, and contributor coordination.

In addition, the Magic Newton Foundation works with a number of leading third-party service providers for institutional-grade custody for granted tokens and enforcement of contractual lockup schedules, ensuring the safekeeping and integrity of token allocations.