Cointems Chief Strategy Officer Meltem Demirors: US values ​​align with cryptocurrencies

Meltem Demirors seems to have a wide range.

She has been the Vice President of the Digital Currency Group (DCG), a member of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Blockchain Council, a consultant at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab, and a lecturer at the University of Oxford Business School. She even co-hosted a huge podcast with her friend and colleague Jill Carlson, although the show was suspended.

Today, Demirors holds the title of Chief Strategy Officer of CoinShares in most cases. CoinShares is a digital asset management company that provides financial products and services to professional investors. But she is also an investor, advising fintech startups such as Ocean Protocol and Shyft Network to help them start their business in emerging areas such as blockchain and cryptocurrency.

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Her personal website shows that she is "doing a goodwill prank" in the generally dull world of fintech. Cointelegraph had a simple interview with Demirors via email, and here is her answer.

What did you do before entering the cryptocurrency space? How did you learn about cryptocurrencies and blockchain?

Meltem Demirors: I have worked in oil and gas mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance. I heard about Bitcoin in 2012, when I worked as a corporate consultant for 100 hours a week and traveled 250 days a year. I never really considered myself a political figure, but the strong ideology of the early Bitcoin community resonated with me.

How did you join DCG in 2015?

Meltem Demirors: I was a graduate student and I decided not to return to an American company. I work with fintech startups in Boston and also complete my degree. Dan Elitzer is my co-founder of the MIT FinTech Club and he founded the MIT Bitcoin Club.

I think this is an interesting opportunity. I like this kind of ambition, so I thought, "Why not get involved?" In my career, I have never been a real adventurer, so it feels like a Asymmetric risk / reward bets, it will be interesting and inspired my thinking (unlike analyzing tables and looking for ways to improve capital efficiency), there are many characters, so I got involved. Can you explain your "goodwill prank"? Especially those related to future finance.

Meltem Demirors: I've always been a prankster-my friends and family have personally experienced my hobbies for entertainment and games. For a long time, finance has been constrained, become dull, very tedious, and the threshold is extremely high. For many people, finance feels boring, but I find finance is absolutely fascinating, and understanding it is essential, especially for young people.

My goal is to continue a spirit of adventure and ease as we build this new ecosystem of financial products and services. How important is the United States to be a leader in cryptocurrencies?

Meltem Demirors: The United States is still the place where people start and build companies, but it is a very challenging environment for entrepreneurs and innovators. It's not the regulator's job to pick winners and losers, and in the U.S. industry, sometimes it does.

Eventually, people, capital, and ideas flock to markets where they can thrive. I still believe that the American entrepreneurial ecosystem is unique and that American values—free speech, basic and inalienable rights, and free trade—are consistent with the values ​​of the crypto ecosystem. You recently participated in a round of financing of the unmanaged settlement agreement Arwen. What made you make such an investment decision?

Meltem Demirors: Arwen is part of the CoinShares philosophy, and when we no longer need trusted intermediaries, the market structure will change. Obviously, the cryptocurrency space is the first place where this happens, but it won't be the only one.

Arwen has established technology that enables point-to-point, direct, and two-way settlement, and can be executed at any location or exchange. In the past, exchanges were vertically integrated, meaning that execution, clearing and settlement took place on a single platform. With Arwen, the settlement layer will be removed, forming a settlement network driven by Arwen technology, and providing settlement guarantees and certainty similar to Bitcoin, while also allowing users to hold assets anytime, anywhere-whether On platforms such as exchanges, self-service hosting or third-party hosting solutions are also available. You and Jill Carlson co-hosted a great podcast section. What was the original intention of creating this section?

Meltem Demirors: Jill and I are old friends. We used to go skiing with friends Dan Held. We kept joking about the stupid topics in the blockchain. Dan suddenly said: "You know what annoys me (What Grinds My Gears, the name of this blog column) Are you really supposed to talk about it with an audience? "

Then we started thinking about it. At the first cryptocurrency conference I organized, I told Jill that we should try it, and everyone seemed to like it. This is where it comes from! Most of the time, only Jill and I are talking about what we think is interesting, which is what we are willing to do. We made 28 episodes and had a great time, but now we are going to take a break. From your perspective, in what ways can the cryptocurrency media improve?

Meltem Demirors: See WeChat. The devil is always in the details, and I feel that the cryptocurrency media is trying to get attention through eye-catching remarks, but fail to grasp the nuances. As a result, many things in this industry have been misunderstood or misrepresented, because the media is more concerned about eyeballs and click-through rates than the truth. It's a difficult balance, but subtle differences are important.

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