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Eva Kaili Offers Sprouts of Hope For Blockchain in Brussels

Eva kaili offers sprouts of hope for blockchain in brussels

Eva Kaili Offers Sprouts of Hope For Blockchain in Brussels

Eva kaili offers sprouts of hope for blockchain in brussels

Eva Kaili Offers Sprouts of Hope For Blockchain in Brussels

According to a recent company blog post, Ripple could have found an ally in Eva Kaili for regulatory clarity in the blockchain and cryptocurrency industries. At least in Europe.

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Ripple Regionals Conference Finds a Positive Response From the E.U.

Newly appointment member of the E.U. parliament, Greek politician Eva Kaili, has expressed an intention to provide the industry with accommodations that would help smooth blockchain adoption in Europe.

Her enthusiasm for blockchain has taken some in the establishment off-guard, and her presence at the recent Ripple Regionals conference in London was met with skepticism by industry representatives. But Kaili sent positive signals to the largely tech-related audience:

“I believed that if we were not positive, the resistance of the traditional players would only increase and could even kill a technology that had so much potential for good.”

Fewer Regulatory Barriers, Not More

This new positive approach to blockchain technology is a welcomed about-face. Institutional players in Europe, spanning banks and governments, had shown a reluctance toward the industry. Eva Kaili, however, has always been cut from a different cloth.

The Greek MEP has been at the forefront of efforts to bring a continent-wide regulatory approach to the sector for a number of years. Only last year, Kaili put forward a motion for a resolution for the European Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB) to examine both distributed ledger technology and virtual assets.

The language of her motion–the full text of which is beyond the scope of this article–is highly encouraging for blockchain enthusiasts. It calls on the commission to explore the opportunity to embrace blockchain insofar as:

“Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and blockchain can constitute a tool that promotes the empowerment of citizens by giving them the opportunity to control their own data and decide what data to share in the ledger, as well as the capacity to choose who else can see them… DLT is a general-purpose technology which can improve transaction cost efficiency by removing intermediaries and intermediation costs, as well as increasing transaction transparency, also reshaping value chains and improving organisational efficiency through trustworthy decentralisation.”

What About Crypto, Eva Kaili?

Kaili hasn’t left crypto out in the cold, either. She goes on to implore the ECB to:

“… provide feedback on the sources of volatility of cryptocurrencies, identify dangers for the public, and explore the possibilities of incorporating cryptocurrencies in the European payment system.”

Whichever direction the European Commission decides to take, the decision-making wheels grind slowly in Brussels, so it may be some time before a unified framework is adopted. Still, Eva Kaili clearly sees the benefits of the nascent technology, and Ripple could stand to benefit the most:

“Recently, I had to send €2,000 to my mother in Greece from my account in Brussels. She needed the money that day and I couldn’t use the bank because it would take three working days. If I could send it to her using RippleNet, she would immediately receive the payment.”

Have your say. Will the E.U. follow the leads of Switzerland and Singapore and develop comprehensive legal frameworks around blockchain and cryptocurrencies?


Images via Pixabay

Published at Sun, 10 Feb 2019 17:03:23 +0000

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An Interview With Kavita Gupta, ConsenSys’s Pick to Oversee Its New $50M Venture Fund

An Interview With Kavita Gupta, ConsenSys’s Pick to Oversee Its New $50M Venture Fund

ConsenSys, an Ethereum production studio based in Brooklyn, NY, is launching a $50 million venture arm, and it has picked Kavita Gupta to run it. Gupta’s job will be to oversee the new venture and help structure deals with the startups.

It is not uncommon for companies with investment capital to form their own investment arm. For the most part, the goal is to fund startups that could drive value for the parent company down the line. And, as a strategic investor, ConsenSys Ventures will be actively involved in developing startups from an early stage.

bitcoin Magazine spoke with Gupta on the phone earlier this week. She was in New York getting ready to dash off to San Francisco. ConsenSys has offices in Brooklyn and in San Francisco, and Gupta will be splitting her time between both of those offices.

She explained she will be working closely with Joseph Lubin, the founder of ConsenSys and one of the early founders of Ethereum. And, she added, naturally, ConsenSys Ventures will be looking to invest in Ethereum-based startups.

“We are looking at companies already, and we are going to deploy this as soon as we get green signals from a lawyer on the structure. Everything else is place,” said Gupta, who will be talking more about the fund at Women in STEM in San Francisco on Monday.

When asked about the overall goals of the venture, she responded, “I think, to Joe, being one of the co-founders of Ethereum, what really matters is how to basically accelerate this revolution. He wants the smartest entrepreneurs to create applications on it, to use it and start ingraining that work into our ecosystem to create companies.”

To that end, ConsenSys Ventures will be looking to invest in pre-seed, seed, and equity stage companies, she explained, adding that the fund will also be investing in pre-token sales, if the entrepreneurs decide to go the initial coin offering (ICOs) route.

Gupta described her role as overseeing the entire process while also being deeply involved with structuring deals. “Like any managing partner, I will be basically doing due diligence, looking at the companies, and structuring the deal. And, at the same time, making sure all the fiduciary duties are done,” she said. “With respect to making the decisions, it is going to be me and Joe working very closely.”

She indicated, finding good startups to invest in would not be an issue. “Once you are in ConsenSys, which is pretty much the center of the blockchain space, you don’t really have to go out looking for great companies,” she said, adding that the team was currently “looking deeply” at four to five startups, but nothing had been finalized yet.

She said she will leave the decision as to whether or not a startup should launch an ICO, up to the entrepreneurs themselves. “We help them create a business. We help them create an idea. I don’t think we are really pushing or saying that every company has to go for token sales. It makes sense for some companies, and for others, it doesn’t make sense. We want to support the entrepreneurs in whatever they do.”

Strategic funding is different than straight venture capital funding, she emphasized. “We want to believe that it is different than the traditional investment because it is sort of like a VC hedge fund. All of the companies are coming to you at a very early stage, and we want to be involved in shaping the company, with respect to business, operations, hiring, and how they are going to make money.”

As part of that, the ConsenSys Ventures will offer a range of support. “We also work as a strategic investor, helping you out both with respect to the technology solutions, because we have access to the ConsenSys ecosystem, and also to deliver the company, because a lot of people forget they have to deliver the company after that.”

She also pointed out that ConsenSys Ventures was part of a natural evolution. Two years ago, ConsenSys launched as a way to build out ideas on top of the Ethereum network. Earlier this year, ConsenSys launched ConsenSys Academy to start training engineers in how to do that work on their own. Now, ConsenSys Ventures is sort of a middle ground, offering support, but still letting entrepreneurs do their own thing.

“Now across the world, entrepreneurs are capable of building and designing — coding their own systems on Ethereum. They don’t necessarily need ConsenSys 100 percent, so how do we collaborate with them? I think Consensys Ventures is the best way to do it.”

A native of India, Gupta is a 2015 recipient of the U.N. Social Finance Innovator Award. In addition to working at the World Bank, where she headed the organization’s youth innovation fund, she has more than 10 years of experience in impact investment across a variety of companies, including McKinsey, HSBC and International Finance Corp.

She has worked in the U.S., the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. She most recently led mission investing for the family foundation of Alphabet Inc. executive Eric Schmidt.

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