“We believe it is crucial to engage with the world’s best leaders to better understand the industry’s most compelling opportunities and complex challenges,” said José Fernández da Ponte.
Leading US payment processor PayPal has assembled a team of industry experts to act as advisors on crypto, blockchain, and digital currencies.
In an announcement Tuesday, PayPal said that adding six members to its Blockchain, Cryptocurrency and Digital Currency advisory board would help support its current and future products, as well as its goal of creating a more inclusive digital financial ecosystem. Fortress Investment Group Co-CEO Peter Briger, Georgetown University Law Center Professor Chris Brummer, Weizmann Institute of Science Professor Shafi Goldwasser, Former Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman, Timothy Massad, MIT Sloan School of Management Professor of Finance Antoinette Schoar, and the director of the MIT Digital Currency Initiative. Neha Narula will join the PayPal initiative.
“We believe it is crucial to engage with the world’s best leaders to better understand the most compelling opportunities and complex challenges in the industry,” said José Fernández da Ponte, senior vice president and general manager of blockchain, cryptocurrency and digital currencies at PayPal.
All six advisors have years of experience in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space from a business or regulatory perspective. Briger would have been responsible for advising Softbank Group founder Masayoshi Son to invest millions in Bitcoin (BTC) before the 2017 bull run. Goldwasser was part of a group of MIT researchers who proposed the zero-knowledge proof as an encryption scheme long before the advent. of cryptography.
During her time with the MIT Digital Currency Initiative, Narula was responsible for an initiative to help the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston build a digital currency intended to scale for consumer use. Brummer would have been a CFTC presidential candidate before President Joe Biden officially nominated Rostin Behnam. Massad, who served as CFTC chairman from 2014 to 2017, argued after leaving his post that regulators should approve an exchange-traded fund offering exposure to BTC.
It is unclear whether the advisory group is aiming to expand PayPal’s foray into cryptocurrencies and the blockchain. The payments app announced in October 2020 that it would allow US-based customers to purchase crypto through the platform, later expanding that offering to include crypto payments at millions of its global merchants. The company plans to launch its own stablecoin called PayPal Coin.