(or How I came to be a blockchain blogger)
I love blockchain technology. I love it so much I quit my job leading a team of FX trading software developers at Credit Suisse to become the Asia business development director, for a venture capital funded bitcoin exchange called itBit (now Paxos). In 2015 I left itBit to spend more time studying and researching blockchains independently, and in 2016 I joined R3 as Director of Research in the Lab & Research Centre in Singapore. At R3 I was variously responsible for writing research reports and for our work on tokenised cash and financial assets, including central bank digital currencies. I’ve been recognised as one of Asia’s top 100 FinTech influencers for two years in a row. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The journey. I cut my teeth in business at OC&C Strategy Consultants in London. That’s where I learnt the ropes of consulting, something I put to good use running my own blockchain consulting business in 2015 and 2016. After exploring that for a while, a journey that took me from City offices to repairing container ships in a dockyard in Guangdong, I decided to have a go at banking. My first stop was market-making in foreign exchange as a G10 spot trader at Barclays Capital also in London, which turned out to be a fantastic foundation for understanding market dynamics. My next stop after Barclays Capital was Credit Suisse, where I translated between developer-speak and trader-speak to make sure that the software we developed was actually helpful to the people using it.
The challenge. So how did I end up leaving a nice stable job at a big bank for the wild west of bitcoin? It wasn’t an easy decision in 2013, as blockchain technology was very new and the only application of it was bitcoin. I had become mildly obsessed with bitcoin while at Credit Suisse and when the opportunity to attend a Singapore bitcoin conference arose, I took a day off and went. It was there I first met team at itBit (now Paxos), and the mild obsession turned into a career.
The obsession. Since that pivotal decision all those years ago (in bitcoin-years, which are a bit like dog-years), I have had a license to feed my obsession. I was a FinTech mentor at Startup Bootcamp FinTech and I was the founding President of ACCESS – the Association of Crypto Currency Enterprises and Startups, Singapore. And I get to write about blockchains all the time.
I still love blockchains. I have come to believe that distributed ledgers can make a difference and will impact how we do business across all industries. I now take everything I’ve learned about business, financial services, technology and blockchains and I distill it into something (hopefully) useful for you.
Bits on blocks strives for clear, practical articles that are accessible to business people.
Bits on blocks believes that blockchains and distributed ledger technology can make the world better.
Bits on blocks was launched in 2015 by Antony Lewis.
