Join local innovators for a talk on how cryptocurrency and blockchain technology are transforming the financial industry at the Friday Coffee Meetup, a weekly speaker series presented by Echo-Factory and Innovate Pasadena in Old Pasadena.
This week’s Meetup drills down into decentralized finance, a financial technology which uses cryptocurrency and blockchain technology to manage financial transactions – and the developments surrounding the new financial paradigm.
Robert Mowry, who teaches in the Blockchain Technology Management Certificate Program at UCLA, and a partner at the FinTech management consultancy Rekt Tech, and a partner at the Altcoin Accelerator, will be the speaker for the event entitled “Friction in Finance: Open & Closed Blockchains’ Walled Garden War.”
The in-person event will be held this Friday, March 3, from 8:30- 10 a.m. in FoundrSpace Coworking at 87 N. Raymond Ave.
One of the unique attributes of decentralized finance is “trustless technology” that allows anonymous counterparties to be accountable to one another, minimizing counterparty risk but over the years, permissioned and private blockchain technologies, which allow for more security and privacy have increased.
“The talk will focus on how there are divergent paths in decentralized finance,” said Mowry about the upcoming discussion.
He continued: “One embraces trustless technology, essentially smart contracts that allow you to trade with opaque counterparties, and faces the world. The other uses a closed blockchain where all counterparties are known and have validated who they are and their trustworthiness using Know Your Customer (KYC) & Anti-Money Laundering (AML) standards.”
“The friction is that those open protocols largely want these closed protocols to not operate behind a walled garden and play with everyone else. Those preferring a closed blockchain prefer to mitigate their exposure and trading partners to prevent potential conflicts.”
Mowry said there is an appetite for both closed and open blockchains.
“The FTX situation and fall of so many centralized exchanges and financial enterprises have shown that centralization is not ideal and loathsome to decentralization purists. That said, it’s difficult to navigate an ownership structure where a few project participants don’t enjoy broad, authoritative control.”
“Horizontal organizations are difficult to architect, but the potential to disrupt the traditional vertical organizational structure and deliver greater value to all participants to a company’s success is an exercise worth doing.”
Mowry said the upcoming event is ideal for those interested in how the country’s financial infrastructure is being upgraded and how economies are being connected using distributed ledger technologies.
Presented by Echo-Factory and Innovate Pasadena, FMC is a weekly speaker series that features local innovators and provides the community an inside look on the innovation happening in the city.
To attend the upcoming event, sign up through: https://www.meetup.com/innovation-friday-coffee-meetup/events/291544641/
