We asked buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry what they think about the industry … and put some random zingers to keep them on the lookout!
This week, our 6 questions go to Harumi Urata-Thompson, Celsius Chief Financial Officer and Chief Investment Officer
Harumi Urata-Thompson is Celsius’ chief financial officer and investment director. In addition, she is the founder of Hut Consulting and a former head of operations for the CFA Society New York, for which she completed a successful turnaround during her tenure. Urata-Thompson held several senior positions at Thomson Reuters and worked at Morgan Stanley and CitiGroup in investment banking. His experience is to lead and advise organizations on innovative paths to achieve strategic, operational and marketing success. In his busy work schedule, Harumi manages to find to talk about various topics of interest, including blockchain technology, cryptocurrency, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, Big Data, outer space, among others.
1 – When you tell people that you are in the blockchain industry, how do they react?
I get contrasting responses from two different groups of people. If they are already involved with the blockchain in one way or another and especially if they already know the company I work for, I get “this is so cool!” every time. From the other group, and unfortunately more people are in this group, I get a blank look, a question “what is Bitcoin for?” or even worse, “oh, and you support criminals”. Regarding the first group, I agree with them – I still wake up excited every day. For the second group, this can be addressed with education. Financial literacy, which includes cryptocurrency, is a big part of me; I am a career professional in financial services and holder of a CFA charter. I like to share my knowledge and experience, so, regardless of the location, I am invited to attend. I always like to do that.
two – What do you think will be the biggest trend in blockchain in the next 12 months?
I’m not sure if I can call this the “biggest trend” or even “trend” for that matter, and it certainly won’t be limited to the next 12 months, but questioning the blockchain use case, as we’ve already gone from the initial excitement of “what is blockchain. ” That or billions of dollars raised from ICOs have come and gone is definitely something that we absolutely have to examine closely as we go along.
I have been involved in the world of startups and product management for some time, and there is always a question that I have to ask myself: Whose problem am I (you) solving? The applicability of blockchain technology is endless. This is just a facilitator and was developed to meet the different needs of various sectors. I do not believe that we have ever heard the statement “it is definitely adopted by the masses”. So, what problem should we solve to provide us with the path of mass adoption? I like to approach this issue from the point of view of if I were to invest in a blockchain-based business in the next 12 months, what should I look for in the solution. First, let’s think about some of the problems that are preventing us from making these solutions based on conventional technology. Regulatory uncertainty. This is really something and without prejudice, if I am investing in a business, I will try to see if I can find a solution that does not have to deal with so many regulations or on the side of being able to influence or work with the regulators to avoid this problem. Performance. It is not yet what it can be and it will probably take a while, so I probably avoid solutions that require extremely fast transactions or requirements to settle millions of transactions at once. Blockchain is not the face of the solution. Unless we can find a way to use the “Intel Inside” blockchain, I am not going to choose a solution whose # 1 marketing point is “We are a blockchain company”. When I combine these thoughts, and again, if I’m investing in just one business at the moment, then I would choose a solution that solves a government problem – that is, on the regulator’s side – where we really have a known problem that can be solved. through taking advantage of the nature of the blockchain, such as immutability, transparency and security. How about we solve the problem where the government must send massive checks, such as stimulus checks, social benefits, tax credit, etc.? I would investigate this type of solution provider business. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we started to focus on the central bank’s digital currency recently, and talked a lot about the fintech blockchain [industries] is around this topic.
3 – What is the most unlikely thing to happen on your wish list?
“500 places to see before you die” has kind of become something. For me, the more places I go, the more places I add to the list, and I think my list could be 5,000, if not 50,000. Can I take a vacation or two a year, maybe? I try to “knock down” several places every time I leave, but my growing list makes it a bit of a challenge to make the “visit all the places I want to go” list very challenging. But I always accept the challenge, and my glass is always half full, so I’m sure I haven’t given up on the idea yet!
4 – What is the most innovative use case for blockchain you have ever seen? It may not be the most likely to succeed!
Diamond supply chain. For expensive products like diamonds (or this can be used in other jewels, vintage wines or works of art by famous artists from centuries ago), placing the origin and authenticity is extremely difficult, and the diamond in particular, that even jewelry amateurs how do I think where the “blood diamond” might be circulating in the economy, although I personally have no way of discovering it myself. This opaque supply chain, among other things, of course, prohibited diamonds from becoming an important commodity in the financial services industry or having more derivatives in addition to becoming someone’s necklace or ring. For the industry whose last innovation was to claim that “a diamond is forever” (and therefore your love should be, too, if you get involved with it), I think it was an incredible innovation to adopt this technology to connect the entire chain of supplying from mining to retail by creating a diamond fingerprint and a record and placing them on the blockchain. While I don’t have a strong opinion as to why the commodities market developed in this way, there is no reason to have a market for palladium, meteorology or, but not, for diamonds. Are gems difficult to have a solid price? None of these do. Didn’t regulators and financial professionals want to create a product from conflicting products? Blockchain can now resolve this. Although use may be limited to jewelry, there is a high demand for this jewelry. While the mass adoption of this technology has yet to be seen, this is an interesting development that I would love to address as we move forward.
5 – Why do your parents / other significant people / friends / children scold you? Feel free to offer more than one answer.
I like to work and do things. This means that there are times when I may be “disregarding” some of life’s needs, and probably my other person gets the worst of it. He’s the most patient on the planet, but at some point, he starts coming around trying to take out my laptop and stuff – as I write this, I put the dinner food on the table and still write it!
6 – What is the most silly conspiracy theory that exists … and which one stops you for a moment?
The earth is flat! If science isn’t at my side telling me otherwise, it looks flat, it looks flat, it smells flat, so why not ??? What makes me stop are things like Area 51. Do we really have something completely covered in this society?