The leadership of the PayPal payment company announced the creation of an advisory board, which included industry experts in finance, blockchain and cryptocurrencies.
According to PayPal, the creation of the consortium is aimed at supporting the company’s current products and building a digital financial ecosystem. Board members include Fortress Investment Group CEO Peter Briger, Georgetown University Law Center Professor Chris Brummer, Weizmann Institute Professor Shafi Goldwasser, and former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Timothy Timothy Massad, Antoinette Schoar, Professor of Finance at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of Management, and Neha Narula, MIT Fellow.
All of these professionals have many years of experience with digital currencies and blockchain, so they can provide valuable advice to avoid possible problems with regulators. It is possible that the advisory group is aiming to expand PayPal’s activities in the cryptocurrency space.
Briger advised Softbank Group founder Masayoshi Son on investing in bitcoin before the 2017 bull market. Timothy Massad served as Chairman of the CFTC from 2014 to 2017. Since leaving office, he has urged regulators to approve bitcoin-pegged exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to increase transparency in the cryptocurrency industry. As for the MIT researchers, they started working with the blockchain as early as 2018, using it to build the CSAIL system to track police requests.
“We believe it is critical to engage with the best international experts in order to better understand the benefits of the industry and understand its challenges,” said Jose Fernandez da Ponte, Vice President and Head of Cryptocurrency at PayPal.
At the beginning of the year, it became known that PayPal was exploring the possibility of launching a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar.
