Blockchain specialist nChain has appointed Bitcoin Foundation executive director Jon Matonis as vice president of corporate strategy.
Matonis (pictured) will support nChain's business growth by developing commercial relationships, and evaluating opportunities for strategic investments and acquisitions.
Matonis is widely recognised as a leading Bitcoin researcher and is a non-executive board director for several notable companies in the space. Since 2012, his technology and security writings have appeared in publications such as Forbes, CoinDesk, Bitcoin Magazine, American Banker, and PaymentsSource.
Matonis is also a founding director for the Bitcoin Foundation which served as the industry's first non-profit trade association originally chartered to provide financial compensation for voluntary protocol code developers and to promote the vision of Bitcoin worldwide. His career has also included senior roles with Sumitomo Bank, VISA International, VeriSign, and Hushmail.
Additionally, Matonis created the first and leading general price index for Bitcoin known as the Bitcoin Price Index (BPI), hosted the largest ever Bitcoin/blockchain conference to date in Amsterdam during 2014, and enlisted seven regional chapter offices to the Bitcoin Foundation from countries such as France, Germany, and Bangladesh.
Arthur Davis, director of nChain, says: "Jon was immediately attractive to nChain. During his notable career, he has consistently led the integration of financial services and cryptography. His work has included foreign currency trading for Visa International, financial platform sales for RSA's VeriSign – securing its first USD5 million in revenue – and end-to-end encrypted messaging for Hush Communications where as CEO he recruited PGP's Phil Zimmermann as Hushmail's chief cryptographer.
"Jon's philosophy for the Bitcoin protocol and network is fully in line with nChain's vision of on-chain scalability with decentralisation, advanced native scripting for the construction of smart contracts, and a dedicated move away from monolithic software.
"We are excited to have Jon's deep industry experience on our team, and look forward to working with him to achieve our vision for the Bitcoin blockchain."
Matonis says: "The resources and funding in place at nChain provide a unique opportunity to reshape the existing landscape of Bitcoin protocol influencers. It is imperative that we move towards a status quo where the actual protocol standard is separated from its primary reference implementation, similar to the existing architecture of the Linux kernel and its low-level abstraction layer."
nChain advocates for the formation of a neutral standards organisation to coordinate and manage the Bitcoin protocol and technical standards.
Matonis adds: "The gradual elimination of trusted third parties from our economic and legal infrastructures belies a serious and unprecedented reorganisation of many legacy social structures. The winners will be those select individuals and entities that finally liberate themselves from the current centralising, rent-seeking chokepoints. I am excited to work with nChain to support growth of the blockchain ecosystem for everyone's benefit."
