Interview with Bill Barhydt (CEO, Abra) - Speaker at Global Blockchain Conference April 2018 Posted on : Mar 13 - 2018

We feature speakers at Global Blockchain Conference - April 2 - 4 2018 - Santaclara - CA to catch up and find out what he or she is working on now and what's coming next. This week we're talking to Bill Barhydt (CEO, Abra) Topic - "Unlocking The Power Of Bitcoin"

Interview with Bill Barhydt

1. Tell us about yourself and your background.

My background is in consumer Internet and mobile payments technologies.  I’ve worked for over 25 years in the industry with companies including Abra, Netscape, Goldman Sachs, and Sennari.

2.  What have you been working on recently?

At Abra we are building the world’s easiest to use crypto investing platform. We want to make crypto currencies accessible to every day retail investors and that is my focus right now.

I have been investing-in and advising companies in the bitcoin and crypto space for almost 7 years now.

3. Tell me about the right tool you used recently to solve customer problem?

We use bitcoin based smart contracts to facilitate ETF style investing in myriad crypto assets. I believe it’s a fantastic and completely underutilized tool that Abra is the first to fully exploit.  This solves the problem of giving consumers access to invest in dozens of cryptos without having to resort to sketchy trading sites with no support and impossible to understand UI’s!

4. Where are we now today in terms of the state of Blockchain, and where do you think we’ll go over the next five years?

Bitcoin is the convergence of four technologies:

Cryptography, P2P Networking, Blockchain and Proof of Work. 

Blockchain is just one of those technologies and there can be no blockchain without bitcoin or other crypto assets.  The idea that the opposite is true is simply a fallacy and a complete misunderstanding within the broader crypto industry.

That having been said our industry is in its infancy and I’m excited about next gen technologies that will enable further scaling of transaction throughput and security of people’s digital assets.

5. You’ve already hired Y number of  people approximately. What would be your pitch to folks out there to join your Organization? Why does your organization matter in the world?

Anyone excited about the promise of cryptocurrencies to facilitate global financial inclusion should be excited about Abra.  Abra is totally unique in our application of cryptocurrency and smart contract technologies to facilitate next generation investment, banking and payment services.

6. What are some of the best takeaways that the attendees can have from your talk?

I can think of 3 key takeaways: 1) An understanding of how cryptocurrency investing is going to work for every day retail investors (not traders,) 2) An understanding of how decentralized investing technology, e.g. smart contracts can be used to create new investment product completely impossible before crypto, 3) what’s next in the world of bitcoin and crypto currencies.

7. What are the top 5 Blockchain Use cases in enterprises?

I don’t know any.

8. Which company do you think is winning the global Blockchain race?

Abra.

9. Any closing remarks

Bitcoin, Ethereum and cryptocurrency technologies in general are unleashing a new wave of payment, investment and financial engineering applications that are about to transform global banking.  Speculation provides the liquidity but it is the technology that will drive global change.