Around the Block: Maura O'Neill, Haas Lecturer & Distinguished Teaching Fellow

H@H: AtB Ep 1 - Professor Maura O'Neill chats with hosts Paulina Lee and Paul Bryzek to share her extensive expertise and knowledge in the Blockchain space, originating with her early work in mobile money payments as she served as Chief Innovation Officer under the Obama Administration. Listen as Professor O’Neill takes us on a journey through the web3 space, how geo-political events including the Russia-Ukraine escalation are impacting the future of blockchain.

Maura’s 3 Big Trends in Blockchain:

1. Supply Chain Transparency
2. Crypto: “Bitcoin is to crypto what the US dollar is to global financial markets.”
3. NFTs: “NFTs are the answer to the question, ‘how do we create new intellectual property protection schemes?’”

On why business school:

“You know what I'd encourage people, listeners, is I just knew in my gut, I didn't know why, but I knew that's where it should be. And I'd say it's the best decision I've ever made in my life.”

On being appointed by Obama as the first Chief Innovation Officer:

“The idea is the more stable and prosperous and fair and free, we can help other countries to be, and really build that capability, the less likely that we'll have failed states.”

On why the Fed is taking a strong look at Stablecoins:

“And I know we're having unprecedented inflation, but we're not having 10,000% inflation as they were in Venezuela, when their currency became completely worthless”