Varun Paul Becomes New Director of CBDC at Fireblocks

Fireblocks, a digital asset and crypto technology provider Technology Provider A technology provider is an individual, company, or entity that creates, render services and sells software applications or hardware. Currently, there are four types of tech providers which are as followed:Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) – Functioning as a subscription-based licensing and delivery model, SaaS is centrally hosted and may also be referred to as on-demand software. Tech Hardware – Powerful tech providers such as Apple, Oculus Rift, FitBit, and Samsung are examples of tech hardware pro A technology provider is an individual, company, or entity that creates, render services and sells software applications or hardware. Currently, there are four types of tech providers which are as followed:Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) – Functioning as a subscription-based licensing and delivery model, SaaS is centrally hosted and may also be referred to as on-demand software. Tech Hardware – Powerful tech providers such as Apple, Oculus Rift, FitBit, and Samsung are examples of tech hardware pro Read this Term, announced on Tuesday that it had appointed Varun Paul as its new Central Banking Digital Currency (CBDC) and Market Infrastructure Director.

According to the press release, he is a former Head of Fintech at the Bank of England (BoE) and will report to Adam Livne, the Vice President and Head of Corporate Strategy at the company. Paul graduated from Cambridge University with a master’s degree in economics. Also, he held several roles during his time at the Bank of England, ultimately heading up its fintech hub and the future of finance initiatives.

“Varun brings a wealth of insight and experience from his tenure at the Bank of England that will be invaluable to our team as we engage and partner with leading central banks around the world. From CBDC developments to the tokenization of traditional financial assets, bridging digital assets and blockchain technologies to traditional institutions at scale will require strong working relationships with the central bank community. We are excited about Varun’s ability to help support the digital asset strategy of central banks and market infrastructures,” Levine pointed out.

As central banks and market infrastructures begin adopting digital asset and tokenization Tokenization Tokenization represents the process of substituting a sensitive data element with a non-sensitive equivalent, i.e. token, which bears no extrinsic or exploitable meaning or value. In essence, the rights to the ownership of an asset are converted into a digital token. Tokenization can be used to own an entire unit of an asset. For example, one token that represents the ownership of a piece of real estate or to split ownership of a single unity of an asset such as 200,000 tokens, each one represen Tokenization represents the process of substituting a sensitive data element with a non-sensitive equivalent, i.e. token, which bears no extrinsic or exploitable meaning or value. In essence, the rights to the ownership of an asset are converted into a digital token. Tokenization can be used to own an entire unit of an asset. For example, one token that represents the ownership of a piece of real estate or to split ownership of a single unity of an asset such as 200,000 tokens, each one represen Read this Term technologies, Paul will lead the company’s engagement with them. He will play a key role in educating key decision-makers about safe, scalable and secure ways to support digital assets and examining the potential benefits of permissioned DeFi and the secondary economy it enables.

“Fireblocks is the clear leader when it comes to providing secure, scalable technologies for digital asset and crypto-forward businesses. Financial innovation in CBDC, DeFi and tokenization is rapidly accelerating, and my new role at Fireblocks allows me the privilege and opportunity to work alongside some of the most forward-thinking organizations in the world as they prepare for one of the sector’s greatest transformations,” Paul highlighted.

FIS and Fireblocks

Last month, FIS announced that it partnered with Fireblocks. The aim of the partnership is to increase the adoption of cryptocurrencies by capital markets institutions. FIS has over 6,000 clients at the time of writing.