José Fernández da Ponte, a former head of Blockchain in Paypal, left the giant fintech, where he manages the roll-out of digital currency and stablecoins, to be the president and chief official of the Stellar Development Foundation growth official (SDF).
The foundation also said it appointed Jason Karsh, a former block and blockchain.com executive, as chief marketing officer.
Stellar Blockchain runs a cash on and off-ramp network through moneygram as well Tokenizing real world assets Includes partners including Franklin Templeton. But Back over for a decadeStellar remembers humanitarian missions such as improving financial integration in developing counties – a decision -making factor in his decision to move, Fernández da Ponte said.
“I believe blockchains are an artifact for a community of people working together in a decentralized way to fix problems,” he said in an interview. “And if the problem you are trying to work with is financial integration, which is the problem I am interested in, then there is no better place than Stellar to work with.”
Karsh, who also holds a position on the coinbase and security firm Blockaid, will include brand, products and ecosy system strategies to strengthen Stellar’s existence with developers, institutions and public.
“Stellar is not just another blockchain project; it’s financial infrastructure used daily institutions and individuals around the world,” Karsh said in a statement. “Our job is to accelerate adoption and use for each organization, builder and blockchain who cares about grade-grade security, transaction speed, and ease of programmability that builders expect.”
Fernández da Ponte, who worked for Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA)and McKinsey before Paypal, led the strategic launch of the Payment Firm’s Payment Firm.
Asked if he didn’t have a stomach to stay in the trenches for the next Stablecoin wars, Fernández Da Ponte said the move to Stellar was more about choosing to work on the infrastructure layer, making sure applications such as stablecoins could run in size.
“Stablecoin Wars will be interesting,” Fernández da Ponte said. “But we need to have technology primitives to make the stablecoins benefit, and that’s why working at the blockchain level is so important.”
Stellar’s Lumen (XLM) The token rose 38% this year, exceeding the CoinDesk 20 index, where it owned, added 27%.
