Jamie

Yeah, it was around 2014 when I got involved into crypto.

I was sitting right next to someone who had a trading terminal up and I was like, what is that thing?

And they told me it was Bitcoin.

And that sort of shaped that one like pivotal moment, shaped the next 10, 11 years.

Wound up grabbing a couple of advanced degrees in quantitative finance in CompSci.

And it all sort of started to focus around consensus and natural language programming.

Then I started a company and an exchange that went really well in crypto.

And then four years ago, I joined Risk Labs.

I started as a front-end engineer, worked my way up to a senior full stack, and then ended with being the front-end lead of both UMA and Across.

That's also, as Manny mentioned, where we met each other.

And it was...

Really interesting perspective to see these large systems being like almost these Web2 high volume systems being applied to DeFi.

Really, really opened my eyes.

And then Blend is now this really interesting passion project that kind of brought the compliance, the quantitative side and the front end stuff all together.

Yeah, fundamentally, nobody chooses where their passport originates from.

But we like to think that that shouldn't impact your ability to save for the long term.

If you happen to be in a currency that depreciates or appreciates, you should be able to actually access that with secure and mature financial infrastructure that just doesn't exist.

So our goal has always been our North Star is to be the global savings layer.

And DeFi is the perfect home for this.

And that's where we are.