Fireblocks, an enterprise platform to manage digital asset operations and build innovative businesses on the blockchain, announces the appointments of Peter Marton, former Deputy Superintendent of Virtual Currency at the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), and cryptographer, Chaitanya Reddy Konda, who “designed and built Nightfall, a privacy solution for Ethereum token transfers for EY.”
Together, they will lead the company’s efforts “to develop programmable blockchain-based compliance products and set international standards for on-chain identity for the digital asset industry.”
Marton, an authority in digital asset regulation, joins Fireblocks “as Director of Digital Identity, and will report directly to Jason Allegrante, Fireblocks’ Chief Legal & Compliance Officer.”
Allegrante said:
“Fireblocks has a long-standing commitment to enable our customers to safely and securely interact with the digital asset ecosystem by leveraging purpose built blockchain and smart contract technologies. Peter’s exceptional experience developing regulatory frameworks at one the world’s preeminent virtual currency units should prove invaluable as we undertake the development of on-chain identity and programmable compliance solutions that will transform the digital and financial markets and help set the standards for safety, soundness, and consumer protection.”
Fireblocks views prevention of illicit financial activity and consumer protection “as two critical components in ensuring broad adoption of digital assets and blockchain technology.”
The combination of on-chain digital identity and usage of smart contracts is the most promising way “to transition global compliance standards like those adopted by regulators and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to the blockchain context and enable their use by thousands of businesses, from financial institutions to corporations, and Web3.”
Chaitanya Reddy Konda, assuming the role of Senior Technical Product Manager, Digital Identity & Privacy, is “an established authority in the realm of applied cryptography. Best known for her instrumental role in designing and building EY’s project Nightfall, a pioneering privacy solution for Ethereum that employs zk-SNARKs to facilitate token transfers, Konda will leverage her deep technical acumen to bolster the security protocols of the company’s digital identity initiatives in her new position.”
The appointments of Marton and Konda come “at a time when the Fireblocks platform has quickly evolved to provide its customers with total control over the full life cycle of their digital assets, and support the tokenization of digital assets, secure storage, payment workflows, and the transfer and distribution through the Fireblocks Network.”