At the recent Future Innovation Summit in Dubai, Rosa “Rosie” Gumataotao Rios, 43rd Treasurer of the United States, and a member of Ripple’s Board of Directors, talked about blockchain technology and cryptocurrency.

Rosie Rios’ Background

On 18 May 2009, President Obama officially nominated Harvard-educated Rios as the Treasurer of the United States, and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on 24 July 2009. And in November 2020, she was “named a volunteer member of the Joe Biden presidential transition Agency Review Team to support transition efforts related to the United States Department of Treasury.”

In case you are wondering what the responsibilities of the Treasurer of the United States are, here is a description from the website of the U.S. Department of Treasury:

“The Treasurer of the United States has direct oversight of the U.S. Mint and Fort Knox and is a key liaison with the Federal Reserve. Additionally, the Treasurer oversees the Office of Consumer Policy at Treasury and serves as a senior advisor to the Secretary on community development and engagement.“

Rios’ signature appears on the back of the $100 bill:

On 3 May 2021, FinTech firm Ripple announced on its blog that it had appointed Rios to its Board of Directors. On the same date, Kristina Campbell joined Ripple as Chief Financial Officer.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse had this to say:

“Rosie’s experience in the public and private sectors provides an invaluable perspective to Ripple, especially during this time as the industry works to define crypto’s future.“

As for Rios, she said back then:

“I’ve dedicated my career to financial inclusion and empowerment, which requires bringing new and innovative solutions to staid processes. Ripple is one of the best examples of how to use cryptocurrency in a substantive and legitimate role to facilitate payments globally. Blockchain and crypto will underpin our future global financial systems. Cryptocurrency is the what. Ripple is the how.“

Rosie Rios Speaks at Future Innovation Summit 2022

Last month, at the Future Innovation Summit 2022 (held 11-12 May, 2022), Rios talked about blockchain technology and cryptocurrency during her keynote speech.

She started by introducing herself:

“Today, I’m going to talk about one of my favourite topics, the future of investments, the future of money, and specifically cryptocurrencies. I’m going to start with a little bit of my background. I’m a trained analyst. After graduating from Harvard, my first job was a commercial property underwriter for general reinsurance. So, I am trained in managing high-valued risk.

“Since then, my career path is focused on real estate, economic development, and investment management. Prior to becoming Treasurer of the United States, I was managing director of investments for a $22 billion dollar firm based in San Francisco. And I was asked by President Obama to be part of the Treasury transition team at the height of the financial crisis.

“Now, this background is necessary because you’re going to see how my career has really come in full circle. So, as I mentioned, I was nominated by the President in May of 2009, confirmed by the Senate that summer, and immediately moved my family from Silicon Valley to Washington, DC, where I served as Treasurer of the United States, overseeing all currency and coin operations.

“I was also senior advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury on all matters of community development — so, job creation, access to capital, small business lending. As you heard, I was the longest Senate confirmed official in the Obama administration and yes, it is my name on the lower left hand side of U.S. money. So, out of the approximately two trillion dollars of U.S. currency in circulation worldwide, my name is approximately on 1.8 trillion. So, I can honestly say that no one has made more money than I have.“

Later, she talked about blockchain technology in general and cryptocurrency in particular:

“I’m also on the board of Ripple, which is XRP cryptocurrency… I want to make something very very clear. Blockchain is here to stay. The train has left the station… as far as I’m concerned, whether it’s fractional, real estate, whether it’s art, whether it’s NFTs, blockchain is not going away.

“And so the question is ‘how do we take advantage of this?’. So, it’s important to recognise again how the financial and investment landscape has changed specific to blockchain technology. You might have seen recently how President Biden has signed an executive order earlier this year to study digital assets over this next year…

“When President Biden signed this executive order to to look at digital assets, we hoped that the recommendations are going to accomplish several things. One, to encourage regulators to ensure sufficient oversight to encourage the financial stability, oversight counsel to identify, and mitigate financial risks, to direct coordinated actions across agencies to mitigate illicit financing, and national security risks, promote safe, and affordable financial services, and finally, but not the last thing surely, to explore a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency.

“Now, I led the future of money initiative when I was Treasurer of the United States. So, this is a continuation of the work that was done under the Obama administration and that will continue aggressively throughout this next year in the Biden administration.

“Cryptocurrency is one of the greatest wealth disruptors, and is the next investment frontier for the masses. But in order for there to be a true democratisation, their extreme volatility has to be addressed. In fact, many investors sit on the sidelines because the cryptocurrency market is risky.“

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Disclaimer

The views and opinions expressed by the author, or any people mentioned in this article, are for informational purposes only, and they do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice. Investing in or trading cryptoassets comes with a risk of financial loss.

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