TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – On Wednesday (Sept. 7) at Google headquarters in Taipei 101, Meet Global hosted a Tea Time event, which invited leading professionals in their industry to speak on trends in digital currencies and cybersecurity.
Meet Global, founded in 2011 by Business Next Media, is an organization dedicated to building a strong business network between startups, investors, and skilled professionals in Taiwan and abroad. Recently, Meet Global partnered with the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), a co-host of the event, to connect startup communities across the Pacific.
The two guest speakers at the Wednesday Tea Time event were Leo Seawald, the CEO of Maicoin, a digital asset trading platform, and Jordan Forssman, the COO of CYBAVO, a blockchain cyber security agency. Maicoin and CYBAVO, both based in Taipei, are both developing online products at the cutting edge of digital finance.
MaiCoin and Taiwan Digital Coin (TWDC)
Leo Seawald, the former president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Taiwan and the former head of BlackRock Taiwan, discussed the future of digital currencies and the benefits they can bring to a country like Taiwan. He introduced MaiCoin and the company’s plans to launch a digital currency tied directly to the New Taiwan Dollar (NTD) in the near future.
The digital currency, Taiwan Digital Coin (TWDC), will be based on the NTD at a fixed rate of 1:1. According to Seawald, digital coins fixed to fiat currencies regulated by national banks are likely the only digital currencies that will be secure, reliable and widely adopted in the decades ahead. For this reason, he refers to digital coins tied to fiat currencies as “Stablecoins,” with China’s eRMB being the foremost example of a Stablecoin in use today.
The release of TWDC is expected in the next several months. Seawald aims to help build an ecosystem for convenient and secure digital transactions in Taiwan and abroad.
Much of Seawald’s talk at the Meet Global Tea Time discussed regulatory practices and how Taiwan’s banking sector can adapt to the future of digital currency trading. Seawald suggested that upon its release, the initial use of TWDC will be in the tens of millions of U.S. dollars.
Speakers at Meet Global Tea Time (Sept. 8): Jordan Forssman (left) and Leo Seawald (right) (Photos: Taiwan News)
CYBAVO and the Distributed Risk and Responsibility model for digital asset security
Jordan Forssman, the former senior director at Proofpoint, is a trusted voice in the world of cybersecurity and online corporate risk management. At the Meet Global Tea Time event, Forssman introduced his company CYBAVO and their WalletOps fintech service, which is designed to safeguard companies trading in digital currencies.
According to Forssman, the current approach that corporations are taking towards security for digital currency transactions “misses the mark.” He elaborated that companies tend to place too much responsibility on individual employees or departments (ex. executives or engineers) to supervise the use of digital assets, which results in a very high potential for risk.
CYBAVO has designed an operation framework called Distributed Risk and Responsibility (DR&R) to reduce these risks. The WalletOps service platform integrates a tiered system for the approval of online transactions within an organization while also encouraging best practices for securing private keys for any given account.
CYBAVO’s framework and service have already proven a success, as the company’s work was noticed by the technology payment company Circle, which purchased CYBAVO in June of this year. The last portion of Forssman’s talk focused on the acquisition process and he gave tips to aspiring startups for how best to achieve “Product Market Fit” (PMF) as they market their products and services to potential investors or clients.
Meet Global and the next generation of startups
Meet Global hosts numerous trade and networking events throughout the year, including Meet Taipei, the largest tech tradeshow in Taipei. Professionals interested in joining Meet Global's vibrant startup community should visit their website or their Facebook page to find out about upcoming events.
Note: This is a sponsored article. Taiwan News is a partner of Business Next Media.
