Jon Matonis joins the CoinDesk team

Jon Matonis, executive director of the Bitcoin Foundation, has become a contributing editor at CoinDesk.

Matonis has several years of experience at the nexus of finance, communications and encryption. He served as CEO of Hushmail and Chief forex trader at VISA, and was the managing director of a digital payments consultancy. He was also the director of financial services at Verisign, which focuses on network infrastructure and security. He has written for titles including American Banker, Forbes, PaymentsSource and Bitcoin Magazine, where he is also a member of the editorial board.

Matonis took the role at CoinDesk because of his continuing interest in free market money and digital currency systems, for which he sees ongoing potential.

“There is a vast opportunity as non-political cryptographic money enters the finance and trading world currently dominated by Dow Jones, Reuters, and Bloomberg,” Matonis said. “The mission for market-based legitimacy is closely aligned with the goals of the foundation.”

Matonis joined the Bitcoin Foundation amid a groundswell of interest in the cryptocurrency. He identifies trends including the rise of non-US exchanges, which are finding opportunities as the US imposes regulatory barriers. He has tracked the ongoing movement for the inclusion of bitcoin in the ISO 4217 list of three-letter currency codes (potentially as "XBT").

Over the next few months, the bitcoin community faces significant challenges, including the creation of a robust exchange network, and the creation of user-friendly wallets, Matonis argues. We also need better and easier interfaces for bitcoin products, he adds.

However, there are also opportunities in bitcoin, believes Matonis. It promises to have a long-term positive impact on monetary and fiscal policy. “And decentralized value transfer has the potential to elevate nation states currently victimized by the dollar and euro hegemony,” he says.

CoinDesk welcomes Jon Matonis, and you will be able to read his insightful pieces on this site over the next few months.