JPMorgan Chase’s youngest ever female Managing Director goes all out for Bitcoin technology

The digital fintech firm led by former JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) executive and world-renowned economist Blythe Masters has begun to take a shine to blockchain technology as Digital Asset Holdings, of which she is CEO, is set to acquire Blockstack.io which is a Bitcoin technology start-up that focuses on blockchain development.

As with most large scale investments by shrewd, mainstream banking executives, the interest in this particular start-up is the blockchain technology, which many financial sector executives view as more a more important component for the future development of financial technology than the virtual currency that it is inexorably attached to.

Two years ago, absolutely no interest whatsoever was shown in Bitcoin by any mainstream investors, and it retained a club-like following which was largely made up of technology innovators and those with a political agenda.

Since last year, however, the interest in the technology behind Bitcoin has grown rapidly, with some record-breaking venture capital investments such as 21 Inc’s securing of a $116 million round of funding early this year.

In line with this, Ms. Masters is interested in the cloud-based Blockchain system that offers blockchain-as-a-service for businesses in the financial sector.

British-born Ms. Masters  was the Chair of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association from 2008 to 2010 and also of the Global Financial Markets Association from 2012 to 2014, trade associations whose missions include promoting public trust and confidence in financial markets, and is therefore an industry figure with a very comprehensive understanding of the legal and regulatory structure of the commercial financial industry.

At the age of 28, she became a Managing Director within the credit derivatives division of JPMorgan Chase, making her the youngest woman to rise to that level in the entire history of the investment bank.

Her innovations are not limited to digital investments, as she is widely acknowledged to have created the modern credit default swap which is a derivative that is used to manage credit exposure to underlying reference entities.

In March this year, Ms. Masters joined Digital Asset Holdings as CEO. The company utilizes digital technology to settle and record mainstream and digital assets.

With regard to Digital Asset Holdings’ acquisition of Blockstack.io, Ms. Masters stated:

Blockstack’s solutions will enhance the existing Digital Asset technology stack and Miron, a renowned pioneer in the blockchain world, adds tremendous technical expertise to our development team.