6 Questions for Alex Wilson of The Giving Block – Cointelegraph Magazine

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We ask the bui­dlers in the blockchain and cryp­tocur­ren­cy sec­tor for their thoughts on the indus­try… and throw in a few ran­dom zingers to keep them on their toes!


 

This week, our 6 Ques­tions go to Alex Wil­son, co-founder of The Giv­ing Block — a cryp­to dona­tion solu­tion that pro­vides an ecosys­tem for non­prof­its and char­i­ties to fundraise Bit­coin and oth­er cryptocurrencies.

 

Alex is a co-founder of The Giv­ing Block, a Shift4 com­pa­ny. The Giv­ing Block is a lead­ing cryp­to phil­an­thropy plat­form that makes accept­ing and fundrais­ing cryp­tocur­ren­cies easy for non­prof­its and empow­ers donors to give cryp­to to their favorite caus­es. Alex over­sees The Giv­ing Block’s growth in sev­er­al areas, includ­ing tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion, cryp­to and finan­cial part­ner­ships, and insti­tu­tion­al giving. 

Alex’s back­ground is in man­age­ment con­sult­ing, where he worked with For­tune 500 com­pa­nies to devel­op strate­gies for emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies such as arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, the Inter­net of Things, blockchain and cryp­tocur­ren­cy. As he went down the cryp­tocur­ren­cy rab­bit hole, he and co-founder Pat Duffy dis­cov­ered a need for non­prof­its to tap into the grow­ing cryp­to donor demographic. 

Alex grad­u­at­ed from Wake For­est Uni­ver­si­ty School of Busi­ness with a Bachelor’s Degree in Busi­ness and Enter­prise Man­age­ment spe­cial­iz­ing in Inter­na­tion­al Business.

 


1 — What has been the toughest challenge you’ve faced in our industry so far?

The biggest chal­lenge is edu­cat­ing those we speak with about the ben­e­fits of the indus­try. I believe that cryp­tocur­ren­cy is one of the great­est forces of good on the plan­et, but there are many peo­ple we speak with who have mis­con­cep­tions about cryp­to — from its impact on the envi­ron­ment to the qua­si anonymi­ty behind it. 

 

2 — When you tell people you’re in the blockchain industry, how do they react?

I’ve found that most peo­ple are real­ly recep­tive to what we are doing at The Giv­ing Block. All too often, peo­ple hear that you work in cryp­to, and they have a pre­con­ceived idea of what that looks like. Then I go on to tell them what it is that we do and that we’ve raised over $100 mil­lion in cryp­tocur­ren­cies for non­prof­its, and their reac­tion soft­ens. I think our use case is much more tan­gi­ble to peo­ple than many oth­ers, which makes it eas­i­er than most to under­stand and relate to.

 

3 — Have you ever bought a nonfungible token? What was it — and if not, what do you think will be your first?

Yes, but only ones that ben­e­fit char­i­ties. The first I bought were from Nifty Gate­way as part of a COVID relief cam­paign called COVID Heroes.

 

4 — Which two superpowers would you most want to have, and how would you combine them for good… or evil?

If I had to choose two super­pow­ers, they would prob­a­bly be tele­por­ta­tion and fly­ing — that way I can have more face-to-face time with the non­prof­its we work with with­out hav­ing to wait in TSA lines.

 

5 — Tell us about a hidden talent — and give us a link to prove it!

I’m bilin­gual — I grew up speak­ing both Eng­lish and Ger­man equally.

 

6 — What talent do you lack, and wish you had? How would you use it if you had it?

I’ve always wished that I could speak a third lan­guage. I think speak­ing flu­ent Span­ish would be a real­ly help­ful tal­ent to have.

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