‘Crypto will promote a huge change in the financial service ecosystem,’ believes Roberta Antunes

Media 7 | November 24, 2021

Roberta Antunes, Chief of Growth at Hashdex, takes us through her wonderful professional journey and shares how Hashdex provides investors with secure access to cryptocurrency assets. Read on to find out how blockchain technology will redefine the financial service ecosystem.

The next step in content personalization is going to be an increase in the adoption of AI in customizing content.

MEDIA 7: Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
ROBERTA ANTUNES:
I have a bachelor's degree in Marketing and communication, and very early in my career, I got involved with the tech space, as an intern in B2W. Lately, I co-founded a company called Hotel Urbano, a leading online travel agency in Brazil. At the time the Brazilian tech ecosystem was really small, with very few investors looking into the space. But with a lot of energy Hotel Urbano became one of the first Brazilian Unicorns. In 2015, when I left Hotel Urbano I joined the Endless team. Endless was a company trying to solve connectivity issues in remote areas of the Globe. I became the CEO of the company in 2018.

Endless was building an Operating System on top of Linux to allow people in remote areas to consume educational content. It was the first time I got engaged with the power of the open-source community and I was pretty impressed by it. How could people dedicate so much time and care for a cause, with no clear incentives? So, when I started to study crypto, everything made sense to me. Crypto is a way to incentivize decentralized contribution and allow people to work in the causes they believe. Endless was also where I met Marcelo Sampaio, the Founder of Hashdex. We really enjoy working together and he invited me to join him at Hashdex.


M7: That is a great turn of events! Hashdex bridges the gap between the still-nascent digital assets world and traditional markets. How does Hasdex execute this?
RA:
We provide ‘innovative investors secure access’ to the rapidly growing cryptocurrency asset class. Hashdex offers investment funds with crypto exposure in the regulated space. Our products are safe and very simple to access, removing all the barriers and friction that someone would find investing in crypto directly.

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Blockchain technology can impact the way society is organized, including how we see the labor markets and geography.



M7: Could you please share your perspective on the future of the ‘Financial Service’ sector?
RA:
I believe that crypto is going to promote a huge change in the financial service ecosystem. Blockchain technology will enable the decentralization of financial services and allow that any financial transaction happens without the need for an intermediary. This will significantly reduce cost and increase efficiency, but much more than that,  it can impact the way society is organized, including how we see the labor markets and geography.


M7: Speaking of technology, what do you see as the most noticeable change right now happening in the workforce, encouraged by the rise of digital technologies?
RA:
I believe that the most radical change I am seeing in the workforce right now is the creation of the DAOs. DAOs are Decentralized Autonomous Organizations that exist only in the blockchain. Founders of the DAOs usually raise an amount of ETHER, which gives investors ownership in the DAO, and they ‘hire’ their employees as contributors, paying them in Ethereum. Because everything happens in the Blockchain, the company has no geography, therefore, doesn't pay taxes anywhere, and doesn't have any regulatory supervision, which makes the work-relationship completely different.

Read More: Q&A with Jeff Pedowitz, President and CEO at The Pedowitz Group


Crypto is a way to incentivize decentralized contribution and allow people to work in the causes they believe.



M7: Sounds interesting! How do you define Content Personalization? Which technologies are garnering the maximum mileage in this sector?
RA:
Content personalization allows a company to communicate with different customers with the message that they learn (through algorithms) that best resonates for them. It is transformative! I believe the next step is going to be an increase in the adoption of AI in customizing content.


M7: As your bio says that you’re a visionary trailblazer who is motivated by big challenges and known for your optimism, energy, and drive. What were the biggest challenges in your career that you tackled optimistically?
RA:
I think it is more about the way I approach things. I do believe there is no problem without a solution, and that sometimes we just have to look at things from other points of view. An approach that usually helps me is trying to focus really on the goal, and break down the challenges to achieve the goal in small pieces, to focus on what really matters.

ABOUT HASHDEX

Founded in 2018, Hashdex is a leading alternative crypto-focused asset manager. Through regulated investment funds, they provide innovative investors secure access to the rapidly growing cryptocurrency asset class. Hashdex partnered with Nasdaq to co-develop the NCI (Nasdaq Crypto Index), which is designed to broadly track a rapidly-evolving asset class, serving as a trusted benchmark for digital asset investing and launched the first Crypto ETF in the World. Hashdex is one of the largest crypto asset managers worldwide and the largest one in Latam. It has over 1 billion in assets and over 250.000 customers.

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Spotlight

Hashdex

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Founded in 2018, Hashdex is a leading alternative crypto-focused asset manager. Through regulated investment funds, they provide innovative investors secure access to the rapidly growing cryptocurrency asset class. Hashdex partnered with Nasdaq to co-develop the NCI (Nasdaq Crypto Index), which is d...

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