Melanie (Ciufo) Shapiro, PhD

Founder/CEO at Case

New York City, New York

@melshapiro | LinkedIn Profile

Case ties physical identity & location to secure transaction signing, and provides advanced cryptographic key management services. The native implementation is crypto currency, but we’ve since configured our technology for a variety of use-cases both on and off the blockchain.

You sold your first company, Digsby, back in 2010. How did you make the transition from a company such as Digsby to cryptocurrency?

I learned about Bitcoin while I was doing research for my PhD, and instantly became enamored with it’s potential to bring financial freedom to people in developing and unstable nations. It wasn’t until I started using bitcoin in 2011 that I became frustrated with how difficult it is to use and even harder it is to secure; I really believe solving these problems stands in the way of bitcoin’s utility. After deciding to start Case in early 2014 I started exploring other use cases of the blockchain, and realized the same problems existed whether you’re using bitcoin as a payment mechanism or the blockchain as a protocol for settling financial assets or registering property. So, we’ve built Case to solve both the security and ease-of-use problem for various applications that utilizes the blockchain.

What aspects of Bitcoin and digital currency do you believe address the issue of financial inclusion?

While we certainly have our own financial struggles here in the US, I believe they pale in comparison to the crumbling financial infrastructure that people face in many third world and developing nations. Workers around the world ask their employers to be paid in USD, Pounds, and Euros simply because their local currency is mandated by a corrupt central authority and is subject to heavy volatility. Volatility is a problem that will certainly plague bitcoin for a while, but its basic tenants of being a decentralized currency could provide citizens of these countries with more financial stability and independence. Contrary to the traditional financial system, which has a high barrier of entry for the poor, a digital currency system that doesn’t require physical infrastructure but instead just a mobile device can provide an easy-enough onboarding experience that welcomes more of the unbanked. Financial inclusion is imperative to ending world poverty and can accelerate job creation, investment in education, and give particularly women the ability to have financial independence. Imagine the freedoms people can be introduced to that come with having all of these things.

Fusion published an article this summer stating the Bitcoin community was lacking women leadership and participation. Do you agree?

No. There are a considerable amount of strong female leaders in this space, and propagating the idea that there aren’t only convinces people that a non-issue is an actual issue that requires us to spend time trying to solve. Instead I’d like to spend my energy letting other women know why Bitcoin is a great industry to work in.

You have a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts (not to mention a MBA and Doctorate in Consumer Behavior). Do you believe this diverse educational background benefits you in your role as a company founder in the tech space?

I absolutely do. Having a background in Fine Arts gave me the opportunity to push the bounds of my creativity, which gives me the ability to think through problems with a different perspective than some of my peers.

You’ve started two companies at a relatively young age. Would you consider working for a large corporate company?

I would, but only in a position where I was free to innovate and explore problems with limited constraint. Since positions like this are few and far between at large companies, I anticipate that I’ll spend most of my career in startups.

Who(m) do you believe has had the most influencing with respect to influencing your own career?

My husband. He’s constantly enabling me to be more curious and challenging my ideas, which forces me to fully develop them so that I can sort through the good from the not so good. We’ve been partners since our teens, so I’ve been lucky to have a constant source of support as I’ve navigated through the various periods of my career, and having that security has provided me an incredible amount of confidence.

Who do you consider to be strong women leaders in the FinTech space?

Blythe Masters, Jalak Jobanputra, Sallie Krawcheck, and Catheryn Nicholson.

What do you see as the 3 leading future trends for FinTech?

• Alternative lending – I think we’ll start to see less people pooling money into their bank accounts making minimal interest and instead using lending tools that return higher interests rates (online lending platforms have lower costs, so savings are passed on to customers).
• Distributed ledger technology/blockchain – I see this becoming the adopted standard for which financial assets are transferred and documented. The timesaving and cost-saving benefits of an implementation like this can bring greater efficiency, and transparency to a rusting infrastructure.
• Identity – being able to prove someone’s identity and tie that to their authority to be making a transaction reduces risk for banks, which in turn makes banking the unbanked easier and less expensive.