Photo: Guy Halford-Thompson, CEO, BTL Group In the beginning of September it was revealed that Visa is inviting European banks to test sending money over a blockchain developed by BTL Group in a move that the Financial Times estimated can threaten the Swift interbank payment system. Finance Magnates talked with Guy Halford-Thomson, who founded BTL Group last year together with his brother Hugh, about the collaboration with the credit card company and more. Take the lead from today’s leaders. FM London Summit, 14-15 November, 2016. Register here! What is your background with cryptocurrencies? I come from a very technical and software based background, working in London for a few years as a developer before moving to Canada as a software architect and then a business analyst. Hugh and I got involved in Bitcoin in 2011 and founded a bitcoin brokerage, QuickBitcoin, back in early 2013 which put the first bitcoin ATM into London and was also famous for selling bitcoins to George Osbourne. In early 2015 we decided we wanted to focus more on core blockchain technology and so founded BTL with a focus on the remittance industry. How was the transition from the Bitcoin ecosystem to Blockchain technology for the financial system? The biggest change for us was going from an environment where we were working with other startups, to working with some of the world’s largest financial institutions. What advantages does listing on the TSX bring? Taking a company public is a very serious decision and requires careful planning. For BTL Group Ltd. we want to be able to move fast and keep up with the pace of the blockchain industry, and being a public company on the TSX Venture Exchange we are able to accomplish that. What can you tell us about working with Visa? The […]
