As someone who has been in tech for a long time, Chia Network Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Misha Graboi has gotten accustomed to the cyclical nature of the business.
Whenever the technological flavor of the day looks like a world-changer, people tend to overestimate its potential in the short run and underestimate it in the long run, Graboi said. Then, there’s a point when the initial euphoria and fear of missing out (FOMO) gets replaced by a more rational investing environment.
“In that environment, companies that are able to execute and put one foot in front of the other very capably, as opposed to just building buzz around themselves and things like that, tend to get rewarded,” Graboi said.
Exploring a New Area
That’s what he and his team at Chia are focusing on, Graboi said. Chia is a new energy-efficient decentralized blockchain, and Graboi joined the company in June.
Interviewed for the PYMNTS series “A Day in the Life of a Digital-First CFO,” Graboi said that, like other organizations, Chia must focus first on its workaday responsibilities — handling payroll, paying vendors, filing taxes and keeping the lights on.
“But when you take the step up to the more strategic level, as a CFO, for me, in the blockchain industry, the really fascinating thing is there is a lot of white space out there,” he said.
That means an opportunity to explore a completely new area in which the answers aren’t exactly clear yet. What are these instruments? How should they trade? How will the markets develop? What does the future of the sector look like?
“The opportunity to really put a mark on how to think about, for example, the valuation of coins relative to transaction fees that a blockchain may generate or think about how we should recognize the value of the coin on our balance sheet, and things like that, really, really was compelling,” Graboi said.
Focusing on Real Value
Following the washout of cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), there’s a challenge to manage the perception of blockchain.
Chia is continuing to work on developing applications that have a high impact at the enterprise or government level, Graboi said. For example, it was selected as the infrastructure for a global carbon warehouse by the World Bank. This will allow countries to essentially share a database and to verify the integrity of each other’s databases.
Blockchain tech provides sea changes in big chunks of the world, Graboi said. In the early stages, people focused only on the cryptocurrency side of it, and there is value to that, but there’s more to it.
“Fundamentally, the real value of those chains is the ability for people all over the world who may not even know each other to transact in a trusted way, without relying on an expensive intermediary,” Graboi said.
Today, there’s a need to define the use case for blockchains effectively, Graboi said. With all the hype around the space, some people want to use blockchain when it really isn’t needed, while others distrust it and won’t use it even though they could benefit from blockchain.
“Ultimately, if you have the right kinds of conversations at the right level, and particularly if you involve people who are both on the business side and the technical side to understand the security and the necessity of what blockchain can actually offer from a security and operational perspective, I think that you can get around those issues,” Graboi said.
Building a Long-Run, Sustainable Business
When it comes to funding, the macroenvironment has changed. Graboi said Chia takes that into account in terms of decision-making but continues to have productive conversations with people in the space.
“Ultimately, as the market stabilizes, we think that people are going to look at companies that provide real solutions to real-world problems.”
When it comes to attracting and retaining top tech employees, Graboi said the company benefits from the fact that it was founded by BitTorrent inventor Bram Cohen, and that draws the interest of tech talent.
In addition, because Chia has an open-source initiative, there’s a lot of tech talent that participates voluntarily.
“We are able to sort of look at that and say, ‘You know what? Here’s some guys that are really, really capable in this area; let’s see if they just want to come on board,’” Graboi said. “So, it’s almost like a very extended job interview, if you will.”
For Graboi, being CFO at Chia is a dream job because it’s a tech company that’s doing exciting things, it’s a mission-driven company focused on creating a secure, sustainable and compliant solution to financial inclusion, and it provides an opportunity to deal with a lot of white space issues.
“The beans have to get counted, but there’s also the entire other side of this, which is the creation, really, of a new industry and trying to do it in a way that isn’t sort of just a crypto casino but actually something that is a long-run, sustainable business,” Graboi said. “That has been really, really fascinating.”
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