Journalist: April Cho
April Cho (left) and Victoria Saucier (right) at the Gainfy headquarters in New York City
For most, blockchain is an emerging technology that calls forth more questions than answers. How can emerging blockchain projects adhere to industry standards and practices that are constantly in flux? What are the most effective regulatory policies for investments into new blockchain projects?
As good and bad players experiment with blockchain’s various use cases, answers to some of these questions should also emerge. In the meantime, conversations with industry leaders like Victoria Saucier can help form informed and well-rounded opinions on these issues.
Victoria Saucier, a leading figure in the blockchain industry is best characterized as an entrepreneurial jack-of-all-trades. She is the CEO of blockchain startup Gainfy, a managing partner at impact investment firm Ignite 500 and an executive producer for SharkChain (think Sharktank for blockchain).
In this interview, PANONY sits down with Victoria to gather her insights into the application of blockchain in healthcare, investment criteria, the current US regulatory environment and broader industry trends.
Blockchain x Healthcare：Returning Ownership of Personal Health Data to Users
Despite her many roles, as Gainfy prepares to launch its public offering on September 22nd, Victoria has shifted her focus to her responsibilities as chief executive officer. Gainfy is a healthcare company that aims to change the healthcare industry through the use of blockchain, AI and IoT. The central problems Gainfy aims to tackle? The high cost of healthcare as well as questions about ownership over individuals’ healthcare data.
Gainfy, with Victoria at its head, sees tremendous opportunities in the $28 billion US market for patient clinical data. Currently, patients neither understand nor control the distribution of their personal clinical data, which is regularly resold through "information brokers" to pharmaceutical, biotech, and health insurance companies.
Gainfy uses blockchain technology to simplify this market, and to give control of this data back to patients. These patients will receive medical benefits from sharing their personal data anonymously within an HIPAA-compliant framework. Gainfy is looking to expand its userbase beyond just the United States to develop a global network of connected healthcare users.
As the number of blockchain companies aiming to disrupt traditional industries like advertising, healthcare, and music increases, so too have the number of hopeful blockchain startups . However, Victoria’s perspective on competition in this space is unique. She says that a large number of blockchain projects in the healthcare industry is beneficial because, “if we were the only company…people would ask is this really needed? If we were the first you might have to teach the whole industry what you are doing. The way I look at it, other companies are paving the road for an understanding that blockchain is valuable in healthcare.”
Blockchain x Investment: From Whitepaper to Project Execution
Victoria also invests in promising startups as a managing director Impact500. When asked about her personal criteria for investing in startups, she says that she looks at the potential of the incorporated technology, the purpose and goal of the company and the team’s composition. According to Victoria, team composition is especially important in the post-funding stages of development because of the importance of project execution after the project has secured investments:
If a team is unable to execute an idea, it stays just an idea and the speculator trading on the token or coin might pick up. In the current regulatory environment, blockchain startups really need to build a company. Ideas are great. Technology is great. But what we’re looking for is the ability to build the technology and adopt it for the use case. You need to back up your idea in the real world.
One way to ensure successful execution is to build relationships with existing institutions. Victoria believes in the importance of being able to partner with institutions to incorporate your existing blockchain idea as “you can have the best technology in the world and never be able to onboard it with large partners.” So, specifically for blockchain startups, Victoria also closely monitors how startups “structure their relationships with external networks with investors as well as internal incentives and rewards for consumers.”
Blockchain x Broader Industry Trends
In the wake of the 2018 bitcoin bust and boom, there have been more ordinary people impacted by the crypto market, and their decisions to invest in digital tokens. For the final portion of her interview, Victoria touched upon industry trends and provided some insights regarding future direction given the industry’s recent turbulence. According to Victoria, decreased public trust in cryptomarkets alongside more stringent regulatory crackdowns have also impacted the types of projects emerging in the industry.
Victoria broke down the two sides of the debate on the role of regulations in crypto markets, and for the blockchain industry as a whole. On the one hand, while blockchain projects seems to incentivize the democratization of investment by allowing ordinary users to invest smaller sums, this year’s events have pushed regulators to become more stringent with their policies:
What’s happening in the US, is that regulators are saying that the average person who doesn’t have financial education are being taken advantage of…They do not want to allow them [ordinary people] to invest unless they know what they’re doing. However, what others are saying is that you took away the opportunity of the everyday person to invest and gave it back to venture capitalists. So again vcs have an opportunity to enter at an early entry level at a good price point.
That’s not to say that the blockchain industry has seen a decrease in the number of projects. In recent months, the industry has seen fewer “purist” blockchain startups that are fully technology driven. According to Victoria “we’re seeing…a lot of traditional companies--not backed up by blockchain technology--that are jumping in the space by offering tokens in kind of hybrid form. They’re tokenizing their financial rounds and their assets. I think we’ll see more and more of this type of company, where it’s not necessarily a blockchain company but technology will be a part of traditional industries.”
Concluding Remarks
As evidenced from Victoria’s insights, being an early adopter, investor and entrepreneur in this industry requires flexibility. Wearing many different hats—as executive, investor and producer-- has allowed Victoria to gain a uniquely holistic perspective on the industry.
Perhaps this unique perspective explains why Victoria’s tone is more deliberate than provocative, and her viewpoints generally more moderate than radical. Notably, her perspective is rare in an industry that is based upon the radical potential of “decentralization” to dismantle traditional industries and governance.
