
Exclusive Interview with Dan Simerman, Head of Financial Relations of IOTA Foundation
Dan Simerman was a very active member of the IOTA Community before becoming part of the IOTA Foundation as Head of Financial Relations. He has a really impressive background that makes him an important asset for the growing relationships that IOTA is building. He is the one who has been in charge of creating a Financial Infrastructure for the IOTA economy neither more nor less.
If you want to know more about Dan, his role within the IF and his insights about IOTA, I invite you to take a couple of minutes, grab a cup of coffee and read this interview.
Thank you Dan for your time and kindness!
Gabriela Jara
Content Coordinator & Writer
IOTA Hispano
Can you tell us a little about your background? And what is your current role in the IOTA Foundation?
Sure! It’s not the traditional background you would expect for someone who is Head Of Financial Relations for the IOTA Foundation. I was trained in marketing, brand management and consumer psychology at Babson College, and went on to become a business analyst and product manager for financial software and then media tech. I’ve always had a fascination with how digital systems are designed to impact human behavior, and the first part of my career was really focused on taking complex systems and making them easier for people to a) use and b) understand.
Before IOTA, I was focused on building conceptual frameworks to understand digital assets as an investment class. It became painfully obvious to me that people were looking at Bitcoin, an Ethereum Dapp, and a for-profit piece of software with a token and classifying them all as the same. I wanted to create a set of tools to help conceptualize what made these digital assets different, and I ended up working with a few financial companies to help educate their clientele. Remember, this was back in 2016-2017, so the distinctions weren’t so obvious back then!
As Head Of Financial Relations, My role is to build the ‘Financial Infrastructure’ for the IOTA Economy. A lot of my work is based on a simple theory that individuals, businesses and institutional investors all have different requirements for holding digital assets. The majority of blockchain projects are only focused on ‘when binance’, when the reality is this is such a small component of what is needed in order for a DLT economy to truly thrive. Institutions need regulated services, special onramps, and specific tooling to hold the IOTA Token or to USE it within applications.
You were an active member of the IOTA community, how it was to become an IF member?
Honestly, it was a pretty incredible experience to join the Foundation as a community member. Being passionate about the technology and the vision of IOTA, I hardly feel like what I do from day to day is ‘work’. It’s really about supporting a new way for people to engage in society. It’s an interesting feeling: