Jan 12, 2022
Malcolm Wright Joins Shyft Network as Head of Strategy for its Global Regulatory & Compliance Solutions
BitMEX’s former Chief Compliance Officer Malcolm Wright will oversee the expansion of Veriscope, Shyft’s FATF Travel Rule solution & Travel Rule interoperability tooling, along with strategy and growth for upcoming core public network products including institutional DeFi, NFT’s & The Shyft Network’s DAO.
Malcolm Wright, a veteran of the blockchain industry is departing BitMEX as the Chief Compliance Officer to join Shyft Core, the core development team of the Shyft Network ($SHFT). Malcolm, whose experience has spanned over three decades across strategy, technology, operations, and risk and compliance will join Shyft Network to lead Veriscope while also acting as the Head of Strategy for Global Regulatory & Compliance Solutions.
He will be responsible for the expansion of Veriscope, the open source Travel Rule protocol built on the Shyft network, for leading strategy and growth for upcoming ecosystem infrastructure that includes Shyft’s Cross-chain Institutional DeFi System & the Shyft DAO’s regulatory and compliance solutions, and more.
BitMEX to Shyft
Malcolm is joining the Shyft Network Core team from BitMEX, one of the world’s leading crypto derivatives exchanges. Malcolm has been instrumental in global policy work and advocacy on behalf of the digital asset ecosystem, and is the founder of InnoFi Advisory, a consulting firm supporting innovation and growth in DeFi, DAOs, and NFTs.
Malcolm is currently the co-lead of the anti-money laundering (AML) working group at Global Digital Finance (GDF), a virtual asset industry body that supports policymakers to develop supportive legislation to assist the industry in its goal to understand and comply with regulation, and was instrumental in the development of open data sharing standard requirements such as IVMS101.
Malcolm said “I have long supported Shyft’s approach to resolving the FATF Travel Rule as one that provides the least friction for crypto firms’ customers whilst maintaining the decentralized community-driven ethos that underpins the Blockchain and crypto industries.
“With DeFI, DAOs, and NFTs reaching critical mass over the past 12 months, Shyft is trailblazing the way in addressing multiple challenges for financial services firms and governments that go far beyond Travel Rule. This is very much aligned to my own desire to provide the governance foundations upon which responsible innovators can design impactful, transformational, successful solutions.”
BitMEX Compliance Chief Malcolm Wright Jumps to Shyft Network (coindesk.com)
Shared beliefs
Joseph Weinberg, Co-founder of Shyft Network said: “Over the last 3+ years a group of incredible individuals have been working to guide policy and educate regulators across this space. Malcolm and I were among several of that group who share a belief that decentralization and maintaining the ecosystem is critical to its foundational success.
“As Malcolm and the policy side of Shyft had already been working together, both in his capacity at BitMEX, and through policy development across regulators, bringing on Malcolm to drive this next phase of institutional development & growth was a 1+1 = 6 equation.
“We began working on Shyft Network & its public infrastructure out of a belief that we can apply the open innovations built from within the ecosystem to bridge the gap between the traditional world’s regulatory & compliance requirements, identity & decentralized economies without eroding privacy, decentralization & openness.
“As these two worlds collide and we see rapid acceleration in both regulatory requirements, as well as adoption, we also need the best and brightest people who continue to bring balance for the ecosystem to be driving critical infrastructure like Veriscope & other public utilities for the new market participants who need identity-based compliance capabilities to operate across all verticals. Malcolm’s deep expertise across the space, from policy makers, to Open Standards, as well as his vast experience prior to entering crypto, makes him an excellent person to lead all compliance related aspects of the public utility smart contracts that the Shyft Core team developed for the Shyft network.”
Leading role
In this role, Malcolm will be tasked with leading the Veriscope teams both inside of Shyft Core, and across all VASPs & Travel rule solutions that are globally utilizing or contributing to the public network, while also managing the open governance task force responsible for proposing policy changes across the counterparty processes that are universal to Veriscope through the Shyft Network DAO.
Along with this, Malcolm will lead all regulatory compliance & institutional strategy for upcoming extension systems of Veriscope that includes universal cross chain layers for Institutional Defi, NFT’s, DAO’s and more.
As Shyft Network is an open source project, and it’s infrastructure is being deployed to open source, Malcolm’s work will focus across regulators, institutions currently joining Veriscope, the Shyft DAO & continued open standards development across the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
Malcolm will be tasked with designing and documenting the frameworks and critical policy requirements across Shyft Network’s products and maintain his already impressive status as an industry thought leader recognized by virtual asset service providers (VASPs) and financial institutions.
On behalf of the Core team, the Shyft Community, Veriscope’s open Network of VASPs& institutions, and all developers building atop of Shyft Network, We are excited to welcome Malcolm to the Community
About Shyft Network
The Shyft Network aggregates and embeds trust into data stored on public and private ecosystems, allowing an opt-in compliance layer across all systems. The key pillar for Shyft is user consent, allowing users to track the usage of their data. Therefore, no one can use personal data without consent from the owner. Shyft Network allows and gives incentives to individuals and enterprises to work together to add context to data, unlocking the ability to build authentic digital reputation, identity, and credibility frameworks.
