Harness the CRYPTO MARKET

This is Sorina’s second trip to Malta. What was originally planned as a quick weekend break to celebrate her birthday has turned into a 3 month extended stay to explore Malta’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Entrepreneurship education is of course right up her alley - she runs a number of forward-thinking initiatives, including the Trailblazer Chronicles, a speaker series for which she most recently interviewed Kickstarter

Co-founder and former CEO Yancey Strickler, as well as the oNetwork, a program bringing together 55 advisors dedicated to supporting the entrepreneurial mindset and career aspirations of Oxford students and alumni.

She’s also leading on speaker engagement for University of Oxford’s flagship entrepreneurial event - the Oxford Saïd Entrepreneurship Forum - an annual conference paving the way for globally connected communities, idea generation and venture growth. This year the forum was hosted virtually, and besides keynote speakers like Niklas Zennström, Co-founder of Skype, Sheila Lirio Marcelo, Founder of Care.com and Bracken Darrell, CEO of Logitech, it also convened over 2000 students, entrepreneurs, investors and business leaders from around the world.

As Lisa Lang, founder and CEO of Thepowerhouse Group quipped while on stage at the 2020 entrepreneurship forum, “The new solutions we need require a new approach to how people work together.”

The oNetwork program is a great example of this kind of thinking. Helping students to connect to what’s happening in the market and to get a better understanding of how to start or grow a business, the program is backed by senior experts who offer over 200 hundred hours of pro bono engagement per academic year.

“Most of these people are at the stage where they’ve achieved professional success, so they just want to give back and support the young generation of entrepreneurs. I think it’s all about the energy they take from our students, the excitement, the fresh ideas.”

1The top level is what she calls the acceleration level, this is where they facilitate exposure and access to financing opportunities, through valuable connections to world-class investors. It is this top level of the pyramid that Sorina focuses on with the oNetwork.

“What we do is try to connect our students and alumni with business leaders, entrepreneurs, and industry experts, who through their connections will help the business accelerate, grow and reach its full potential.”

“They might decide to pursue a venture in any industry from health care to iGaming - so the way we’ve built this community is to make sure that we cover all sectors, so that when a student or alumnus requests support and advice I’m able to match them with the right person in that specific area.

“Our experts interact with students in a variety of ways, giving lectures or putting together workshops on specific topics that they know very well. They can be invited as speakers for the conferences that we organise but also - and this is the most sought after type of engagement - they also do one-to-one advisory sessions.”

Sorina explains that the way she thought about developing this program relied a lot on having the right chemistry between the experts and the students and that it is a ‘strong relationship that is being built’. She also strived to create the space for collaboration amongst members of the oNetwork, so that ‘they also take something away from their engagement with the program’.

“What happens a lot of times is that a friendship is born out of these interactions and the expert ends up being a long-term mentor, or investor. I’m a true believer that letting this relationship happen organically leads to better results over time.

Diversity is at the core of what Sorina does, and since starting out, the oNetwork has grown to 54, with experts from across 11 countries and 13 different industries.

“We are very close to striking a balance between men and women, so this is something that I care deeply about.

Members of the oNetwork hail from 11 countries, with professional expertise spanning across 13 different sectors, so students have access to C-level executives and established entrepreneurs who have extensive experience in a very broad range of business areas.

It’s really hard to convince female entrepreneurs to get involved in these kinds of programs, mainly because they have a more limited amount of time available but this is something that I’m very keen on and I’ve been working really hard to achieve that representation.”

THE CRYPTOCURRENCY HAS HELPED ESTABLISH A STRONG GLOBAL COMMUNITY WHO ARE ALL FANS OF THE DIGITAL CURRENCY, BUT IT ALSO HAS ITS FAIR SHARE OF DOUBTERS.

Words by Kai Dowling

The numbers of critics of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency are slowly decreasing especially after the record year in 2020 and the most recent spikes in 2021.

2020 saw Bitcoin surpass huge milestones and barriers such as the $30,000 and $60,000. This resulted in many financial institutions and influential businessmen backing the cryptocurrency such as Crypto-attorney, Gordon Einstein, and companies such as PayPal all showing their support for Bitcoin. Additionally, Elon Musk and Tesla’s $1.5billion investment also played a part in Bitcoin’s rise in price. Therefore, if most, not all, influential people and companies have the ability to effect Bitcoin – what happens if sports really get involved? Would this encourage crypto-adoption and make the price pass the 100k barrier?

Step in Chiliz. Chiliz is a fan token that serves as a digital currency for the chiliZ and socios.com platform. These tokens are specific to a certain club and provide fans the accessibility to an encrypted ledger of voting and membership rights ownership.

Chiliz already have a number of big clubs in football that use a tokenisation system which gives fans the power to vote on certain topics such as kit selection or merchandise. These clubs have all partnered with the crypto-fan engagement focused platform Socios while a number of Premier League clubs were paid in Bitcoin by eToro for a sponsorship deal. This is all well and good but my curiosity is in something bigger, what if clubs start paying wages or transfer fees through Bitcoin? How will this effect crypto-adoption?

Think of it like this – it’s transfer deadline day, which is one of the most anticipated days when it comes to football. A breaking news banner pops up across the screen – “Club X buys Player Y for 10,000 Bitcoin.” This is the type of crypto-adoption I am thinking about, big players going for Bitcoin/cryptocurrency rather than cash. The impact will be there for everyone to see. Something similar has already happened, on a much smaller scale.

David Barral, dubbed as the “First Bitcoin Player” was signed by Segunda B side DUX Internacional de Madrid through a cryptocurrency transaction. This transfer already made an impact around the world with so many news agencies covering it, imagine if a huge club is next.

If a huge transfer happens then Bitcoin and cryptocurrency will definitely hit the mainstream and I personally think that this day is closer than we think. Big clubs around the world are already advertising crypto-currency – Arsenal advertise crypto on their pitch side advertisement boards and Southampton FC pay their player bonuses with Bitcoin, however this is still optional. It’ll take just one big transfer to open the floodgates and take it to the next level.

Having said that, when we cross over the pond to the US, the sports industry and crypto are already thriving like a match made in heaven. Many NFL teams are already adopting crypto payments for in-stadium services, by accepting Bitcoin or Ethereum while the NFL itself has given permission to clubs to pay their players and staff in crypto, something that is lacking in European leagues.

This resulted in a historic deal as the Carolina Panthers’ Russell Okung was the first ever NFL player to be paid through Bitcoin. Okung saw part of his $13million salary go to Strike who then pay Okung in Bitcoin. Russell Okung has set the ball rolling in the NFL, encouraging other players to get paid in Bitcoin but he is not the first US sports star to receive this type of payment. NBA star Spencer Dinwiddie and several New York Yankees squad members have all received parts of their salary in crypto. Now, Kansas City Chiefs’ Sean Culkin also became the first ever athlete to switch his whole salary into Bitcoin.

The sudden rise in price of Bitcoin has certainly caught the eye of a number of high-profile athletes and if this trend continues, I see Bitcoin and crypto becoming the norm in sports. Several movements by big sports teams and influential athletes will definitely push Bitcoin to the next level.

Sports and cryptocurrencies definitely have a future together and crypto can use sports to boost its popularity among the masses and mainstream audience. The relationship is still at the infancy stage but with many clubs implementing cryptocurrencies in their transaction modes and players requesting to be paid via crypto – the sky is the limit for this relationship, and I believe sports and its loyal communities will elevate the crypto industry to levels we did not foresee.