Information Sciences and Technology

Heard on Campus: Arianna Simpson of BitGo

Arianna Simpson of BitGo gave a talk about Bitcoin on Thursday April 16 as part of the IST Startup Week speaker series. Credit: Emilee Spokus / Penn StateCreative Commons

"I’m going to blow your mind: Bitcoins don’t actually exist. The concept of a Bitcoin isn’t real. What is real is Bitcoin’s ability to allow parties who don’t have trust between each other to conduct business. Bitcoin allows unbanked people, and those living in unstable economies, to function as their own wallets and get paid for their work.

"What I captured from the beginning was Bitcoin’s revolutionary potential — it is constantly evolving as a living piece of software. In 2014, about 700 data breaches affected millions of peoples’ personal data, and Millennials are wary of this — they see the costs of revamping banking security passed back to them. They don’t think traditional banks support their best interests, and Bitcoin offers transparency. The public ledger is at the core of Bitcoin; everyone in the network sees it, and no one can make changes to it without being seen."

-- Arianna Simpson, account specialist for BitGo. Simpson has spent her career working in tech, first co-founding an enterprise software startup in the loyalty program space, and later leading sales and partner relations at Shoptiques, a Y Combinator-backed e-commerce startup. She then worked at Facebook in Global Marketing Solutions before she decided to pursue her interest in bitcoin full-time, and joined BitGo as the third employee. Simpson frequently speaks and writes about the financial, political and technological implications of bitcoin and the underlying protocol. While at Penn State, she was a Schreyer Honors College scholar, and holds a dual bachelor of arts degree with highest honors. Simpson is also an adviser to the Penn State University Bitcoin Club.

Simpson spoke April 16 at IST Startup Week, a week-long celebration showcasing talented innovators and entrepreneurs from around the country, including alumni from the College of Information Sciences and Technology and Penn State. Tune in to live streaming of events at http://startupweek.weebly.com/live-streams.html.

Last Updated April 20, 2015