Paul Taylor Interview

Get to know Brickken's most recent Partner & Advisor, Paul Taylor.

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1. Can you tell us a bit about your professional background

I have a traditional finance background (worked at multiple Wall Street firms in wealth management, investment banking, and private equity). I spent most of my career at BlackRock on their private equity team, where I led their web3 investment thesis and also helped with gaming and emerging technology investments. I'm also an active angel investor and help advise many crypto startups.

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2. What is something not many people know about you?

I love playing chess. I learned how to play the game when I was 5 years old and went on to win a few national championships. Although I don't play it competitively anymore, I still enjoy a good game!

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3. When did you first hear about tokenization and what was your initial opinion?

I was first introduced to crypto in 2011 and it's been interesting to see the narratives around tokenization evolve. I think tokenization/RWA had a lot of attention around 2017 but sort of fizzled out. However, I think this is finally tokenization's time to shine and traditional asset managers are seriously looking into how to implement it in their business. I've always thought tokenization was such an obvious use case for crypto and I'm glad to see it's getting so much attention now.

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4. How has that opinion evolved since you first were introduced to tokenization?

I still hold the same opinion - tokenization is a great use case for crypto and will help save billions of dollars in better efficiencies and more flexible use cases for assets (especially around more optimized collateralization).

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5. How did you first get into contact with Brickken?

I met Edwin at a web3 conference in Las Vegas in 2022. He immediately stood out as someone who is building in a very genuine way and have stayed in touch since then.

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6. As our advisor, how are you working with the Brickken team?

At a high level, my job is to be a sounding board for the Brickken team. I provide my feedback on ideas that can help improve Brickken and also provide introductions where helpful. I tend to specialize in GTM strategy, fundraising, listing help, and broadly offering my advice on a variety of things as they pop up.

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7. How do you foresee the role of tokenization evolving in the next few years, and what impact might it have on different industries?

I think traditional asset managers are the immediate use case for tokenization. Tokenizing funds and traditional financial investments can potentially save anywhere from 5 to 20 basis points - which is massive. Longer-term, I think we may see more non-traditional asset types begin to become tokenized. Overall, I think tokenization offers a more efficient and flexible system of tracking, managing, and deploying assets for many industries.

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8. Is there a specific aspect of tokenization that excites you the most, and why?

Tokenization around treasury funds excites me the most. That's a multi-trillion-dollar industry and will pave the way for tokenization of other assets in my opinion. On-chain t-bills will also boost liquidity for the crypto ecosystem in theory as well.

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9. If you could tokenize any unconventional item or asset, what would it be, and how do you envision people interacting with it?

I think tokenizing private equity before it goes public is interesting. Private markets historically suffer from being illiquid and, in theory, tokenization can enhance liquidity. It's an interesting space and if illiquid assets become tokenized, then that should make markets more efficient and perhaps have more participants.

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10. Finally, what is your favorite Pizza?

Pepperoni with black olives and mushrooms!