I took the leap of faith. I decided to quit my job as a corporate lawyer, took a coding bootcamp, and I actually took almost a 90% pay cut at the time to become a developer. This technical foundation paved the way for his entry into crypto at the perfect moment.
He joined Crypto.com as its first product manager when the company had just 50 employees. He rode the wave of its meteoric rise and watched the team grow to over 3,000 staff by the time he left. That experience of hyper-growth set the stage for his current role at Animoca Brands, where he moved from building products to empowering the builders themselves.
The core ethos at Animoca is we really look for ways to reimagine economies, Jonah explained. Web3 is a perfect canvas for thinking about how future economies might operate. We really back founders that… can think of innovative ways to solve old market problems… where inefficiencies in the economy haven’t been solved yet.
To illustrate this philosophy, Jonah pointed to two key projects he is personally steering: Open Campus and Pencil Finance. For many university students in the Philippines, at least those who resort to taking a loan to finish their studies, financing an education means accepting interest rates that range from a painful 10% to a crippling 100%. The solution they built is Pencil Finance, a project incubated by the Open Campus. By using blockchain as a liquidity layer, they aim to connect global crypto capital with local students. The goal is to drive down costs and democratizing access to education financing. To ensure regulatory compliance and sustainability, Pencil Finance does not lend directly to students. Instead, it acts as a liquidity layer for licensed local partners, such as Bukas in the Philippines. Whether it’s Tether or USDC available on-chain, that gets off-ramped to our local lenders, and our lenders will work with universities to make sure the loan is administered correctly. Pencil Finance is just one piece of a much larger puzzle: Open Campus, an education operating system powered by the EduChain blockchain. Jonah said the ultimate mission is to tokenize academic achievements as Real World Assets (RWAs). Every exam passed, diploma earned, or course completed builds a student’s on-chain reputation. We want to build a blockchain where academic achievements actually become tokenized Real World Assets. All of these little micro-moments… they all count towards a student’s reputation. He envisions a future where students carry a digital passport of their academic history. This rich data set can be used to prove their skills to employers or secure lower interest rates on loans based on their verified track record. With partnerships already signed in Vietnam and India to roll out verifiable credential systems in schools, Open Campus is moving quickly to make this vision a reality. It’s a pretty tough spot to be in, trying to land your first job, he concluded. We’re helping students right when they need it the most.
Animoca Brands’ leadership emphasizes reimagining economies through Web3, guiding two pivotal initiatives: Open Campus and Pencil Finance. Pencil Finance sits under Open Campus and seeks to connect global crypto capital with students, using blockchain as a liquidity layer to lower the cost of education financing. The approach centers on democratizing access rather than direct lending to learners. Pencil Finance does not lend directly to students; instead, it serves as a liquidity layer for licensed local partners such as Bukas in the Philippines. On-chain assets, including stablecoins like Tether or USDC, are off-ramped to local lenders who collaborate with universities to ensure proper loan administration. Open Campus represents a broader vision: an education operating system powered by the EduChain blockchain. The ultimate mission is to tokenize academic achievements as Real World Assets. Each exam passed, diploma earned, or course completed builds an on-chain reputation for the student, enabling skills verification by employers and potential loan benefits based on verified track records. Partnerships in Vietnam and India aim to roll out verifiable credential systems in schools, accelerating Open Campus’s rollout and making the vision a tangible reality.
Each exam passed, diploma earned, or course completed builds an on-chain reputation for the student, enabling skills verification by employers and potential loan benefits based on verified track records. Partnerships in Vietnam and India aim to roll out verifiable credential systems in schools, accelerating Open Campus’s rollout and making the vision a tangible reality.
Leave a Reply