Meet Jeff McDonald, Council Member of the NEM.io Foundation

Updated February 5, 2022 at 9:23 am

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Meet Jeff McDonald, Council Member of the NEM.io Foundation

Can you tell us a bit about your background?

I am a former Peace Corps volunteer where I spent two years serving in Lesotho, Africa helping with HIV/AIDS education. Later I was an assistant professor teaching first year communication classes in Korea for 10 years. Now I am the co-founder of the NEM Foundation and LuxTag.

In 2013, when I was teaching in South Korea, I heard about Bitcoin and started to study it. Back then, I used Bitcoin instead of my bank for remittance. It was cheaper and faster than using a wire, and sometimes I even made money on arbitrage. I joined the NEM community in Jan 2014 by making a Facebook page. The rest is as they say “history”.

Meet Jeff McDonald, Council Member of the NEM.io Foundation - 1

Why do you like NEM?

I love the willingness to do things the right way at NEM and to act with integrity.

I think long term sustainable projects need to be built on good tech and no false promises, pumps, or lies.

What does a typical day look like for you?

I spend most of my time on the computer, discussing the future, or reviewing work already done. I try to go to the gym a few times a week and do light exercise. That is when I’m at home. When I’m on the road, I wake up each day and go to meeting after meeting trying to get NEM awareness and adoption furthered.

What are you currently working on?

Lately, I have been working on wallets/SDKs with Greg, speaking at conferences, working on strategy with Alex, helping the Council and working with LuxTag.

Which part of Catapult are you most excited about?

I am a big fan of the MongoDB in Catapult. It solves a problem that most people in the blockchain industry have completely ignored or refused to acknowledge. Now a true decentralized API exists for both writing and reading data at scale whereas before most projects only focused on writing.

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