Mark Smith | Source | CEO Co-Founder at Symbiont

MS

Mark Smith

CEO Co-Founder at Symbiont
On the record
Share profile 
Link:
Bio
Edit

Mark Shelby Smith is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Symbiont Inc., a leading technology company focused on solving complex global finance problems using a novel enterprise blockchain solution.

As CEO, Mark leads Symbiont’s corporate business strategy, product development, technology vision, fundraising, executive leadership, and organizational direction. Founded in 2013, Symbiont is the result of the merger of Bitcoin 2.0 project Counterparty.io and MathMoney f(x), which Mark founded.

Both as a respected C-Suite executive and serial entrepreneur, Mark is a Board Member, Founder, Innovator and Capital Markets visionary, with over two decades of global markets experience in financial services and technology. As a pioneer in the electronification of the markets and a recognized champion for digital ledger technology, Mark spearheaded the development of Symbiont Assembly™, the first enterprise blockchain platform used today by organizations such as Vanguard and StateStreet.

Furthermore, Mark is both a market structure expert and advocate for blockchain technology as a tool to solve complex operational finance inefficiencies. His vision has led to the deployment of disruptive technologies within institutional and non-institutional customer segments, capital markets, and alternative investing, with an expertise in building efficient foreign exchange ecosystems.

Throughout his career, Mark founded four fintech companies that have gone from start-up phase to exit including The NexTrade ECN, MatchBook FX, Lava Trading, and Anderen Bank of Tampa Bay. He is a Founding Board Member of the Association for Digital Asset Markets (ADAM) and a Founding Board Member of the Cointelegraph Innovation Circle.

Mark graduated from the University of South Carolina with a Bachelor of Science in Finance and Economics. He currently serves on the Board of USA Swimming Centers for Excellence.

Employment
Sign up to view all
Media
Sign up to view all
Recent Quotes
Sign up to view all

  • When assessing connections, I only want to associate with moral and ethical actors. It’s important to have a space with those who value ethics and who also have a philosophical interest in the movement. Without these key factors, scams and money grabs can, unfortunately, occur, which can have a negative impact within the industry. - Mark Smith, Symbiont

  • “We talk about Vanguard being willing to be the tip of the spear,” Smith adds. “Take the risk, make the investment to benefit the whole market, because what they’re doing is going to be applied to everybody else that wants to use.

    “Being willing to do things for the betterment of the market itself is a unique thing, and when it’s someone as big as Vanguard, well, you know you kind of keep yourself embedded as hard as you can and perform as best you can, and eventually it’ll all tip and it’ll going to be fantastic.”

  • “We are looking at the technology as a toolkit to solve existing problems,” said Smith.

    “From day one, it was really a question of how do we use this technology, in an appropriate way, for regulated entities to use it in a compliant fashion.”

    “The smart contract calculates exactly how much collateral you need based on an initial margin calculation that’s agreed upon amongst the two counterparties,” Smith said. “Historically, each side calculates margin on their own, and then they reconcile on an overnight basis or every two days manually to determine if both sides got the right margin variance calculation.”

Headshots