Brenda, you spent a good part of your career, 13 years, as an economist in the U.S. government. What made you walk away from that stability and start building blockchain infrastructure instead?
After the 2008 financial crisis, observing the devastation it caused in families and the government bailouts of companies, I wanted to be part of building competitive technology solutions that could push for better behaviour and offer an alternative financial system.
I initially came into blockchain to help democratise financial risk management tools, such as on-chain derivatives. Financial derivatives were originally created to act as risk management tools, and yet most people either don’t know about them or can’t afford to use them. Unfortunately, the people who are priced out of these tools are ironically the ones who often need them the most. I wanted to help change that.
We realised very quickly that the infrastructure needed to build completely decentralised financial derivatives on-chain simply wasn’t ready. The only functional oracle in 2018 was Oraclize (now Provable), and it was completely centralised. So we set out to build our own decentralised solution and had an MVP by the end of summer that same year. After going through a few iterations, we became Tellor in March 2019.
Building infrastructure was a need and not the original plan. However, I am grateful that’s where our journey led us. Our efforts have helped push for more resilient and censorship-resistant blockchain infrastructure and further the competitiveness of this technology.
Before moving into crypto, you spent years working with data that makes financial markets move. How did that experience shape the way you think about data integrity and trust in decentralised systems?
It’s interesting how life works. Earlier in my career, I was involved in producing data, researching methodologies, and overseeing data publication. Ensuring that the data was published in a fair and equitable manner was always one of the most important parts. That way, everyone gets the data at the same time, so insider trading can be avoided. There are a lot of processes put in place to protect the data prior to release.
As for how that experience impacted my view on data in crypto, I’d say there are two main ways. First, I believe it should be distributed as equitably as possible, just like government data. And second, when it comes to transparency, decentralised systems should do an even better job than governments, both to avoid data manipulation and to allow faster iterations in methodology improvements.
Also, due to the pseudonymity feature of decentralised networks, the issue of insider trading becomes even more prominent, and to avoid it, similar precautions for proper and equal dissemination of information need to be taken. When you trust a centralised service to feed data into your protocol, a few people (or nodes) will know the value of that data in advance and have the potential to exploit it while remaining hard to identify — either because of using a different address or having an accomplice. Tracking such attacks is very hard.
Meanwhile, at Tellor, data consensus happens on-chain, and the median of all collected reporter submissions becomes the official value, so everyone has an equal chance at using that information.
As for data integrity, this is the case of the devil hiding in the details. Exactly what words you use to ask a survey question can create bias in all the results. I have experience with every part of the data creation process — from survey design and sample selection to data collection, outlier detection, imputation, aggregation methods, seasonal adjustment, and coordinated data safety and publication. Each one of these parts has its complexities and can be a rabbit hole in its own right.
At the same time, not all of them apply to each piece of on-chain data we are asked to provide, but understanding where they do helps us improve Tellor’s data quality. In traditional finance, a disagreement on pricing methods can lead to years of litigation before a payout actually happens. In crypto, once the information comes in and the settlement takes place, there is no going back. So you must get the information correct from the start, and that begins with robust specifications, monitoring, on-chain dispute mechanisms, and proper oracle implementation.
Beyond the technical issues, my previous experience with government work allowed me to see first-hand how bureaucracy and politics can slow down improvements in methodologies. This type of manipulation is much harder to spot because it’s much more subtle — and even when a new method proves to be better, actually implementing the change can take years and require almost an act of Congress to happen, all while data is purposely allowed to remain less accurate. At Tellor, data definitions are public, which allows the community to help iterate and improve on methods of collection, aggregation, outlier detection, and dispute monitoring.
Listening to you, it sounds like everything comes back to one thing: trustworthy data. Is that what ultimately led you into building oracle infrastructure? Oracles are often described as one of the most critical yet least understood layers of crypto, after all. Do you feel like this field has evolved in the last few years?
Building oracle infrastructure started as a necessity, a problem that needed solving. And what continues to push me to build in this field even today is the lack of censorship-resistant oracles with liveness guarantees. These two properties are important because they allow protocols to continue to operate in hostile environments and also be AI-friendly.
Once oracles are implemented, users need data to trigger an action. And they also need to protect their protocol and users from the oracle provider or government censoring their data feed or the team walking away.
There are certainly some areas in which the crypto industry has matured, but I would not say that oracle infrastructure is one of those. Most implemented oracles are still centralised, and even Vitalik Buterin has been talking about how the oracle problem is a “skeleton in the closet” for Ethereum and still needs attention.
Up until now, preference had been given to centralised solutions, because speed was considered the most important thing. However, as the tech evolves, the latency difference between centralised and decentralised solutions will continue to shrink. I expect we’ll see the conversation move away from blindly adhering to centralisation and towards prioritising security, transparency, privacy, and user control.
We are already seeing signs of this shift, as even centralised entities increasingly show willingness to build on open networks. Take, for example, Robinhood becoming an L2 on Ethereum: even as they hold high levels of control over their L2, they are still using Ethereum as a foundation without compromising Ethereum’s censorship resistance and decentralisation properties.
I think we’ll eventually start seeing more of this type of merging take place. Centralised entities want secure systems instead of obscured ones, especially when insider trading and user trust are the trade-off.
As a female founder and CEO in this space, you’ve spent years building your business and growing with the crypto industry. From your perspective, have you noticed the culture becoming more inclusive? Or is it still as male-dominated as many perceive it? Has it changed anything in your approach to leadership?
The industry is still heavily male-dominated, yes, but I see it as part of a much wider societal gap, rooted in education and funding opportunities.
People naturally tend to hire and invest in people that remind them of themselves, so venture capital is also still largely made up of men. That being said, there has indeed been some encouraging change. For example, between 2018 and the present day, I’ve seen that there are noticeably more women appearing and speaking at conferences. I am hopeful that this greater involvement will eventually lead to more women leading companies in this space.
As an economist, it was also normal for me to be the only woman in the room, so it’s hard to say if this environment has changed how I lead in any real way. But I am fortunate to have built an amazing team, and my number one job is to help everyone in it achieve their highest level of performance. I’m always willing to roll up my sleeves and work alongside them.
How others react to me, however, is a more interesting question. Most people are respectful and receptive, but then there are still a few who can be dismissive of women because they don’t expect us to be in decision-making positions.
Fortunately, the best connections are those that you cultivate over time, not through first impressions alone. People usually realise quickly when someone is only trying to extract value from them. Some business deals can be done that way, but long-term business partnerships will only happen between people who share similar values and ethics.
You've continued building Tellor since 2019, through bull markets, crashes, regulatory uncertainty, and the fallout from the FTX collapse. What does it actually take to keep moving forward like that when the broader industry loses confidence?
Crypto has experienced a few metamorphoses since 2019, and I am lucky to have been a part of them.
It is tough to keep building in periods when the industry loses confidence or focus. In such times, I remind myself that I’m not building for a cycle but for a future I deeply believe should exist. Back in 2019, in one of those days when I felt particularly determined and optimistic, I wrote down my “why”, and I still have it posted on the board next to my monitor at home. I read it anytime I feel like I need a reminder, and I highly recommend other people do this as well — founders or not.
I also remind myself that crypto is still a very young industry and mistakes will inevitably be made. Failure is part of growth, and what we build in the future simply needs to incorporate the lessons that we learn from those mistakes.
Brenda, you regularly speak across different venues alongside the biggest names in traditional finance, and often as the only woman on stage. For many women, such rooms can feel intimidating to walk into. What advice would you give them on how to show up confidently and make those events actually work for you?
For me, the key to feeling more confident is shifting the focus from myself to the message I want people to hear. Whether I’m speaking on a panel or giving a keynote, my goal is to provide genuine value to the audience.
If you feel like you need to build up your confidence, I would suggest attending events with subject matter experts in your field to develop your own voice. Be curious and ask yourself: “Do I agree with their statements? Are they based on the most recent data? Are there more recent or significant studies that these people should be discussing?”
You might be surprised how much of what feels like common knowledge to you is not so to others. And talking about it can be valuable.
At the same time, don’t forget to be kind: anyone willing to step onto a stage and share their thoughts for everyone to critique deserves a certain level of respect for their bravery.
