Jonmichael Hands VP Storage Business Development, Chia Network

Chia Network, Inc., a new energy-efficient decentralized blockchain founded by Bram Cohen, named Neil Cohn as VP of markets and sustainability and Jonmichael Hands as VP of storage business development.

Cohn will lead the charge to drive adoption of Chia as secure programmable digital money that authentically delivers on environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals, while Hands will partner with the storage vendors to optimize product development, market modeling and blockchain integration.

Chia stands out as a green crypto option, on the path to adoption by financial firms, multinational companies and government agencies.

“We’re thrilled to welcome Neil and Jonmichael to Chia to ensure our ESG leadership in the industry,” said Gene Hoffman, president and COO. “They are committed to our mission to be the most sustainable and secure crypto solution across the globe.”

Neil Cohn joins Chia with a track record dedicated to ESG and driving change through innovative markets and investment. He founded Agcelerator, a low carbon sustainability advisor. Earlier, he served as SVP, environmental financial products for Macquarie Bank, MD at Natsource and commodities trader at Glencore.

“As Chia crypto grows at a tremendous rate, I am excited to join the company to provide a more energy-efficient blockchain and smart transaction platform to customers and end users around the globe,” he said. “By using proof of space and time, Chia is able to dramatically reduce the carbon footprint of cryptocurrency, while transforming the financial industry.”

Jonmichael Hands most recently spent 10 years at Intel in its non-volatile memory solutions group working on product line management, strategic planning and technical marketing for the company’s data center SSDs. In addition, he served as the chair for NVM Express, Storage Networking Industry Association SSD special interest group and Open Compute Project for open storage hardware innovation. He began his career at Sun Microsystems designing storage arrays (JBODs).

“As the crypto industry enters a pivotal period, I’m looking forward to working closely with the storage vendors on the Chia ecosystem to ensure energy-efficient storage,” he explained. “Proof of space and time is the real solution to the crypto proof of work energy problem. Chia has the technology, team and vision for cryptocurrency to be adopted globally, grow sustainably and secure the future of finance through storage.”

About Chia Network
It is an open-source decentralized blockchain, digital currency and smart transaction platform. Founded by Bram Cohen, inventor of BitTorrent, it believes that “digital money” should be easier to use than cash, harder to lose and nearly impossible to steal. Using the first new secure Nakamoto consensus algorithm invented since Bitcoin, Chia operates an eco-friendly, secure and user-friendly system for cross border payments, issuing and exchanging financial assets, lending, escrow payments, institutional custody and distributed identity. Chia’s blockchain is based on “Proof of Space and Time” which has a reduced carbon footprint compared to “Proof of Work,” used by all other crypto networks. Built on Chialisp, the company’s smart coin language, Chia’s blockchain allows its users to build and execute secure “smart coin” transactions.

The company is funded by VCs including Richmond Global Ventures, Slow Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Naval Ravikant, True Ventures, Cygni Captial, Galaxy Digital, Greylock, MetaStable, Stillmark, DCM, and others. Advisors include Dr. Dan Boneh, research partner at a16z and applied cryptography professor at Stanford University; David Frazee, managing partner at Richmond Global Ventures; Katie Haun, general partner at a16z; Dr. Krzysztof Pietrzak, cryptography professor of IST Austria.