For 13 years, Brenda Loya worked as an economist in the U.S. government. After witnessing the consequences of the 2008 financial crisis and the bailouts that followed, she wanted to help build an alternative financial system.
Today, Brenda is the Founder and CEO of Tellor, and the Drofa Comms team is pleased to welcome her as our latest Women Leading the Way interview series guest!
Brenda originally entered blockchain to make financial risk-management tools more accessible. But while trying to build decentralised derivatives in 2018, her team found that the necessary oracle infrastructure simply wasn’t there. So, they built their own solution, which eventually became Tellor in 2019.
Her previous work with economic data strongly influenced that process. Brenda had spent years dealing with data collection, methodologies, publication and information security. In crypto, she argues, getting this right matters even more because once data reaches a smart contract and settlement occurs, there may be no way back.
The conversation also explores why she believes oracle infrastructure still has significant room to develop. Brenda expects the industry to pay greater attention to censorship resistance, transparency, privacy and user control as decentralised solutions improve.
We also spoke about what kept her building through crashes, regulatory uncertainty and the collapse of FTX.
“I’m not building for a cycle but for a future I deeply believe should exist.”
Finally, Brenda shared her perspective on being a female founder in a still heavily male-dominated industry. She also explains why confidence often comes from focusing less on yourself and more on the message you want people to hear.
Read the full interview with Brenda Loya on our website!
