Moon Jerin is the Founder and CEO of a ground-breaking technology company. At 18, she studied civil engineering in Canada, but her impact on the world has been felt most positively and remarkably in cutting-edge technology and web3.
Instead of drawing up plans for roads, tunnels, water systems, and airports, Moon creates bridges for people and societies to leap over digital divides to create a future of sustainability and access for everyone.
What brought her to web3 and the metaverse? When she first learned about this technology, she asked herself: “Can I contribute to a technology or a technological evolution where web3 and metaverse provide opportunities to large segments of society that they cannot get from the existing technology? Is there something we can do with the metaverse to create better value than our existing solutions?”
The answers lie in her action. Moon is the Founder and CEO of Aeindri Protocol, a web3 commerce platform. It is the first digital asset marketplace backed by physical assets and experiences. Aeindri Protocol provides the metrics to empower brands and end-consumers to make better purchasing decisions through ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) data. The mission is to shift the focus from traditional purchasing and investment behaviour centred around profitability to that of sustainable business. Combined with the powers of web3 and sustainability, Moon envisions Aeindri Protocol making commerce efficient and traceable. With more than fourteen years of experience in complex program and project management, blockchain strategy development and cryptocurrency, this global innovator has followed a diverse career path. It includes serving as Vice President of Operations and Marketing at Vow Currency and as CMO of Vlinder, where she worked on cryptocurrency, blockchain technology and carbon removal. She is currently an Industry Associate at the UCL Center for Blockchain Technologies and an Advisor and Judge at UC Berkley’s Blockchain Accelerator.
Before joining the blockchain space, Moon worked at Shell Oil company, H.J. Heinz and Amazon. She is a speaker at SxSW, Horasis Global, Huwaei’s European events, and NFT NYC, to name but a few.
According to Moon, web3 and the metaverse are totally different things. In a nutshell, “web3 means people can own the content they create. In web2, people can’t have ownership of their content. This shift started a movement powered by blockchain, decentralization, and cryptocurrency.”
Metaverse is a word with numerous connotations. “There’s lots of debate around exactly what constitutes the metaverse; it has different meanings for different people. At this moment, the metaverse can be described as a space where humans can participate in an avatar-type environment. Currently, it is a state of the internet with a 99% overlap with gaming. It can be used for entertainment, education, business, and more.”
In 2017 she learned about web3, cryptocurrency and blockchain – and identified these as drivers for change across industries and societies. Back then, there was no formalized career path or industry for web3, blockchain or the metaverse.
Moon invested her time in understanding the technologies and the human psychology around them. It was then that she truly understood that web3 comes from two dimensions and will have a profound impact on the future: “First, based on past performances – as an engineer – you look at trends and numbers, and you can assess and forecast what the future could be. Second, by using my intuition, I could make my own decision about this space and industry.”
As an analytical thinker with an engineering background, she focused on studying this new wave of technology from a professional standpoint. She became deeply involved in blockchain research and cryptocurrencies at different levels through her work with universities. In 2018, she became an Industry Associate with the University College London, which gave her access to research, opportunities and credibility. She was named one of the 25 digital leaders by the National University of Singapore.
This led to her joining Vow Currency in 2021 as Vice President of Operations and Marketing. “That’s when I really started learning about cryptocurrency, how to launch, market, regulation, and everything else. I was the third hire for the company – I did everything, including building out departments for the company, from exchanges, regulators, marketing, and everything else. Three months after launching Vow Token, it surpassed $1 billion in a fully diluted market cap.”
At the same time, Moon joined forces with Vlinder, a carbon credit marketplace, as Chief Marketing Officer. She was responsible for assessing the carbon credit market opportunities in Europe and the USA.
“At Vlinder, I saw that the world looked at the climate change problem from a top-down approach. We needed a bottom-up approach to better understand it from different points of view – unlike at COP26 or the G8.”
With vast experience, insight and skills, Moon bravely created and launched Aeindri Protocol.
According to Moon, the future of the metaverse won’t materialize for another three or four years. “My aha moment for Aeindri Protocol was to help companies create NFT collections quicker and more seamlessly. This isn’t an overnight change; rather, it is a step-by-step movement, getting web2 consumers and companies to move slowly to web3, in the same way, people and brands moved from desktop to mobile.”
The biggest challenge for many web2 brands and individuals is being able to make an NFT collection easily and securely. Aeindri Protocol is solving that problem. “We are creating the first phygital marketplace for digital assets. Aeindri Protocol will spearhead the transition of web2 brands and customers to web3. This enables people to learn how to use NFTs and wallets, and brands will know how to operate with NFTs, secondary marketplaces and royalties.”
The legacy Moon wishes to leave behind is one of sustainability – and Aeindri Protocol drives her vision. “The majority of brands don’t have the resources or in-depth capacity to put their supply chain on the blockchain yet. It involves multiple factors. To begin this journey, they can start tracing the NFT itself and eventually have their entire supply chain on the blockchain. For this, we’ve partnered with Good On You to provide ESG metrics on a brand’s NFT collection. When customers shop on our platform, they’ll see 27 ESG factors to help them make better-informed purchasing decisions. We’re also building a fully-fledged back-end traceability system in order to make commerce efficient.”
At Aeindri Protocol, Moon’s combining the powers of web3 and sustainability for a brighter tomorrow.
Website: aeindri.org
