Cryptocurrency expert Tegan Kline’s favorite motto “Do No Harm, Take No Bull, Change the World” aptly describes her business approach. As Co-Founder and Head of Business at Edge & Node, she helps leaders and innovators connect more deeply with stakeholders across the blockchain ecosystem. Tegan’s been using her competitive background in investment banking, and insider experience in traditional finance to boost explosive growth of the blockchain industry.
Included in the Forbes 30 under 30 list 2022, Tegan describes Edge & Node as ‘an indexing and query protocol organising the world’s open blockchain data, and making open data a public good.’ On a mission to ensure a vibrant decentralized future, she explains the company is ‘one of many core development teams within The Graph ecosystem.’
The Graph is one of the most used protocols in web3. It’s the decentralized indexing and query layer for web3, which enables serverless and unstoppable decentralized applications, like organizing blockchain data.
The Graph currently supports indexing data from over 39 different networks (including Ethereum, Ethereum’s Layer 2 chains, EVMs and Non-EVM chains), with thousands of developers using it for various applications like Uniswap, Synthetix, Decentraland, and DAQstack
As a personal freedom and empowerment advocate, Tegan focuses on shifting paradigms of wealth and access to information. With her astute mindset, she always sacrifices short-term gains for the long-term vision. And at Edge & Node (now worth about $650 million according to Forbes), she’s paving the way for DeFi and the broader web3 ecosystem to ensure blockchains become the future of the Internet.
One of the reasons − cited by Forbes to include Tegan on its 30 under 30 list 2022 − is that she raised $22.5 million to help The Graph build an opensource tool for Ethereum developers, thereafter co-founding Edge & Node to help monetize the project.
Although she learned about Bitcoin in 2011, she chose to follow a traditional Wall Street path. “It wasn’t until I learned about Ethereum in 2016 that I saw an opportunity to create a new internet and a new financial system.”
Earlier in her career, Tegan’s work included sales and trading at Barclays, and investment banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML). Thereafter, as International Business Development Manager and OXT Relations Lead for blockchain company Orchid, she helped successfully launch the company on Coinbase at a $400m valuation.
Describing the Metaverse as a ‘network of 3d virtual worlds that respects your digital identity and ownership, which is built on fully decentralized and open-source infrastructure,’ Tegan is convinced blockchain technology and web3 will be a crucial part of the Metaverse.
She considers ‘consumer mindshare around NFTs’ as the major pivot in seeing web3 going mainstream in the last year.
“We now see clearly ‘NFTs provide a sense of ownership for digital assets, which we didn’t have before.”
Moreover, NFTs provide an attractively novel sense of community and connection to artists; they’ve captured mainstream consumer mindshare with involvement by Reddit, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Tegan also envisages decentralized applications revolutionizing many aspects of our lives. These include finance through DeFi, art and fashion thru NFTs, community organization through DAOs, and ‘many other use cases we cannot even imagine today.’
She’s optimistic about web3’s momentum, remarking there’ll be ‘a lot of applications involving NFTs and Defi, a much faster web3 and far cheaper transactions with the scaling bottleneck of blockchains gone.’ However, getting web3 stack ready and decentralized and ensuring a smooth user experience remain key challenges.
Upholding integrity, staying true to her personal values, and an abundance mindset are hinted at in Tegan’s Twitter references.
Looking to the future, her passion for truly decentralized projects reflects her enthusiasm for helping individuals coordinate with web3 in a new way, giving them power, control, decision making, and ownership.
Lastly, Tegan asserts Bitcoin is ‘not a fad or a short-lived bubble. It’s here to stay and will only continue to grow.’ So too, will web3: “It’s here to stay. And no, it will not be corrupted. Embrace it, don’t fight it.
TEGAN KLINE’S METAVERSE & WEB3 TIPS AND RESOURCES
Website: tegankline.com
