Bermuda Monetary Authority meets with Agentic Group to establish a Bitcoin incubator and blockchain startup facility

Bermuda is a picturesque British overseas territory with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of about 5.2 billion dollars and a population of less than 65,000 people. Nonetheless, it’s an important offshore financial hub, with a zero-percent corporate income tax rate.

The island territory has the fourth highest per capita income in the world, according to the CIA factbook, which is about 70% higher than that of the US.

It is of little wonder why Rik Willard, founder and Managing Director of the Agentic Group felt Bermuda would be an ideal spot to develop an accelerated digital currency ecosystem; a ‘bitcoin island,’ of sorts, which is a project he’s been working on since he first launched the Agentic consortium in January. He dubbed the project “Bitmuda.”

Willard traveled to Bermuda last month, with other members of the Agentic Group, in an attempt to bring members of the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) up to speed on blockchain technology and digital currencies. The consortium offered suggestions on how Bermuda could “leverage its reputation as a prominent financial player on the world stage to become a Fintech leader in the 21st Century,” according to the group.

“We seek to work closely with government to establish both a bitcoin incubator and blockchain startup facility in Bermuda.”
— – Rik Willard, Agentic Group Managing Director

Commenting about how the visit went, Willard said that Agentic representatives “were delighted to meet with the Bermuda Monetary Authority to discuss how these growing industries could mark Bermuda on the map as one of the leading Fintech hubs, specializing in cryptocurrency and blockchain.”

After a successful round of meetings, Agentic announced collaborative plans with the BMA last week. Members of the BMA are interested, according to Willard, in several different uses for cryptocurrencies and blockchains. “I think they are interested in a variety of applications,” Willard told BraveNewCoin, “some very specific and some highly conceptual.”

Since its debut in January, the New York-based Agentic Group has added offices in Paris and London, while growing their membership to over 35 Digital Currency and Blockchain related companies, Investors, and individuals who work with and invest in blockchain technology.

“Agentic Group LLC is a global membership-based consortium of Blockchain, Digital Currency and related companies providing education, consulting and development services for businesses, governments and nonprofits.”
— – Agentic Group

Members include many well-known companies and investors in the digital currency space, such as BitGive, BraveNewCoin, Coinsource, Consensys, Fermat, Lively Gig, Loyyal, Tendermint, and Veritaseum.

The consortium’s goal is to “support the ideas, companies, and people that develop and monetize this emerging ‘Internet of Value’," according to their mission statement.  The plan to achieve these goals comes in three parts:

1. Exploring real-world Blockchain and Digital Currency opportunities through an event series.

2. Providing executive education and insight for private fund managers.

3. Consulting and developing advanced solutions for corporations, governments and nonprofits.

The group has represented Agentic at several bitcoin and digital currency conferences in the past, with two more events scheduled for June so far.

Willard appears to have the ideal skillset for the job of onboarding new organization into the world of blockchain technology. “My background is in moving emerging technologies in general into the mainstream,” Willard told BNC. “I started with the Internet itself in the 90s, with one of the first dotcoms in New York, focused on digital marketing, asset management and knowledge management for Fortune 500 companies.”

Launching his own dotcom and riding it through the bubble, Willard helped pioneer the digital signage industry, working with Coca-Cola, Budweiser, LG, and other top brands. “At one point, my then-partner and I had consulted with brands and real estate operators for most of the digital signage in Times Square,” he explained.

Willard then “became involved with the VC world,” where he was introduced to Bitcoin in 2012. “Like many others, I fell instantly for the concept of the technology and my mind moved quickly into opportunities in loyalty, identity, payments, etc.”

The following year, Willard started an incubator of digital currency-related companies,  MintCombine, “the implications of blockchains were too powerful and pervasive to place any real bets in the ecosystem,” he explains. Since then Willard has “spent hundreds of hours in meetings,” in order to “understand how these emerging technologies might affect everything from branded currencies to supply-blockchains and global value creation.”

“The MintCombine partnership wound up in 2015,” he said, “and in early 2016 I started Agentic Group to put this knowledge into action.” Companies and investors have been joining up ever since, and not long afterward he set up his meeting with the Bermuda authorities.

To coordinate with the BMA and make sure all of their questions are answered, Agentic already has a permanent representative on the island, who helped Willard get in touch with the proper government agency there. “We have a highly embedded presence,” Willard explained.

“We have had local representation on the island for several months. Assuming all goes as planned, we will increase this presence significantly with both local and non-local players.”
— – Rik Willard

Willard hopes to make more announcements about Bitmuda soon, but for now talks are ongoing as the BMA decides how cryptocurrencies and blockchains will best help them first.