Elena Sinelnikova is a co-founder and CEO of Metis. She is also an experienced software developer and blockchain entrepreneur who co-founded and is the CEO of CryptoChicks, a blockchain education platform for women. ^[1]

Education & Early Career

Sinelnikova graduated from the National Research University of Electronic Technology with a Master’s in Computer Science in 1995. After graduation, she worked as a consultant for Sierra Systems, a tech company in Canada, where she worked on various projects for seven years. ^[1]

In 2002, she became a solutions architect and applications analyst for the Edmonton Police Department, where she worked for 14 years. Afterward, she moved to Toronto to start working with blockchain technology alongside her friend, Natalie Amelina, mother of Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s founder. ^[1][2]

Career

CryptoChicks

While trying to learn about blockchain and cryptocurrency, Sinelnikova and Amelina were having trouble understanding the basics, like installing a wallet on a laptop, because much of the information needed wasn’t around then. This led to them starting a small meetup for women in Toronto who wanted to learn about blockchains, which grew into a much larger group over the years. ^[3]

“We both have a software development background and were fascinated with the technology. But in the beginning, it was really hard to even figure out how to do the basic stuff like installing a wallet, because the information was missing, the interfaces were not user-friendly. We were puzzled: If we, with software development degrees, were having a hard time, how could everyday people — especially those who had no familiarity — understand it?...So, we decided to start this little meet-up group for women in Toronto. Natalia explained blockchain tech, wallets, to about 50 people. We were surprised by the interest!”

In July 2017, Sinelnikova and Amelina founded CryptoChicks, a platform dedicated to educating women on blockchain technology and cryptocurrency with chapters in over 56 countries. They help build blockchain startups through their CryptoChick Hatchery incubation memberships and the CryptoChick Academy, which provides educational courses on crypto and blockchain technology. ^[3]

Metis

While working at Cryptochicks, Sinelnikova met Kevin Liu and Yuan Su during a collaboration conference for blockchain entrepreneurs. With the shared idea of giving anyone interested in blockchain access, they founded Metis in 2018. Metis is an Ethereum Layer 2 Rollup platform designed for swift and straightforward smart contract deployment within its network. It presents multiple solutions addressing challenges encountered on the Ethereum mainnet, such as transaction speed, cost, and scalability. ^[4]

“Metis.io has a goal to help startups and mature organizations to move their business to blockchain with just a click of a button. Many would like to do so, but very few can afford expensive blockchain developers, so Metis.io is helping those by providing a decentralized platform where pretty much anyone can create a company on blockchain, invite people to join, hire new employees or freelancers, and pay them salaries via blockchain.”

Interviews

About Metis

In November 2023, the Crypto Coin Show interviewed Sinelnikova about Metis and its solutions. At the start of the interview, she shared her reasoning for starting the company: ^[5]

“My vision formed that I would love people in the world to know how great the blockchain space is, how open it is, how borderless it is, how inclusive. And I made it my mission, you know, to onboard not only people but also businesses, and then people through the businesses. And that's how I started with Metis. I met my co-founders, Kevin Liu and Yuan Su, while we were still collaborating on CryptoChicks. CryptoChicks had three other conferences, and this idea of me just becoming a decentralized platform for businesses and a gateway wave from web 2 to work 3 actually captivated me. And I joined Metis as a CEO back then.”

When asked about the Ethereum scaling problem and how Metis fit into the equation, she responded: ^[5]

“When Ethereum began this whole scaling upgrade, Ethereum will be faster, but the fastest transactions can be achieved through Layer 2, and the cheapest transactions can be achieved through Layer 2. So, that's the way to go. Layer 2 is going to stay, and they're probably going to stay forever. And maybe they'll transform into something like Layer 3 or Layer 4, so that's a possibility as well. So, what's different about Layer 2 is just the means for us to get where our vision is. And again, as I said, our vision is onboarding businesses and making the infrastructure suitable for them to run their business on-chain.”

She also shared her thoughts on the competitive landscape of scaling solutions in blockchain: ^[5]

“What I checked about Optimism is their focus on the vast Harmony ecosystem of developers collaborating towards a future empowered by AI. That's their vision of the future world, where AI collaborates with people, working together to find solutions and make the world a better place. For us, our focus may be more pragmatic and different, centered around businesses. I believe all people are involved in the global economy through businesses run by different individuals and organizations. These businesses can operate in a decentralized environment. However, the existing problem is that businesses are often separated by borders, regulations, and geographical locations. Yet, recent events have shown that we can all work together as one team, regardless of our physical location.”

“So, our approach involves building solutions for businesses and onboarding them, which is the route we've taken. Optimism, on the other hand, has focused more on the public goods route and AI. It's different, but perhaps we can converge in a harmonious way in this new world. These are just different strategies we're employing to reach our goals. I wouldn't even consider us competitors because each ecosystem operates with its own set of rules, visions, and goals on how they want to achieve their objectives.”

When asked about onboarding companies not involved in Web3, Sinelnikova responded: ^[5]

“Of course, the easiness of onboarding and probably the easiness of elder players being not on the network, that we made this focus as the number one priority for that we are developing right now the infrastructure of decentralized autonomous companies so that's how we call them so it means that the company can just onboard with one click onto the network and then start using tools so maybe it is like maybe the plan between a LinkedIn and SAP but it's run on chain but yes everything the usability wise has to be done with the minimal number of clicks and also we are developing at the same time we have the reputation power which also becoming the web free identity so that is also onboarding with one click with your web free identity and that is going to be Universal across the platform and also across the blockchain.”