Veterans of the federal government who have Bay Area ties are lining up behind a new cryptocurrency they say provides that transparency. They include former U.S. Treasurer Rosie Rios, who was previously an Oakland economic development official and consultant to San Francisco. Rios says Silicon Valley must help rebuild trust in the industry.

“For anyone investing in crypto, it’s important to consider its utility and the role that your particular investment is playing both in Silicon Valley and beyond,” Rios says. “If California wants to continue to be the leader in technology and innovation, we should find ways to encourage crypto’s functionality and role in the global economy.”

Rios believes that must happen with stablecoins that are actually backed by real-world assets rather than coins “just trading as a floating asset.”

Rios is a director at Unicorn Hunters, the company building unicoin, a cryptocurrency that will be backed by an investment fund, so holders of the coin could receive dividends from the investments.

Moe Vela, another director of the company, was director of administration for President Obama, where he worked closely with Biden. Vela also worked with Vice President Al Gore in the Clinton White House.

“The lack of transparency has caused an unparalleled and incomparable volatility in the investment process,” Vela says. “I cannot stress how important it is that there has to be a distinction between non-asset-backed crypto, the traditional crypto that’s collapsing now, and asset-backed crypto.”

(an excerpt).