bitcoin
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Igor Telyatnikov and the business of being invisible
From electronic security to a national Bitcoin wallet, Igor Telyatnikov built a career around the machinery other people rely on. The AlphaPoint co-founder’s story turns on a deceptively ordinary question: does it work when someone needs it?
Cathie Wood and the trouble with being early
She spent decades inside investment firms before founding ARK in 2014. Her wager on technological change brought a following, sharp reversals, and a question that every forecast eventually has to answer: when?
Ben Weiss and the surprisingly physical life of digital money
Ben Weiss helped build CoinFlip around a stubbornly ordinary habit: paying with cash. His route from a college Bitcoin wallet to thousands of kiosks runs through gas stations, bank accounts, and the work of earning trust.
Graham Krizek and the art of getting out of the way
He built Voltage because using Bitcoin meant doing too much other work first. Six years later, Graham Krizek is betting that the technology will travel further when fewer people have to think about it.
Valery Vavilov and the price of a promise
Growing up in Latvia, Valery Vavilov saw how quickly money and ownership could lose their meaning. At Bitfury, that memory became a business in chips, public records and, eventually, a $1 billion investment initiative.
Barry Silbert and the business of opening a closed door
Before bitcoin, Barry Silbert built a market for shares people could barely sell. At Yuma, the DCG founder is applying a familiar instinct to decentralized AI, with the achievements and unfinished disputes of his crypto career still in view.
Éric Larchevêque and the value of an open door
Before Ledger made a business of keeping things locked, its co-founder opened a place for strangers to meet. From Paris to Vierzon, Éric Larchevêque has kept returning to the same question: who should be in the room?
Adam Back put a price on junk mail. Bitcoin found another use.
In 1997, Adam Back asked computers to do a little work before sending an email. His Hashcash experiment became a building block of Bitcoin - and set the course for a career spent asking who gets to control the network.
Ki Young Ju and the trouble with being right
Ki Young Ju built CryptoQuant to follow the money behind Bitcoin. When the market contradicted him, the founder had another set of numbers to examine: his own.
Del Wang and the 23 days between confidence and crisis
Del Wang helped build Babel Finance into a $2 billion crypto lender. His journey from conventional banking to frozen withdrawals, and a later court victory, turns on the uneasy distance between a long-term belief and a short-term obligation.
Joe Kelly and the useful limits of trust
A Craigslist job brought Joe Kelly to a physics department. Two companies later, he is still working on a problem that sounds simple until money enters the room: how much control should one person have?
Michael Novogratz and the price of conviction
A Princeton wrestler became a Wall Street partner, then staked his next act on crypto. At Galaxy, Michael Novogratz is still learning how far belief can carry a business - and where it needs a balance sheet.
Jesse Powell and the price of admission
Before Kraken, Jesse Powell sold virtual swords and gave artists free studio space. His career keeps returning to the same question: who gets to participate, and who holds the keys?
Afnan Rahman and the price of saying no
OpenNode turned down $1.25 million to keep building on Bitcoin. Afnan Rahman’s career follows the consequences of that choice, from shop counters to a new company asking what makes digital money trustworthy.
Alex Leishman and the patience of a Bitcoin builder
An aerospace graduate took a programming class, found Bitcoin, and changed careers. At River, Alex Leishman is still working through the same question: what would a financial institution built around it actually look like?
Nathan Montone and the year-long conversation about the future
An early Bitcoin investor found a co-founder in institutional finance. At M31 Capital, Nathan Montone has spent the years since connecting unconventional technology bets with the practical business of making them work.
Daniel Vogel and the last mile of money
A failed remittance startup taught Daniel Vogel where digital money gets stuck. At Bitso, the Mexican engineer has spent the years since building the connections that let it move.
Fedi puts Bitcoin in the hands of people you know
A wallet, a chat app, and a rather unfashionable idea: trust people you can actually reach. Fedi is betting that community custody can make Bitcoin useful beyond the technically fearless.
Hiro’s big Bitcoin bet: make the plumbing boring
A missed blockchain event can ruin an otherwise clever app. Hiro builds the tools behind Stacks applications - and its latest changes show why dependable infrastructure sometimes means a shorter product menu.
Exodus made crypto feel simple. Now comes the hard part: spending it.
A free wallet became a $121.6 million business by making crypto easier to handle. Its next wager is that digital dollars belong at the checkout, not just in a portfolio.
Lava and the Strange Luxury of Never Selling
Bitcoin holders have a peculiar problem: their savings can buy a house, but selling them means surrendering the bet. Lava sells a way around that dilemma - with interest, a card, and collateral rules worth reading twice.
Guy Turner Found Bitcoin at a Pub. Then the Internet Found Him.
A sign behind an East London bar sent an English graduate down a Bitcoin rabbit hole. Years later, a search algorithm pushed his crypto blog toward the camera - and Coin Bureau became a global classroom.
The Hidden Toll Booth on Bitcoin’s Fast Lane
Lightning Labs helped make bitcoin payments fast. Then it met the less glamorous problem: someone has to keep the channels funded, balanced, and usable.
The Crypto App That Learned to Love the Paperwork
Abra once promised to make crypto feel effortless. After a costly collision with regulators, it is selling something less glamorous and more useful: named accounts, visible controls and a person who can explain the risk.
The Small Firm Translating Bitcoin and AI for Wall Street
OG Advisory Group found a lucrative gap between fast-moving technology and slow-moving investor language. Its answer is a compact, specialist team that turns miners, data centers and digital-asset platforms into stories the public markets can follow.
Blockchain.com sold financial freedom. Then came a $270 million lesson.
A Bitcoin search tool grew into a wallet, a trading business and an institutional lender. Its journey toward a proposed IPO reveals how much changes when a company built around holding your own keys starts extending credit.
Matt Luongo Keeps Building the Bitcoin He Was Promised
A pile of unwanted coffee cards led Matt Luongo to Bitcoin. A decade later, the Thesis* founder is still wrestling with the same question: how do you make digital money useful without turning it into another machine for middlemen?
The Exchange That Ripped Its Own Name Off the Wall
It dropped the "E," paid the fine, opened in San Jose, and put its reserves on a Merkle tree. Inside OKX's bet that self-custody - not the exchange - is the actual product.
The Bitcoin Miner That Decided It Was Really an Energy Company
MARA runs roughly 1.9 gigawatts of computing across four continents, holds more than 50,000 bitcoin, and now wants to sell you the cooling tanks and energy software behind it all.
The Firm That Turned Bitcoin Into a Ticker Symbol
Grayscale spent a decade building the plumbing that lets ordinary investors own crypto without touching a wallet - then went to court to prove the SEC had to allow it.