Bitcoin Angels, Devils & Bulls
Founding Members
Satoshi Nakamoto is the name used by the unknown person or people who designed bitcoin and created its original reference implementation (white paper published October 2008). As part of the implementation, they also devised the first blockchain database. In the process they were the first to solve the double-spending problem for digital currency. They were active in the development of bitcoin up until December 2010.
Wikipedia
Nick Szabo is a computer scientist, legal scholar and cryptographer known for his research in digital contracts and digital currency. He graduated from the University of Washington in 1989 with a degree in computer science. He holds an honorary professorship at the Universidad Francisco Marroquín.
The phrase and concept of "smart contracts" was developed by Szabo with the goal of bringing what he calls the "highly evolved" practices of contract law and practice to the design of electronic commerce protocols between strangers on the Internet. Smart contracts are a major feature of cryptocurrency and the programming language E. Szabo influentially argued that a minimum granularity of micropayments is set by mental transaction costs.
Gavin Andresen (born Gavin Bell) is a software developer best known for his involvement with Bitcoin. He is based in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Originally a developer of 3D graphics and virtual reality software, he became involved in developing products for the Bitcoin market in 2010, and was declared by Satoshi Nakamoto as Lead Developer of the reference implementation for Bitcoin client software after Satoshi Nakamoto had announced his departure. In 2012 he founded the Bitcoin Foundation to support and nurture the development of the Bitcoin currency, and by 2014 left his software development role to concentrate on his work with the Foundation.
Adam Back (born July 1970) is a British cryptographer and crypto-hacker. He is the inventor of hashcash, the proof-of-work system used by several anti-spam systems. A similar system is used in bitcoin. Hashcash has also been used in a number of other protocols such as combating blog spam, and defending against user namespace pollution.
Evangelists
Andreas M. Antonopoulos (born 1972) is a Greek-British California-based bitcoin advocate. He is a host on the Let's Talk Bitcoin podcast and a teaching fellow for the M.Sc. Digital Currencies at the University of Nicosia. In 2012 Antonopoulos became enamored with bitcoin. He eventually abandoned his job as a freelance consultant and started speaking at conferences about bitcoin, consulting for startups, and writing articles free of charge.
- Wikipedia
- Canadian Senate presentation (Oct. 2014, YouTube)
Pierce is known for his work with bitcoin and other digital currencies, as an advisor, founder, and investor. Pierce has invested in over 30 companies in the blockchain ecosystem, helped raise over $200MM for companies he is involved with, is a mentor for startup accelerators, and runs a top AngelList syndicate.
Pierce is a founder, board member, or advisor for several Bitcoin companies, including GoCoin, Tether, ZenBox, Blade Financial, Expresscoin, Noble Markets, BitGo, AirSwap, and ChangeTip.
Bulls
John David McAfee (born September 18, 1945) is a British-American computer programmer and businessman. He founded the software company McAfee Associates in 1987 and ran it until 1994, when he resigned from the company. McAfee Associates achieved early success as the creators of McAfee, the first commercial antivirus software, and the business now produces a range of enterprise security software. The company was renamed to Intel Security in 2011 after being purchased by Intel, though the software still retains the McAfee brand name.
Trace Mayer is an entrepreneur, investor, journalist, monetary scientist and ardent defender of the freedom of speech. Trace Mayer holds degrees in Accounting and law. He has studied Austrian economics focusing on Murray Rothbard and Ludwig von Mises.
Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss (born August 21, 1981) are American rowers and Internet entrepreneurs. They competed in the men's pair rowing event at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. They are known for co-founding HarvardConnection (later renamed ConnectU) along with Harvard University classmate Divya Narendra. In 2004, the Winklevoss brothers sued Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, claiming he stole their ConnectU idea to create the popular social networking site, and ultimately received $65 million.
They are now venture capitalists, and have led a seed funding round for bitcoin payment processor BitInstant. In April 2013, the brothers claimed they owned nearly 1% of all bitcoin in existence at the time.