The Most Influential People in BitCoin – Part 1: Entrepreneurs

This is the first of a four-part series that will highlight some of the most influential people in BitCoin including: entrepreneurs, miners, developers and torchbearers.

Entrepreneurs occupy a central position in a market economy. For it’s the entrepreneurs who serve as the spark plug in the economy’s engine, activating and stimulating all economic activity. The most dynamic societies in the world are the ones that have the most entrepreneurs, plus the economic and legal structure to encourage and motivate entrepreneurs to greater activities.

Brian Tracey – Chairman and CEO of Brian Tracy International, Speaker and Author

Entrepreneurs:

Including (in no particular order): Calvin Ayre, Dr. Craig Wright, Matthew Dickson, Adam Kling, James Belding, Jay Lee, Lorien Gamaroff, Angela Holowaychuk, Stephen Nilsson, Zach Resnick, Daniel Rosen, Jackson Laskey, Dave Mullen-Muhr, Ashok Reddy, Mike Hennessy, Michael Hudson, Alex Agut, Josh Petty, Billy Rose & Jack Liu.

Calvin Ayre – Founder of Ayre Group

Calvin Ayre is a celebrated entrepreneur and a fierce advocate for Bitcoin SV (BSV), the only cryptocurrency and blockchain capable of realizing the ‘Satoshi Vision’ of Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto.

From humble origins on a Canadian pig farm, Ayre became an online gambling pioneer, building his Bodog brand into a global powerhouse in digital entertainment and ultimately landing his face on the cover of the Forbes’ 2006 Billionaires issue.

Shortly thereafter, Ayre ceased his active role in Bodog’s gambling operations in favor of launching the Ayre Group, which focuses on venture capital, real estate, media, resort development and Bitcoin.

Ayre Media includes gambling industry news site CalvinAyre.com and the crypto-focused CoinGeek.com. Ayre also hosts an ongoing series of CoinGeek Conferences that bring together notable figures in the cryptocurrency sector.

Following the 2018 hard fork of the Bitcoin network, Ayre became a champion of BSV, the only cryptocurrency and blockchain with the scaling capacity to realize Bitcoin’s true potential as a frictionless global currency, as opposed to the limited ‘digital gold’ concept that underpins the pretenders to Bitcoin’s throne (BCH, BitcoinABC, BitcoinBTC, etc.)

Never afraid to back up his words with action, Ayre launched his CoinGeek-branded mining pool, which focuses exclusively on mining BSV. CoinGeek is also a founding member of the Bitcoin Association.

Ayre currently resides in Antigua, where he oversees his Calvin Ayre Foundation charitable arm. In 2018, Ayre was named the Antiguan Halo Foundation’s Philanthropist of the Year at its annual Wings of Charity event.

In 2017, Ayre was appointed a special economic envoy for the government of Antigua and Barbuda. Ayre advises the government on the effective implementation of new technological developments in cryptocurrency and Bitcoin and to foster economic cooperation on blockchain technology with other countries.

The simple answer here is belief in what bitcoin is and, sadly, until the creation of BSV last year that had got lost. Bitcoin (BSV) is a low transaction fee, digital currency that can scale to the levels necessary for global adoption.

That’s what I have been investing in and the rewards are starting to come through now as real businesses see what BSV can do. BSV is also the world’s only massively scaling immutable data ledger. Its taken longer that it needed to but bitcoin (BSV) is back on track and ready for everyday use for everyday people.

Calvin Ayre – “On what makes a successful BitCoin entrepreneur”

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Dr. Craig S. Wright – Chief Scientist of nChain

Dr Wright is an Australian computer scientist, businessman, and inventor, who challenges the world with visionary ideas. He is the creator of Bitcoin and author of the Bitcoin white paper under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. Dr Wright is one of the earliest minds behind what we now know as blockchain technology, and established nChain to unleash the technology and its intended purpose—now preserved in the form of the Bitcoin SV Node reference implementation and Bitcoin SV.

As the Chief Scientist at nChain, Dr Wright oversees the scientific functions of the company, including basic and applied research projects and the development of new processes, technologies, and products. He leads a team of world-class blockchain engineers and researchers who strive to deliver cutting-edge solutions to global clients.

Dr Wright has more than 20 years of experience in the fields of information technology and security. He has been a lecturer and researcher in computer science at Charles Sturt University, authored many articles, academic papers, and books, and spoke publicly at conferences on IT, security, Bitcoin, and other topics relating to digital currency.

As one of the most highly qualified digital forensics practitioners in the world, Dr Wright has personally conducted in excess of 1,200 engagements related to IT security for more than 120 Australian and international organizations in the private and government sectors, including 15 Commonwealth states. Dr Wright has held senior executive positions with companies focused on digital currency, digital forensics, and IT security. Among his positions, he was the vice president of the Centre for Strategic Cyberspace and Security Science (CSCSS; www.cscss.org) with a focus on collaborating government bodies in securing cyber systems. Dr Wright also worked on systems that protected the Australian Stock Exchange, and has trained Australian government and corporate departments in SCADA security, cyber warfare, and cyber defence. In one of Dr Wright’s early sector focuses, he helped design the architecture for the world’s first online casino (Lasseter’s Online in Australia) and advised Centrebet on security and control systems.

Many of Dr Wright’s research findings and publications continue to be presented at academic and business conferences. Articles which help explain some of the groundbreaking inventions and concepts can be found on here.

Dr Wright has been granted the following industry certifications: GSE CISSP, CISA, CISM, CCE, GCFA, GLEG, GREM, and GSPA. He has several advanced academic degrees in diverse fields, including a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Computer Science and Economics (thesis title: The Quantification of Information Systems Risk) from Charles Sturt University (completed in 2014; graduated in 2017), a Doctor of Theology (ThD) from United Theological College awarded in 2003, a master’s degree in Statistics, and a master’s degree in International Commercial Law. Dr Wright is currently a candidate for two additional PhDs: in Law at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom and Applied Mathematics at the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers (CNAM) in Paris, France.

The entrepreneur creates new systems, which don’t need to present a massive scientific breakthrough but can even form something as simple as a business process that allows them to improve society. To do so, they require capital as investment. Such investment is all too often confused with vulture capital, yet the majority of capital investment is of a different nature, which includes family resources, banks, or the money that is used when people buy franchises or start new businesses.

Successful entrepreneurs may become capitalists in time. But the reality is that most people from the middle class are already capitalists; you become one when you invest money, and even when you hold a savings and investment plan. What few people understand is that the amount of work is unbounded. There will never be a shortage of work, nor of goods. It always comes down to a trade-off: Are you willing to work for what is being offered? Is the work being applied correctly and where it brings the most benefit? Are you wasting effort?

Dr. Craig Wright – “excerpt from Work Is Infinite…“

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Matthew Dickson – CEO & Founder of BitBoss

Matthew started his career practicing law in New York City. He represented clients in the insurance and finance sectors before forming a diversified financial service company. After the sale of that company Matthew shifted his focus and formed a private equity firm specializing in early stage investments. With a focus on the real money gaming sector he made investments in casinos, online content providers and manufacturers.

Missing the joy of running his own company, Matthew founded Poydras Gaming Finance Corporation, which he took public on the Toronto Venture Exchange in 2014. Poydras, which was recently sold to the Las Vegas based gaming company AGS, owned 2,600 slot machines. The machines were leased to Indian tribes in the United States.

During his time at Poydras he started an emerging technology lab. Once again following his passion for early stage startups Matthew spun BitBoss Corporation out of Poydras and assembled a highly talented team of blockchain developers to pursue opportunities in the gaming sector. Since founding BitBoss he’s been issued a patent for provably fair gaming and has numerous pending patent applications for blockchain gaming solutions.

Matthew’s legal background has allowed him to understand the regulatory environment and he was asked to be on the Gaming Standards Association blockchain workgroup. He has also worked with testing labs to help write testing standards that allow for the inclusion of blockchain technologies.

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Angela Holowaychuk – CEO of TAAL Distributed Information Technologies

Over the last 15 years, Mrs. Holowaychuk has found herself at the forefront of emerging technologies, holding senior management positions leading day to day operations, technical development teams and global expansion projects within the fintech, regtech and most recently, blockchain and Bitcoin exchange sectors.

Her expertise is building global operations and service channels from the ground up and working closely with legal and regulatory advisers, executives and technology specialists.

Mrs. Holowaychuk attended the British Columbia Institute of Technology for Operations and Supply Chain Management.

In an industry where the technology and competition is rapidly advancing your vision for the business has to be clear because the path your business will take won’t be. A successful bitcoin entrepreneur has be resilient, embrace the uncertainty, and work hard so one day you can tell those naysayers “I told you so”

Angela Holowaychuk – “On what makes a successful BitCoin entrepreneur”

Adam Kling – CEO & Founder of Kronoverse

Adam is an entrepreneur with over 20 years experience building various successful projects from the performance marketing industries.

Being amazed when bitcoin dominated the headlines in 2013, he has been following blockchain technologies ever since and trying to find that perfect fit of technology and market fit. Combining competitive gaming & bitcoin opens up new worlds that he intends to take on with a passion.

There is nothing special to being an entrepreneur in bitcoin. All the same principles and wisdom of business applies to you. The secret is to recognize that blockchain technology is the next mega trend for the future and to start NOW!

Adam Kling – “On what makes a successful BitCoin entrepreneur”

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James Belding – CEO & Founder of Tokenized

James is an engineer, entrepreneur, and ardent supporter of Satoshi Nakamoto’s original vision for Bitcoin.

He is the creator of the Tokenized Protocol, an open source token and smart contract system for the Bitcoin SV network. Tokenized aims to use technology to make voluntary exchange simpler, faster, and more affordable.

He is committed to building universal and easy-to-use tools that help make Bitcoin’s value accessible to society at large.

Tokenized hopes to become the backbone of a new global financial system, one that has no barriers to entry and is ultra-convenient and low-cost.

Bitcoin is one of those innovations that will change the world at a foundational level. The infrastructure of a faster, fairer and more interoperable world is being built now on top of Bitcoin SV. The opportunities for enterprising people is absolutely enormous and there has never been a better time to start building on Bitcoin.

James Belding – “Advice on building on BitCoin”

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Jaehwan ‘Jay’ Lee – CEO & Founder of ONE Store Corp & BUSKON

Jaewhan “Jay” Lee started his career in marketing at SK telecom, a leading telecommunications company in Korea. Since then he has worked in the digital content distribution platform business at SK telecom and its subsidiaries

Recently Jay founded One Store which is a local platform for distributing mobile games, apps and digital contents.

“While Apple and Google charge up to 30% of the revenues raised by publishers such as game and app developers, ONE Store just charges 5%. This ensures that the publishers make much more from their work.”. Since then, One Store has become one of the largest app suppliers in South Korea and the region.

As CEO, he has been building on the theme of P2P commerce, his team began building BUSKON, a music platform with an entirely new concept of music distribution. The goal was to remove the middle men who exploit content creators Through the BUSKON app, the music creator uploads their content, the customers can then listen to or watch that content and if they like it, they’ll give a token to them.

I believe that to be a successful Bitcoin entrepreneur, you need the patience to keep up with new experiments, even in an environment where technology and regulatory changes are very high. In other words, I think they need agility and flexibility to quickly embrace and implement new changes.

Jaehwan Lee – “On what makes a successful BitCoin entrepreneur”

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Lorien Gamaroff – CEO & Co-Founder of Centbee

Lorien Gamaroff is the founder/CEO of Bankymoon, a blockchain and cryptocurrency consultancy and co-founder/CEO of Centbee, a cryptocurrency payments and remittance company.

As South Africa’s foremost blockchain expert, Lorien has been invited around the world to speak on digital/cryptocurrencies and decentralised/distributed ledgers and their benefits for emerging economies.

He has addressed and advised the United Nations, IMF, World Bank, FBI and Commonwealth Secretariat, the South African Reserve Bank, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, TEDx and a host of professionals in multiple industries and attorney generals throughout the world.

He offers insight and guidance to business executives and advises government on blockchain technologies and their implications. He pioneered blockchain payments for utility smart metering and was the co-founder of the Blockchain Academy which educates professionals on all aspects of blockchains from regulations to software development.

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Stephan Nilsson – CEO & Founder of UNISOT

Stephan Nilsson is the founder and CEO of UNISOT; an “Enterprise Blockchain Service Provider” providing Enterprise Turnkey Solutions that solves the Top-10 problems in Global Supply Chains. He has over 20 years experience working with ERP systems integrations.

He is also engaged with Ernst & Young Skye, building an Industry Solution in SAP for the seafood industry that provides Global Traceability, Provenance and BDI through the use of Bitcoin SV Blockchain.

Stephan is the founder and president of Norway Bitcoin and Blockchain Association, co founder of BITaccel, a Nordic Blockchain Start-up Accelerator and MOB in Oslo Blockchain Cluster. He has been involved in the crypto/blockchain space since 2012 and started integrating SAP with blockchain in 2014.

Build solutions that solves real world problems using appropriate technologies, I experienced a number of enterprise problems in my job as a systems integration architect and realized that bitcoin blockchain can solve many of them. It has never been easier to start building and testing your ideas in the BSV Blockchain. GO BUIDL NOW!

Stephan Nilsson – “On what makes a successful BitCoin entrepreneur”

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Zach Resnick – Managing Partner, Daniel Rosen – Founding Partner, Jackson Laskey – Principal, Dave Mullen-Muhr – Principal, Ashok Reddy – Sr. Advisor, Partner, Mike Hennessey – Sr. Advisor, Partner – Leadership Team at Unbounded Capital

Unbounded Capital is the world’s first venture capital/hedge fund investing in the Bitcoin (BSV) ecosystem via early stage equity in companies building on top of Bitcoin as well as asset and derivative exposure to Bitcoin itself.

They envision businesses leveraging Bitcoin playing a predominant role in shaping how people interact with and use the internet in the coming decades, and are working to help entrepreneurs achieve that vision.

You can learn more about their individual roles and accomplishments on UnboundedCapital.com.

A great Bitcoin entrepreneur solves problems that everyone is about to have but no one is thinking to solve. Those can be within niche markets. Competition is good for consumers, but as an entrepreneur you want to position yourself in dominant fashion.

Take _unwriter as an example. Planaria is in a commanding position in tackling the challenge of delivering data from extremely large blocks efficiently. _unwriter leveraged early knowledge of Bitcoin’s true potential to tackle the big problems of the future before most others even considered it. That’s what a great Bitcoin entrepreneur does. 

UC – “On what makes a successful BitCoin entrepreneur”

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Michael Hudson – CEO & Founder of BitStocks

Michael has enjoyed a successful career spanning both the technological and financial fields. This – combined with his deep passion for cryptocurrencies, politics, modern money mechanics and an inherent entrepreneurial spirit – culminated in the formation of Bitstocks.

He’s been featured in Thomson Reuters’ Framework, The Financial Times, CityAM, The Yacht Investor, SquareMile as well as on IGTV UK,The London Square’s Shareviews and The Financial Fox.

As a prolific speaker, Michael regularly attends investor events and conferences to share his extensive knowledge on cryptocurrency. Recently, Michael was invited to open a House of Parliament panel discussion on the Future of Finance / Blockchain. His philosophical, often controversial, views have established him as a sought-after thought-leader in the cryptocurrency space.

Passion. Passion and business have to go together. That’s when you actually create quite unorthodox business models because it’s a passion-driven thing. And when you attack anything with passion, the commitment and the processes that you take in order to achieve the goal that you set out to achieve, is attacked with just that much conviction.

Michael Hudson – “On what makes a successful BitCoin entrepreneur”

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Alex Agut – CEO & Co-Founder of Handcash

Alex is an entrepreneur with years of experience building products and brands that focus on creating great experiences and communities within emerging industries.

He’s a product designer and marketer who thinks that a simple and friendly design along with a clear identity and plain messaging is the foundation for a good product that makes new technology more approachable.

I would say you definitely have to be fearless. Although these are not the early days of BitCoin by any means, these are the first meaningful years after the hobby/experimentation phase. Being an entrepreneur will require all that you have got, down to the last drop of your energy to keep pushing even though things may seem unfavorable at times.

You will need the ability to assemble a great, versatile team of passionate people that don’t need to be motivated externally. It’s not enough to make sure they are paid all they’re worth, it’s equally important that they have a say in the decision making and trust their judgement and skills. That mixed with a little bit of ownership, and you’ve got yourself a winner! So be humble and realize this journey is not about yourself, it’s about what you and your team can do for others with this fantastic piece of technology.

Alex Agut – “On what makes a successful BitCoin entrepreneur”

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Josh Petty – CEO & Billy Rose – Co-Founder of Twetch

Josh Petty is an American entrepreneur focused on building a new breed of internet applications on Bitcoin (BSV). He is Co-Founder and CEO of Twetch.com, an ad-free decentralized social media application where you can make money from content creation and own your data.

Team building is very important in the BitCoin era. You have to be able to assemble a team of people who understand the common vision of micro-payments, data integrity, massive scale. The opportunities are endless. As entrepreneurs we have to cooperate to solve problems.

We are all working to increase the value and scale BitCoin so that the world can be better. When you build a company in BitCoin, you should be focused most on building products that help the most people find value in BitCoin itself. If BitCoin succeeds, then your business succeeds.

Josh Petty – “On what makes a successful BitCoin entrepreneur”

Billy Rose is a visual designer originally from New York City. He has been involved in Bitcoin since he started working with Josh on developing new blockchain applications and products in late 2017.

Billy is the Co-Founder, CMO, and product designer of Twetch. You may know him as Randy Moish or @nondualrandy on Twitter, where he has ~40,000 followers.

don’t think there’s a big difference between a successful bitcoin entrepreneur and a successful entrepreneur.

It has to be someone who is crazy enough to believe they can change the world and is willing to risk everything to achieve their goal. Someone who can’t stop thinking about the possibilities of what they are building. Someone who is willing to fail. Someone who can pick a good idea from a bad one without having to ask. Someone who agonizes over the information he has to make the best possible decisions. Someone who understands the symbiotic relationship between self-interest and the interest of all things.

I love what I do and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I don’t even know if I will succeed, I just know I will do whatever it takes to get there.

Billy Rose – “On what makes a successful BitCoin entrepreneur”

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Jack Liu – Creator of RelayX, FloatSV, CambrianSV

Jack Liu is a prolific entrepreneur in the Bitcoin industry. Currently, Jack is the CEO of RelayX, a Bitcoin SV superwallet and RON – the Relay Onchain Network for fiat settlements. Jack is also founder of CambrianSV, a Bitcoin Developer Bootcamp, and FloatSV, a BSV exchange.

He previously served as MD at Circle, where he led Asia OTC trading, and created Bitcoin SV pre-fork trading at Poloniex. Before that, Jack served as Chief Strategy Officer of OK Group from 2014 to 2017 where he remains an adviser. During that time, he expanded OKCoin’s international business, co-founded OKLink global Bitcoin remittance network in 2016, and launched OKEx & Bitcoin Cash pre-fork trading in 2017.

Jack started his career at Barclays Capital in HKG in Equity Derivatives and also briefly served as Director of Strategy at Kraken in San Francisco before moving back to Asia.

A successful BitCoin entrepreneur focuses singularly on delivering value to custumers every single day, leveraging insight on what is possible with BitCoin.

Jack Liu – “On what makes a successful BitCoin entrepreneur”

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I offer this content for free with no expectation for compensation, however, if you found this to be valuable, please feel free to show your appreciation with a tip in BSV at: $Bryan at HandCash or Bryan@Moneybutton.com.

You can learn more about my own BitCoin SV projects at ClassifiedSV.com and pressBIT.net. Contact me if you are interested in helping out!

My next article will highlight the most influential people in the BitCoin mining community. You can also read about my favorite Metanet apps while you wait!

A special thank you to Neil Ford for his assistance with this article.