Michael Terpin

Summary

I've spent my career creating innovative new businesses (sometimes even new industries), as well as advising and investing. Since 2013, I've been primarily focused on bitcoin and crypto (with a more recent focus on decentralized AI). Somewhere along the way, CNBC called me "the Godfather of Crypto" and it seems to have stuck. Currently, I run Transform Ventures, a blockchain and AI advisory and venture studio. I also created and manage Transform Group, the pioneering blockchain and Web3 PR agency (400+ clients since 2013, including launches of Ethereum and Tether). I also created CoinAgenda (now rebranded as Tokenize), the leading conference series connecting mainstream investors with blockchain and cryptocurrency investments, and BitAngels, the first crypto angel group, which I started in early 2013 with industry legend David Johnston, later co-founding the Dapps Fund in early 2014, one of the first crypto VCs. Prior to turning my nearly exclusive focus to crypto, I founded Market Wire, which was originally launched in 1994 as Internet Wire, the first Internet-based company newswire, where I raised $18 million from top-tier investors including Hummer Winblad and Sequoia Capital. Following a strategic investment by NASDAQ in 2003, we grew to become the world's third largest company newswire, and we sold to CCN/Matthews in April 2006, which in turn was sold to OMERS Capital Partners and then finally to NASDAQ in 2016 for $200 million. Upon the sale of Market Wire, I founded SocialRadius (www.socialradius.com), one of the nation's first social media marketing firms. Our client roster has included AT&T, Bombay Sapphire, Constant Contact, David Lynch Foundation, Kawai, Marriott, Philips, and Shapeways. One of our biggest successes was the launch of the "Yes We Can"​ video by Will.i.am, which won both an Emmy and a Webby. In the last century, I started and sold my first PR firm, The Terpin Group, which represented top Internet companies, including AOL and Earthlink, and started one of the first equity crowdfunding firms, Direct IPO. I live in Puerto Rico, where I started the crypto migration to the island when I received the first investor decree from the crypto industry in early 2016.