Michael Terpin

I've spent my career innovating in PR, technology platforms & business models. Somewhere along the way, CNBC called me "the Godfather of Crypto" and it seems to have stuck. Currently, I run Transform Group, the pioneering blockchain and Web3 PR agency (300+ clients since 2013, including launches of Ethereum and Tether), as well as Transform Ventures, which incubates, accelerates, advises and invests in blockchain/Web3 startups. One of those spin-offs is Layer1, the parent group of CoinAgenda, 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. Another spin-out is First Block, a cryptocurrency focused investor relations and news distribution platform company, which created Blockchain Wire. In 2015, I cofounded bCommerce Labs, a digital currency incubator, which launched digital asset platform Aspire in 2020. In 2017, I joined Alphabit Fund, a leading digital currency fund, as limited partner and senior advisor. In 2020, I joined Tradery Capital as a general partner. In 2021, I invested in OP Crypto, one of leading Asian crypto venture funds, as an LP. 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 was the first person from the crypto world to relocate, with my wife, Maxine, and poodle, Monkey.