Andreas Antonopoulos
Tech entrepreneur and a teaching fellow for the M.Sc. Digital Currencies at the University of Nicosia.
Contents
Early career
Antonopoulos obtained his degree in Computer Science and Data Communications and Distributed Systems from University College London. He consulted business on open source and open networks as early as 1990. He has authored more than two hundred articles published in print and syndicated worldwide. As a partner at Nemertes Research, Antonopoulos researched computer security, stating that the greatest threat to computer security was not experienced hackers, but overly complex systems that resulted from rapid change in business.
Bitcoin involvement
In 2012 Antonopuolos 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.
According to his podcast, Antonopoulos is a consultant on several bitcoin-related startups. He served as head of the Bitcoin Foundation‘s anti-poverty committee until 2014, when he resigned citing a lack of transparency as the reason.
In January 2014, Antonopoulos joined Blockchain.info as chief security officer. In September 2014 he left the CSO role and became an advisor to the board.
Antonopoulos was an outspoken critic of the Mt. Gox trading platform as early as April 2013, calling it “a systemic risk to bitcoin, a death trap for traders and a business run by the clueless”. In February 2014, following the closing of Mt. Gox, Antonopoulos published a further analysis of the collapse and its effect on the greater bitcoin ecosystem.
In April 2014, Antonopoulos organised a fundraising campaign for Dorian Nakamoto, who was identified in a Newsweek article as the creator of bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. The reporting techniques used in the article were controversial among journalists and Bitcoin community members. The fundraiser, intended to assist Nakamoto after the attention he received as a result of the article, raised 50 bitcoins, worth US$23,000 at the time.
On 8 October 2014, Antonopoulos spoke in front of the Banking, Trade and Commerce committee of the Senate of Canada to address the senators’ on how to regulate bitcoin in Canada. In his testimony, he warned senators against premature regulation of bitcoin, stating “Wait until the technology is better understood by all of us … there are many applications based on this model — would stifle this technology in its early days.”
In March 2016, the first edition of Mastering Bitcoin was released by Antonopoulos, in print and online.
Receiving of bitcoin gifts
In December 2017, unsolicited donations of over 100 bitcoins were sent to Antonopoulos by over a thousand followers of his work, after Roger Ver of BCash made a disharted public post to Twitter on 5 December that complimented Antonopoulos’ public speaking but questioned his investment choices. The approximate value of 100 bitcoins on 6 December 2017 was $1.3 million.
Adam Back reportedly began the outpouring of support by tweeting: “if ‘sign guy’ can get a meaningful start from tips, we should try [to] find a way for the community to fund [Antonopoulos] to a wikt:hodler’s position.” Erik Voorhees went on to support Antonopoulos by saying: “If you’ve ever learned about, participated, used or benefited from bitcoin in any way, please donate to Andreas.”
| Title | Location | Date | Video |
|---|---|---|---|
| What is bitcoin? | Disrupt Startup ScaleUP, Athens, Greece | 23 November 2014 | [1] |
| Dumb Networks, Innovation and the Festival of the Commons | O’Reilly Radar: Bitcoin & the Blockchain: Realities, Risks, Rewards, San Francisco, USA | 27 January 2015 | [2] |
| Bitcoin is Punk Rock | Wired Money: Beyond Bitcoin, London, UK | 8 July 2015 | [3] |
| Peer-to-Peer Money in a Historical Context | Reinvent.Money, Rotterdam, The Netherlands | 26 September 2015 | [4] |
| Bitcoin Scaling | Institute of Cryptoanarchy, Prague, Czech Republic | 22 March 2016 | [5] |
| The Stories We Tell About Money | bitcointalk, Mumbai, India | 26 March 2017 | [6] |
| Open Blockchains for Cashless Developed Economies | Blockchain Day, Oslo, Norway | 25 April 2017 | [7] |
| Delivering Liberty at Scale | Bitcoins in Bali, Bali, Indonesia | 27 June 2017 | [8] |
| to the Internet of Money | Internetdagarna, Stockholm, Sweden | 20 November 2017 | [9] |