Meet United States’s 16 Top Directors in the Bitcoin Startup Space

At Bleeding.Technology we track over 100,000 web 3.0, NFT, DeFi & crypto startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.

This list showcases the top United States based Director operating in the Bitcoin space. If you think a Director is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on [email protected].

The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:

Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.

Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.

Jeremy Lewis

Senior Director, NFT Acquisition of Crypto.com

Sr. Director, NFT Acquisition at Crypto.com & Host of Wild ‘Til 9 Podcast

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About Crypto.com, Wild ‘Til 9: Crypto.com is a payment and cryptocurrency platform that empowers users to buy, sell, and pay with crypto.

Andrew Poelstra

Director of Research of Blockstream

Andrew has been programming computers since he was four years old and has taken an interest in cryptography since 13. Today he is a main developer of the libsecp256k1 high-performance ECC library as well as the sidechain Elements Alpha. Andrew became involved in the Bitcoin community in late 2011; in 2013 he began contributing to the high-performance cryptography library libsecp256k1 which underlies Bitcoin Core’s signature validation and signing. While completing his Masters of Arts at the University of Texas at Austin, he wrote and co-wrote several papers about Bitcoin, wrote the rust-bitcoin library, and contributed code and design to the sidechain Elements Alpha. In March 2016 he joined Blockstream full-time as a mathematician, where he continues to interact with the Bitcoin research community.

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About Blockstream: Blockstream provides Bitcoin and blockchain technology solution for financial markets.

Daniel Escobar

Director of Engineering Services of BitPay

Daniel Escobar Co-Founded Maestro Music, Inc. and serves as its Chief Technology Officer. Mr. Escobar manages the design and development of all Maestro technology. Mr. Escobar he Founded Aquiva, an innovative Enterprise Content Management software company that was designed to provide media companies a more robust and flexible solution than Vignette, Interwoven and Documentum, while seamlessly integrating advanced networking and mobile technology. Mr. Escobar also built Cox Radio’s first Web Content Management (WCM) system, which is shared by over 80 radio stations. Mr. Escobar provided IT consulting services to several national and international businesses and developed numerous software systems using multiple programming languages, which involve networking with UNIX, Linux and Windows machines. Mr. Escobar holds B.S. in Computer Science and Information Systems and has been designing and developing software applications including Internet applications, content management solutions, and digital media applications for over 15 years.

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About BitPay: BitPay provides enterprise-grade bitcoin payment solutions for businesses and organizations.

Steve Pratt

Director of Business Development of BitPay

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About BitPay, Superion: BitPay provides enterprise-grade bitcoin payment solutions for businesses and organizations.

Anna Bohm

Director of Operations of Coinme

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About Coinme: Coinme is a digital currency exchange on a mission to be the worlds trusted gateway to digital currencies and a better financial future.

Noah Judson

Technical Advisor – Board of Directors of CoinBeyond

Founder at CoinBeyond

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About CoinBeyond: Modern Payment Processing, Simplified.

Dan Purdy

Director of Door to Discovery – WWU, MBA Professor, Board of Advisors of CoinBeyond

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About : Modern Payment Processing, Simplified.

Frank Chaparro

Director of News of The Block

Frank Chaparro leads editorial efforts for The Block, the go-to source of trustworthy information and news on cryptocurrency, blockchain, and decentralized technologies, as its senior correspondent. Chaparro started his career at Business Insider, where he specialized in the intersection of digital assets and Wall Street, market structure, and financial technology. He has received numerous accolades for his work and maintained the position as one of the most well-read fintech reporter through his time there, breaking stories on firms such as Fidelity, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Nasdaq. Soon after joining Business Insider out of Fordham University, Chaparro was interviewing top finance and tech executives, including billionaire Mark Cuban, “Flash Boys” star Brad Katsuyama, Cboe Global Markets CEO Ed Tilly, and New York Stock Exchange President Tom Farley. In 2018, he become a sought after reporter in the crypto world, interviewing luminaries such as Tyler Winklevoss, the cofounder of Gemini, Jeremy Allaire, the CEO of Circle, and Fundstrat head Tom Lee. He joined The Block to dive deeper into his specialty and is responsible for investigating the most powerful figures and firms in the cryptocurrency market and unearthing market moving news.

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About The Block: The Block is the first and final word in digital assets.

Bryant Nielson

Executive Director & Founder of The Blockchain Academy

Bryant Nielson is the Executive Director of The Blockchain Academy. The Blockchain Academy is a division of CapitalWave Inc. The Blockchain Academy offers online video based programs, delivered by industry experts, on the role of blockchain, its impact on central banks, financial institutions, trade finance, settlement, smart contracts, IP as well as education.

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About The Blockchain Academy: The Blockchain Academy offers customized learning framework that can deliver needed blockchain knowledge to your business or corporation.

Max Arkey

Managing Director of Red Fog

Founded a fintech company that offers real-time cryptocurrency trading games to users around the world. Red Fog strives to help mature the asset class by lowering the barriers to entry for millions of new participants.

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About Red Fog: We are driven to help mature the crypto asset class through lowering the barriers to entry for millions of new participants.

Crystal Wiese

Director of Marketing of Factom

She is passionate about non-profits, and increasing economic mobility for for women and minorities.

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About Factom: Factom, Inc. is a blockchain innovations company providing blockchain as a service platforms.

Matthew Wraith

Co-Founder and Director of IT of Bitnomial

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About Bitnomial: Bitnomial offers improved derivatives exchange technology coupled with new digital asset settlement systems.

Mike Hendley

Director of Customer Relations of xCoins.io

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About xCoins.io: xCoins is a peer-to-peer bitcoin lending platform.

Robert Batten

Senior Director of Engineering of Alydian

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About Alydian, DWFritz Automation: Alydian is a portfolio company of CoinLab, the first venture-backed Bitcoin company in the U.S.

Misti Mostiller

Executive Vice President, Director of Consumer Strategy & Innovation of Extraco Banks

14+ years of management, alternative channel delivery and implementation experience and almost 9 years banking experience. As Director of Consumer Strategy and Innovation; I am responsible for all alternative delivery channels, including the call center, website, online banking, mobile banking, grocery store locations, and social media channels. Also responsible for all retail training, hiring and a variety of innovation projects and initiatives at Extraco. Previously responsible for all retail bank lobbies.

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About Extraco Banks: Extraco Banks is a banking firm that provides banking, mortgage, and investment services.