Friday, February 2, 2018
LA's Blockchain Moguls Flock To Puerto Rico
There's a huge amount of newly minted Bitcoin and Blockchain wealth in Southern California--and in particular, Los Angeles--which is now setting down a new base of operations in Puerto Rico, according to a new report from the New York Times, published Friday. The report details how such LA Blockchain moguls as Brock Pierce--director of the Bitcoin foundation--have been looking to remake Puerto Rico into a Bitcoin paradise.
The article highlights the efforts of Pierce, saying that Pierce's startup, Block.One, sold around $200 million in EOS, a virtual currency which now has an outstanding value of $6.5 billion. Another local, early LA Bitcoin proponent, BitAngels' Michael Terpin also has a residence in Puerto Rico. There are enough companies in the Blockchain space in Los Angeles that some have mulled giving the area a new moniker, "Blockchain Beach. LA has a number of other prominent companies in the Blockchain space, with major operations in the area or with links to the area including WAX (led by former Clearstone Ventures' investor William Quigley), which reportedly has around 40 employees in Santa Monica; Science, Inc., which has its own ICO and Blockchain mining effort in the works, not to mention a few blockchain startups; San Diego-based Luna DNA, which is creating a genomic and medical research database powered by blockchain; Everipedia, an open source wiki network based on blockchain, founded by former Wikipedia founder Larry Sanger; StartEngine, which is running its own ICO and also accepting them on its marketplace, among many others. Photo: Brock Pierce, receiving the the DFR Outstanding Achievement Award at the Digital Family Reunion in December in downtown Los Angeles, with DFR's Brad Nye, Tony Winders, and Kurt Daradics.