About me
I design and develop technology with the goal to build an open financial ecosystem on top of Bitcoin.
I am a co-founder of BOB, the Bank of Bitcoin. One platform for everything - swapping, saving, earning & borrowing - all on Bitcoin rails. By fusing Bitcoin's unmatched security with Ethereum's versatility, BOB's hybrid chain unlocks real utility for the world's most important asset. BOB Gateway, our swaps engine, brings native BTC to any app across 11+ chains.
Previously, I co-founded Interlay, where we built iBTC - a decentralized Bitcoin wrapper that lets anyone move BTC onto other blockchains without trusting intermediaries - and a Bitcoin DeFi hub around it for trading and lending.
Most recently, I co-authored BitVM and BitVM2, which show how to run arbitrary computation on Bitcoin and how to build a trust-minimized bridge, in both cases without changing Bitcoin's consensus rules. The BitVM2 paper received the 2025 Bitcoin Research Prize. I also helped create BitVM/acc, an effort to align, educate and coordinate BitVM adoption among Bitcoin institutions.
You can find my full list of publications online, and a selected list of interesting works below:
I host the Bullish on Bitcoin show, on Bitcoin and the financial system being built on top of it.
I invest as an angel and have supported Velar, Acre, Fiamma and Darewise.
I am a co-founder of BOB, the Bank of Bitcoin. One platform for everything - swapping, saving, earning & borrowing - all on Bitcoin rails. By fusing Bitcoin's unmatched security with Ethereum's versatility, BOB's hybrid chain unlocks real utility for the world's most important asset. BOB Gateway, our swaps engine, brings native BTC to any app across 11+ chains.
Previously, I co-founded Interlay, where we built iBTC - a decentralized Bitcoin wrapper that lets anyone move BTC onto other blockchains without trusting intermediaries - and a Bitcoin DeFi hub around it for trading and lending.
Research
I have been contributing to Bitcoin research since 2015, mainly on security and interoperability. In 2022 I earned a PhD in computer science from Imperial College London. My research has collected over 1,600 citations.Most recently, I co-authored BitVM and BitVM2, which show how to run arbitrary computation on Bitcoin and how to build a trust-minimized bridge, in both cases without changing Bitcoin's consensus rules. The BitVM2 paper received the 2025 Bitcoin Research Prize. I also helped create BitVM/acc, an effort to align, educate and coordinate BitVM adoption among Bitcoin institutions.
You can find my full list of publications online, and a selected list of interesting works below:
- How to bridge Bitcoin to other chains without trusting anyone (BitVM2).
- How to run arbitrary computation on Bitcoin, without changing its rules (BitVM).
- A small trick to make (cross chain) light clients much more efficient.
- Impossibility of cross-chain communication and a framework to evaluate & build secure bridges.
- How to build trust-free (Bitcoin) bridges using economic security.
- Faster, off-chain payments for Ethereum-like blockchains ("commit chains")
- Why decentralized mining pools are broken.
- Why merged mining is both cure and curse.
- How Bitcoin could move to quantum-resistant signatures.
Talks & Education
I enjoy giving talks on Bitcoin and related technical topics. You can find a list of selected talks here.I host the Bullish on Bitcoin show, on Bitcoin and the financial system being built on top of it.
Advising & Investing
I am an advisor to LX Research, who built Bitcoin Layers and are now building privacy solutions for Bitcoin. Previously, I helped co-found and advised Velocity Labs, which spun out of Parity as a business development and ecosystem arm for Polkadot. Earlier, I advised BCG on web3, blockchains and decentralized governance systems, and was a research fellow at Binance X.I invest as an angel and have supported Velar, Acre, Fiamma and Darewise.