Barry Silbert is the Founder and CEO of Digital Currency Group. Sitting at the epicenter of the bitcoin and blockchain industry, DCG is a global enterprise that builds, supports, and invests in companies all over the world.
A pioneer in bitcoin investing, Barry established himself in 2012 as one of the earliest and most active investors in the industry. In 2015, he founded DCG and today, DCG is one of the industry’s most prolific investors, backing more than 120 companies in 30 countries around the world, including Coinbase, Ripple, BitPay, and Circle.
In addition to its investment portfolio, DCG owns Grayscale Investments (the largest asset manager in the industry with ~$2 billion in AUM), Genesis Trading (the largest regulated OTC crypto trader), and CoinDesk (the preeminent media and events company in the space). DCG also invests directly in digital currencies and other digital assets.
Prior to DCG, Barry was the founder and CEO of SecondMarket, a venture-backed technology company that was acquired by Nasdaq. Barry has received numerous awards and accolades including being named Entrepreneur of the Year by both Ernst & Young and Crain’s, and being selected to Fortune’s prestigious “40 under 40” list.
Before becoming an entrepreneur, Barry worked as an investment banker in New York. He graduated with honors from the Goizueta Business School of Emory University.
On June 5, 2013, Barry Silbert, the 36-year-old founder and CEO of SecondMarket, called an all-hands meeting to announce a new direction for his brokerage firm.
Silbert told his staff, that the company was going to open a private fund for accredited investors that would invest solely in bitcoin. The move would effectively put SecondMarket’s future at the mercy of a volatile digital currency that most people thought was a passing fad, a mere tool for peddling drugs online, or a Ponzi scheme. Nobody even knew the real identity of bitcoin’s creator Satoshi Nakamoto.
But Silbert had become a true believer. “Barry called bitcoin ‘the biggest opportunity of my career,’ “ recalled Michael Moro, the director of SecondMarket’s trading desk at the time.
Nearly a few years later, Silbert’s bet doesn’t sound so crazy anymore. Bitcoin’s market capitalization has grown nearly seven fold over that period to $6.8 billion. And while naysayers still abound, big Wall Street firms are more curious than skeptical. Even national governments and central banks are taking a look.
Meanwhile, Silbert has gone all-in, and in doing so positioned himself at the heart of the bitcoin and blockchain industry. Ask anybody in the world of bitcoin today who is the best-connected member of the community, and they will direct you to this boyish entrepreneur, a man who may be uniquely suited to bridge the gap between rebel entrepreneurs and mainstream financial institutions.
“He definitely approaches it from a much more practical, pragmatic angle” , said Alan Lane, the president and CEO of Silvergate Bank in La Jolla, Calif., which provides banking services to about a dozen bitcoin startups. “He has been a really good bridge for a lot of the younger techie idea folks — trying to figure out how to fit them into the mainstream without losing what they’re bringing.”
The arc of Silbert’s career — from a trader of distressed paper to a prolific investor in one of the most experimental corners of fin-tech — parallels a broader shift in the story of financial services. In the last few years, as the industry has recovered from the crisis, banks have turned their attention from cleaning up yesterday’s messes to fending off tomorrow’s challengers.
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