Brock Pierce — a pioneer of cryptocurrencies
When it comes to celebrity profiles in the cryptocurrency industry, it is hard to find a character who is bland and uninteresting. It’s the same with Brock Jeffrey Pierce. He was born in 1981 in Minnesota and began his career with… Acting. He appeared in several commercials as a child and then landed a role in The Mighty Ducks which made him popular. However, he quickly became interested in television production. At the age of 16, he joined the Digital Entertainment Network (DEN) and began creating short, original content that aired online. DEN is one of the first startups to be launched in the late 90s. The first show Brock produced was about gay teens. After two years, he was earning $250,000 a year and owned shares in the company. After another two years, the DEN was closed due to allegations of sexual assault. An attempt to restart operations failed and in June 2000 DEN closed permanently.
In 2001, Brock Pierce founded Internet Gaming Entertainment (IGE) — the company dealt with MMORPG currency sales services. Over time, IGE bought up smaller competitors as well as four other auction and fan content sites. Pierce brought in financier Steve Bannon to the company to raise new funds for the company. This raised $60 million, of which Brock appropriated $20 million. After this scandal, the company collapsed and Pierce was removed from his position.
His next project called ZAM was a network of websites for online role-playing game (MMORPG) players, it was about multiplayer games like World of Warcraft, Rift, EverQuest. However, the project was taken over in 2012 by the Chinese Internet giant — Tencent. Meanwhile, Brock became an executive at Titan Gaming, which then became Playsino.
Pierce was one of the first Bitcoin investors. He also donated significant funds for the development of Ethereum. In 2013, he started his adventure with cryptocurrencies. It was then that he founded Blockchain Capital (BCC), which raised funds by introducing one of the first security tokens to the market. Pierce also partnered with Mastercoin, and according to Bloomberg, this started a worldwide boom for ICO coin offerings. A year later, he was elected director of the Bitcoin Foundation. After his election, several members of the Foundation resigned, fearing for its board. And already in 2015, the entire organization declared insolvency.
In 2018, he ranked among the top 20 richest people in the crypto industry with a net worth between $700 million and $1.1 billion. His greatest successes in the cryptocurrency industry are: co-founding the Tether cryptocurrency and co-founding Block.one.
In 2021, he was one of the advisers to the government of El Salvador on the adoption of Bitcoin as the national currency.
Brock Pierce is said to be a seasoned entrepreneur, advisor, and a nose for investing in groundbreaking companies. Plus, he’s a futurist and philanthropist. He is eagerly invited to give his opinions and lectures at many conferences, congresses and at many universities. The media is also very interested in it. But he doesn’t shy away from them either.
In 2020, he ran in the United States presidential election as an independent candidate. His advantage was his experience as an entrepreneur. He was backed by singer Akon, former governor Jesse Ventura and investor Tim Draper. In the election he received 0.03% of the vote. One of these voices was the first ever to be sent through an app that uses Voatz blockchain technology.
Rolling Stone magazine called him the hippie king of cryptocurrencies. He describes him as an incorrigible optimist, a visionary who makes everything revolve around him. And it is not known whether he will fulfill his declarations. When will his next big project appear, the virtues of which he will extol. It is certain that whatever happens, he will enchant the world again with his charisma, inspiring more people.
