The Bitcoin Revolution Hits TechCrunch Disrupt Next Week

Once a consuming hobby for a coterie of anarcho-libertarians and and others predicting an econo-apocalypse, Bitcoin started crossing over into the mainstream in a big way this year, attracting the interest and dollars of Silicon Valley VC firms.

While the math-based currency is trading at about half its peak U.S. dollar value this year, there are startups betting that this was just a temporary spike and then correction. They’re predicting that Bitcoin is still on a long path toward changing the way transactions and micro-payments are handled online. The currency allows for irreversible and anonymous transactions without the need for a third-party facilitator like a bank.

So at Disrupt this year, we’re bringing together a panel to chart out where math-based currencies might head next. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss quietly amassed what amounted to be about 1 percent of all Bitcoins in circulation earlier this year and are setting up an exchange-traded fund around the service. Outside of running one of the more influential bioinformatics startups in the Valley, Balaji Srinivasan also runs the Stanford Bitcoin Group. Also joining the panel is Naval Ravikant, the long-time investor who went on to create and run Angellist. He is also a big Bitcoin believer.

If you’re stoked to attend, we have tickets here and those interested in sponsorship opportunities can head here.

Students can also come be a part of Disrupt SF. We have limited student tickets available, so be sure to go here to find out how to get yours quickly.

Cameron Winklevoss
Winklevoss Capital Management, LLC
Co-Founder

Cameron Winklevoss is a principal of Winklevoss Capital Management, a private investment firm that partners with a select number of early stage companies to provide not just capital, but a full service approach to driving growth. The company’s portfolio includes Hukkster, an online shopping tool for sale alerts; SumZero, an online community of investment professionals; and Bitcoin, a decentralized cryptocurrency that uses peer-to-peer technology for frictionless payments. Cameron graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Economics and received his MBA from Oxford University. He is also an NCAA rowing champion and member of the 2008 Olympic team.

Tyler Winklevoss
Winklevoss Capital Management, LLC
Co-Founder

Tyler Winklevoss is a principal of Winklevoss Capital Management, a private investment firm that partners with a select number of early stage companies to provide not just capital, but a full service approach to driving growth. The company’s portfolio includes Hukkster, an online shopping tool for sale alerts; SumZero, an online community of investment professionals; and Bitcoin, a decentralized cryptocurrency that uses peer-to-peer technology for frictionless payments. Tyler graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Economics and received his MBA from Oxford University. He is also an NCAA rowing champion and member of the 2008 Olympic team.

Balaji S. Srinivasan
Counsyl
Co-Founder and CTO

Balaji S. Srinivasan is the co-founder of Counsyl, a genomics startup that began in a Stanford dorm room and now tests more than 2.5% of all US births.

Counsyl won the Wall Street Journal’s Innovation Award for Medicine, was named one of Scientific American’s Top 10 World Changing Ideas, raised more than $65M in funding from Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund among others, and has become one of the largest clinical genome centers in the world.

Prior to co-founding Counsyl, Dr. Srinivasan taught data mining, statistics, and computational biology in the Department of Statistics at Stanford University. He holds a BS, MS, and PhD in Electrical Engineering and an MS in Chemical Engineering from Stanford. He was an NDSEG, NSF, and VIGRE fellow and has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Nature Biotechnology, and Nature Reviews Genetics.

Naval Ravikant
AngelList
Co-founder of Angellist

Naval Ravikant is the founder of Angellist.

Naval is an entrepreneur and angel investor, a co-author of Venture Hacks, and a co-maintainer of AngelList.
Previously he was a co-founder at Genoa Corp (acquired by Finisar), Epinions.com (IPO via Shopping.com), and Vast.com (largest white-label classifieds marketplace).

Previously, he was a Venture Partner at August Capital and led investments in Scintera, Neopath, Technorati, Microdisplay, DeviceScape, and Mimosa.

Startups Naval has advised in areas ranging from founding to product design to fundraising including iPivot (sold to Intel), Intrinsic Graphics, Andale, XFire (sold to Viacom), HedgeStreet, Engage, Photo.net, LoyaltyLab, Jaman, Hive7, Dulance (sold to Google), Bix (sold to Yahoo!).

Ravikant, both Winklevosses and Srinivasan join a full Disrupt line-up including speakers like: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, Marc Benioff, Ron Conway, Kevin Rose, Jessica Alba, Dave Morin, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, Vinod Khosla and many others yet to be announced.