Olaf Carlson-Wee
Olaf Carlson-Wee is the Founder and CEO of Polychain Capital, a premier cryptocurrency financial firm advancing the global adoption of cryptocurrencies. Olaf is a Bitcoin prophet and among the crypto OGs. He is a renowned expert in crypto-based financial instruments, decentralized ledger protocols, private key security, and anti-fraud systems. Prior to Polychain Capital, he was the former Head of Risk at Coinbase, the largest digital asset exchange in the United States, where he was hired as the first employee. He built a 40 person operations team, conducted agent training on block analysis for the HBI, HSI, and the Treasury Department.
Olaf Carlson-Wee Professional Experience / Academic History
Professional Experience
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Founder and CEO
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Head of Risk and Product Manager
Academic History
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B.A., Sociology
BITCOIN & BLOCKCHAIN EXPERTISE
Olaf first entered the blockchain market in 2011 when he wrote his senior thesis on Bitcoin at Vassar College.
He received a civilian award from Homeland Security for technical analysis of the blockchain in a $10,000,000 cyber crime case.
He educated the economic advisor to President Obama on blockchain technology.
He has also given numerous public facing technical talks on private key security and fraud prevention at scale.
He has a patent pending for the Bitcoin Host Computer System, a multi-authorization bitcoin storage mechanism.
POLYCHAIN CAPITAL
Leveraging his knowledge and insights from Coinbase, Olaf established Polychain in 2016, a hedge fund specializing in blockchain-based digital assets.
Under his leadership, Polychain has become a leading digital asset hedge fund actively managing blockchain assets.
Polychain has initial investments from Sequoia, a16z, Union Square Ventures, and Founders Fund.
COINBASE
He designed fraud prevention and security mechanisms protecting billions of dollars in transactional value occurring in over 30 countries.
He requested that his paycheck be distributed to him in Bitcoin and became one of the first people to earn and spend nearly exclusively in digital currency.
Before leaving CoinBase, he managed to lower the company's fraud rate by 75% through AI algorithms.
RECOGNITION
2018 Forbes 30 Under 30 - Finance
MEDIA & APPEARANCES
Olaf has been featured or quoted in Forbes, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Yahoo! Finance, and more.
He has also been featured in CoinDesk, Cointelegraph, Blockworks, and Real Vision.