Barry Silbert
Founder, Digital Currency Group
Barry Silbert is the founder of venture firm Digital Currency Group (DCG), crypto asset manager Grayscale Investments and illiquid assets marketplace SecondMarket.
Silbert founded SecondMarket in 2004, where he created the Bitcoin Investment Trust, wholly devoted to bitcoin and the first investment vehicle of its kind in the US. The fund received a $2 million investment from SecondMarket. Grayscale Investments, a subsidiary of DCG manages the fund. Silbert stepped down as CEO of SecondMarket in 2013 to focus his energies on the digital currency industry. He launched DCG in 2015 shortly after selling SecondMarket to NASDAQ.
DCG has invested in a variety of companies and projects in the industry, including those which focus on security, network infrastructure, exchange, identity, gaming and others. Notable investments include Blockstream, Coinbase, Ledger, Lightning Network, Ripple and Xapo. DCG has three subsidiaries: CoinDesk, which it purchased in 2016, Grayscale Investments and digital currency brokerage firm Genesis Trading.