Adam Back

Adam Back is CEO and co-founder of Blockstream, a Bitcoin and blockchain infrastructure company he has led since being appointed to the role in October 2016. He invented Hashcash in 1997, a proof-of-work system originally designed to deter spam and denial-of-service attacks, which was later cited by Satoshi Nakamoto in the Bitcoin whitepaper and adopted as the basis for Bitcoin's mining mechanism. At Blockstream, Back leads development of Bitcoin infrastructure including the Liquid Network, a Bitcoin sidechain enabling faster settlement, privacy-enhanced transactions, and issuance of digital assets such as stablecoins and tokenised real-world assets. The company also develops Bitcoin wallets, mining infrastructure, satellite-based data broadcasting, and enterprise blockchain solutions.

Before co-founding Blockstream, Back co-founded Pi Corporation, a cloud infrastructure provider subsequently acquired by EMC, where he became Chief Security Officer of the consumer division. He has held senior roles at Microsoft, VMware, and Zero-Knowledge Systems, with a focus on cryptography and security architecture. He is a cypherpunk and has been active in digital privacy and electronic cash research since the 1990s. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Distributed Systems from the University of Exeter.