The Journey of Dan Held: From ZeroBlock to Kraken

• Dan Held co-founded ZeroBlock and later joined Kraken, driving growth through strategic expansion and institutional engagement in the crypto industry.
• As a Bitcoin educator, Dan Held influences the crypto space with insights, advisory roles, and a strong social media presence.

Dan Held was a nobody in the digital finance industry in 2012. At the time, Bitcoin was still viewed as a toy for tech enthusiasts; he was simply a normal man fascinated by the idea.

However, his interest would bring him to San Francisco, where he met industry pioneers like Brian Armstrong (Coinbase), Jesse Powell (Kraken), and Jed McCaleb (Mt. Gox). This surroundings changed his perspective and made him among the most outspoken personalities in the Bitcoin space.

From Observer to Innovator: The Birth of ZeroBlock

Held first entered Bitcoin and saw that better tools were needed to track the crypto market worldwide. He was not content to be only a passive investor. Rather, he aimed to create something that would be genuinely useful. And thus was the genesis of ZeroBlock, a tool offering real-time Bitcoin statistics.

The app quickly became popular and finally was bought by Blockchain.com just a few months after it debuted. It was his first significant industrial turning point.

But he didn’t stop there. Held returned to cryptocurrency following a stint at Uber by starting Interchange, a tool for institutional management of digital asset portfolios. His choice turned out to be the appropriate one. One of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, Kraken bought Interchange and Held joined the business as Head of Business Development before finally taking over as the growth strategy lead.

Beyond Kraken: Educating the Bitcoin Community

Held’s joining Kraken was not a typical professional path. Under his direction of the development team, Kraken grew remarkably fast. He participated in projects including opening Kraken Financial in Wyoming, bringing Kraken back into Japan, and starting in Australia.

Actually, the staking service of Kraken attracted $1 billion in user money in 2020. This is no little achievement and demonstrates how much Held has shaped the expansion plan of the business.

Held, on the other hand, nevertheless keeps developing his image as among the most sought-after Bitcoin educators. Having more than 850,000 followers on social media, he routinely offers his analysis on Bitcoin and exhorts others to recognize the actual worth of the digital money. For him, Bitcoin represents a financial movement that might alter the course of events rather than only a speculative tool.

Beyond Exchanges: How Dan Held Shapes Crypto’s Future

Held has not vanished from the sight of the crypto market after leaving Kraken. He started working as an advisor for Trust Machines, a firm concentrating on creating Bitcoin DeFi technology (BTCFi). He also serves as General Partner of Asymmetric, an investment company helping Bitcoin initiatives. For Held, the future of Bitcoin is still long, thus he wants to keep leading front-edge to contribute to shape the larger ecosystem.

His path from Bitcoin observer to industry leader demonstrates the rapid change of the crypto landscape. Experience in everything from app development to company formation and business strategy makes Dan Held among the most powerful voices in the Bitcoin space. Those who still question the future of Bitcoin perhaps want to consider Dan Held’s path and how he saw the world changing.