Child actor and crypto billionaire Brock Pierce says “bitcoin is democratizing the global financial system in a way every person gets equal access.” However, according to him, there is a lack of infrastructure for users to get equal access and “we are just at the beginning of this path towards adoption.”
Pierce believes blockchain will transform the world.
"Has the internet changed our lives? Have mobile phones changed our lives? The blockchain is something that is that transformative," he says.
Who is Brock Pierce?
Brock Pierce is an American entrepreneur and venture capitalist with an extensive track record of founding, advising, and investing in disruptive businesses. Pierce is the Chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation and a co-founder of DNA Advisors, Block.one, Blockchain Capital, Tether, and Mastercoin (first ICO).
Born in Minnesota, he now lives in Puerto Rico. He moved to the island after it was hit by Hurricane Maria and pledged to help it recover. He hopes to turn the island into a cryptocurrency utopia – Puertopia – because it has favorable tax policies for crypto investments.
"Puerto Rico has the possibility now to be put on the map as a hub of innovation," he once told the Foreign Correspondent. "And the pleasure of bringing essentially the most innovative industry the world has ever seen to a place that normally wouldn't have been a hub, that's a wonderful thing if it works."
Child Actor
As a child, Brock Pierce appeared in commercials and movies. He portrayed the young Gordon Bombay in a hockey classic “The Mighty Ducks” in 1992. Pierce reprised the role in D2: The Mighty Ducks.
He starred as Luke Davenport in First Kid (1996). Pierce had small roles in Little Big League (1994), Ripper Man (1995), Problem Child 3 (1995), Three Wishes (1995), and Earth Minus Zero (1996).
Pierce retired from acting at 17 and joined Marc Collins-Rector and Chad Shackley as a minor partner in establishing Digital Entertainment Network (DEN), which succeeded in raising $88 million in venture capital.
Pierce and Crypto
Brock Pierce discovered crypto via entertainment. He co-founded a precursor to YouTube, at 17, called Digital Entertainment Network, which raised $88 million during the dot-com bubble and then went bust.
In the 2000s Pierce built one of the largest virtual-asset trading companies, Internet Gaming Entertainment, a company which pioneered the MMORPG currency-selling services industry. It was the video game currency arbitrage that led him to crypto in its earliest days.
Pierce became captivated by bitcoin's potential and quit to help found and fund dozens of crypto companies, including Mastercoin, Blockchain Capital, Coinbase, Ethereum, Tether, Bitfury, and now Block.one.
Pierce is an early investor in bitcoin and one of the largest investors in the ethereum crowdsale. He is the founder of IMI Exchange, the world’s leading digital currency marketplace for games.
Pierce founded ZAM, one of the world’s largest media properties for gamers, which was acquired by Tencent in 2012. He founded IGE, the digital currency pioneer in online games, achieving revenues exceeding $100 million in 2006 prior to selling in 2007.
Brock Pierce is also a co-founder of D10e, GoCoin, Blade Payments, Five Delta, Xfire 2.0, Playsino, Evertune, GamesTV, and DEN. He also advises Airswap, Bancor, BitGo, BitGuild, BlockV, Bloq, Element Group, Metronome, Shyft, and tZERO.
Brock co-founded Block.one in 2017 and sold over $4B tokens in the EOS crowdsale making it the largest ever. Blockchain Capital was founded in 2013 and is the first sector-focused venture fund that invests solely in blockchain technology companies. Pierce led the firm through the first ICO.
In February this year, Pierce was named into the Forbes’ first-ever Crypto Rich List, a compilation of the 20 wealthiest people in crypto.
Scandals
In the year 2000, Brock Pierce was accused of child abuse. It was at the time he had co-founded the Digital Entertainment Network together with Marc Collins-Rector and Chad Shackley and planned a $75 million IPO. But that was not to happen, as the trio had to answer for the accusation.
When Pierce joined the Bitcoin Foundation in 2014, ten members decided to leave it, saying they have nothing more to do “with such persons.” Nevertheless, this did not prevent Pierce from digging deeper into the crypto world.