Michael Terpin is founder and CEO of Transform Group, the leading advisory and PR firm for the blockchain industry, with more than 300 clients in the sector since 2013, including Augur, Bancor, Ethereum, Kraken, Neo, Ripple, Tether, and WAX. Terpin also owns a blockchain accelerator in Hamilton, Bermuda, Transform Studios, Ltd., and is a managing director in Transform Ventures, which invests and advises companies in the DeFi and NFT sector, and a partner in DeFi Studio, a venture foundry.

Terpin is also co-founder and chairman of Aspire, a leading digital asset creation platform, which has grown in under six months to a $50 million market cap across its platform tokens ASP and GASP. Aspire allows for quick, inexpensive creation of full token ecosystems, including unlimited NFTs, with unparalleled speed, security and negligible gas fees.

Terpin co-founded BitAngels, the world’s first angel network for digital currency startups, in May, 2013, which has expanded to 15 city chapters. He is also a general partner in Tradery Capital, an algorithmic trading fund for digital assets, and an LP and senior advisor to Alphabit Fund, a leading international digital currency fund.

Additionally, Terpin is chairman and co-founder Content Syndicate, a collection of vertical market newswires, including Blockchain Wire. Previously, Terpin founded Marketwire (now Globe Newswire), one of the world’s largest company newswires, which was acquired in 2006, later sold to NASDAQ for $200 million, and ultimately to Intrado Digital Media, a division of Apollo Global Management (NYSE: APO). He also co-founded Direct IPO, one of the earliest equity crowdfunding companies, in 1996.

Terpin’s first PR firm, The Terpin Group, represented many of the early Internet leaders, including America Online, Earthlink, Match.com and the Motley Fool. The Terpin Group was sold in 2000 to Financial Dynamics, now part of FTI Consulting (NYSE: FCN). Terpin holds an MFA from SUNY at Buffalo and dual BA in journalism and English from Syracuse University, where he serves on the board of advisors at the top-ranked Newhouse School of Public Communications. Terpin lives with his wife, Maxine, and two dogs in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where he received the first Act 22 tax decree granted to a blockchain industry investor.