Bob McElrath, VP Blockchain Architect, Fidelity Investments
Bob’s first career was in theoretical particle physics, where he toured the world working at multiple universities and CERN, writing papers about Dark Matter and the Higgs Boson totaling more than 30 publications over 10 years. That wasn’t nearly interesting enough so upon leaving academia he took a left turn into remaking money with cryptography. He created an altcoin based on Bitcoin for a startup doing rewards like airline miles on the blockchain (Loyyal), and before joining Fidelity worked for SolidX who is sponsoring one of the Bitcoin ETFs. While there he created an authentication and distributed identity system on blockchains similar to uPort/Soverin/Evernym. Today he is heading up Fidelity’s Bitcoin mining operation, and advising Fidelity Digital Assets (FDAS) on wallet architecture. In Fidelity’s Blockchain Incubator he also helps liaise with our academic partners at MIT, Cornell (IC3) and UCL (London).