BitAngels Turns Seven

Today is the seventh anniversary of the founding on BitAngels. On May 18, 2013, at the very first Bitcoin Foundation conference in San Jose, I met David A. Johnston at the rooftop cocktail party and asked him why there were no angel groups for bitcoin startups? “I don’t know,” he said. “Why don’t we start one?”

The very next day, we held our organizing meeting at a table during the conference’s lunch, hoping to get 6 or 7 attendees. We had 35, including a who’s who of big name investors in the space (Roger Ver, Jered Kenna and more). By week’s end, we had 60 members. By year’s end, we had 600 members. A year later, there was a BitAngels Fund (aka the Dapps Fund).

Flash forward seven years, David is now flying around the world investing for his family office, YCG, and BitAngels has morphed into a chapter-driven organization, with 15 active cities and more on tap for when the pandemic is over. Gavin Knight remains as an original administrator of the BitAngels, and Erika Zapanta has stepped in to run operations as director, including our move to virtual events (back to the future; they started online). We have several events coming up in the next few weeks, including a BitAngels Philadelphia meeting tomorrow and a “Best of Cities” this Friday, May 22.

Complete information and signups are at https://www.bitangels.network/events — bitcoin was $120 during our first meeting; it’s nearly $10,000 today. Where will bitcoin and BitAngels be seven years from now?