Roy Sebag

Last updated
Roy Sebag
Born (1985-06-28) June 28, 1985 (age 38)
Occupation(s)Entrepreneur, investor
Years active2008–present
Known forGoldMoney Inc (formerly BitGold), Menē

Roy Sebag (born June 28, 1985) is an Israeli-Canadian contrarian investor, entrepreneur and author. [1] [2] He is the founder of precious metal savings and payments platform GoldMoney Inc, and is Chief Executive Officer. [3] [4] He is also the founder of cryptomining company Bitfarms, Ltd. a publicly traded company on the Toronto Stock Exchange, and was its CEO until April 2019. [5] [6] [7]

Contents

Career

Investments

In 2011, Sebag was a managing partner of Essentia Equity, one of several lenders that invested $43 million of rescue financing into American Apparel helping the company avert bankruptcy, but the company later went bankrupt. In September 2012, Sebag invested in German automotive company Porsche Automobil Holding SE. In an interview with the financial newspaper Barron's, Sebag argued that the legal overhang due to the 2008 short squeeze of Volkswagen provided a unique opportunity to purchase shares of Porsche at a discount. [8]

Natural Resource Holdings

In 2010, Sebag formed Natural Resource Holdings, an asset consolidator of historically delineated natural resource deposits. [9]

Since 2011, Sebag and Natural Resource Holdings have been compiling and distributing a database of the world's largest gold mines. [10]

Goldmoney Inc.

Following the 2008 financial crisis, Sebag met Josh Crumb, a senior metals strategist at Goldman Sachs, and the two developed the idea of a full-reserve banking gold-based financial institution. This ultimately led to the formation and launch of BitGold, which subsequently became GoldMoney, after BitGold acquired that company in 2015 as a reverse merger. In May 2016, Sebag won the Canadian Capital Markets Deal of the Year Award for the GoldMoney acquisition. [11] [12] In March 2019, GoldMoney announced it was shutting down its cryptocurrency business. [1]

Menē Inc.

In October 2016, Sebag founded Menē Inc. a luxury online jewelry venture, along with Diana Widmaier Picasso, the granddaughter of Pablo Picasso. [13]

Industry analysis

Sebag's economic insights have been covered by CNBC, Bloomberg, [14] The Wall Street Journal [15] and in an article written by him for The American Mind. [16]

Author

Sebag is the author of 'The Natural Order of Money', a book of Economic Theory and Philosophy about the intrinsic relationship between people, money, and nature. [17]

Related Research Articles

A cryptocurrency exchange, or a digital currency exchange (DCE), is a business that allows customers to trade cryptocurrencies or digital currencies for other assets, such as conventional fiat money or other digital currencies. Exchanges may accept credit card payments, wire transfers or other forms of payment in exchange for digital currencies or cryptocurrencies. A cryptocurrency exchange can be a market maker that typically takes the bid–ask spreads as a transaction commission for its service or, as a matching platform, simply charges fees.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bitcoin</span> Decentralized digital currency

Bitcoin is the first decentralized cryptocurrency. Nodes in the peer-to-peer bitcoin network verify transactions through cryptography and record them in a public distributed ledger, called a blockchain, without central oversight. Consensus between nodes is achieved using a computationally intensive process based on proof of work, called mining, that requires increasing quantities of electricity and guarantees the security of the bitcoin blockchain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cryptocurrency</span> Digital currency not reliant on a central authority

A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of bitcoin</span> Cryptocurrency

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, a digital asset that uses cryptography to control its creation and management rather than relying on central authorities. Originally designed as a medium of exchange, Bitcoin is now primarily regarded as a store of value. The history of bitcoin started with its invention and implementation by Satoshi Nakamoto, who integrated many existing ideas from the cryptography community. Over the course of bitcoin's history, it has undergone rapid growth to become a significant store of value both on- and offline. From the mid-2010s, some businesses began accepting bitcoin in addition to traditional currencies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Legality of cryptocurrency by country or territory</span>

The legal status of cryptocurrencies varies substantially from one jurisdiction to another, and is still undefined or changing in many of them. Whereas, in the majority of countries the usage of cryptocurrency isn't in itself illegal, its status and usability as a means of payment varies, with differing regulatory implications.

Circle is a peer-to-peer payments technology company that now manages stablecoin USDC, a cryptocurrency the value of which is pegged to the U.S. dollar. It was founded by Jeremy Allaire and Sean Neville in October 2013. Circle is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. USDC, the second largest stablecoin worldwide, is designed to hold at or near a stable price of $1. The majority of its stablecoin collateral is held in short-term U.S. government securities.

Robinhood Markets, Inc. is an American financial services company headquartered in Menlo Park, California. It operates an electronic trading platform that facilitates commission-free trades of stocks, exchange-traded funds and cryptocurrencies as well as individual retirement accounts via a mobile app introduced in March 2015. Robinhood is a FINRA-regulated broker-dealer, registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and is a member of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. The company's revenue comes from three main sources: interest earned on customers' cash balances, selling order information to high-frequency traders and margin lending. As of December 2023, Robinhood had 23.4 million funded accounts and 10.9 million monthly active users. In April 2022, Robinhood rolled out a cryptocurrency wallet to more than 2 million users.

HTX is a Seychelles-based cryptocurrency exchange. Founded in China as Huobi, the company now has offices in Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan and the United States. In August 2018 it became a publicly listed Hong Kong company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital Currency Group</span> American venture capital company

Digital Currency Group (DCG) is a venture capital company focusing on the digital currency market. It is located in Stamford, Connecticut. The company has the subsidiaries Foundry, Genesis, Grayscale Investments, and Luno. It also formerly owned CoinDesk.

Wealthsimple Inc. is a Canadian online investment management service. The firm was founded in September 2014 by Michael Katchen, Brett Huneycutt, Som Seif, and Rudy Adler and is based in Toronto. As of January 2024, the firm holds over C$30 billion in assets under management. It is primarily owned by Power Corporation indirectly at 54.2% through investments made through their holdings in Power Financial, IGM Financial and Portag3.

Bitfinex is a cryptocurrency exchange owned and operated by iFinex Inc, and is registered in the British Virgin Islands. Bitfinex was founded in 2012. It was originally a peer-to-peer Bitcoin exchange, and later added support for other cryptocurrencies.

An initial coin offering (ICO) or initial currency offering is a type of funding using cryptocurrencies. It is often a form of crowdfunding, although a private ICO which does not seek public investment is also possible. In an ICO, a quantity of cryptocurrency is sold in the form of "tokens" ("coins") to speculators or investors, in exchange for legal tender or other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ether. The tokens are promoted as future functional units of currency if or when the ICO's funding goal is met and the project successfully launches.

Bitcoin was designed by its pseudonymous inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto, to work as a currency, but its status as a currency is disputed. Economists define money as a store of value, a medium of exchange and a unit of account, and agree that bitcoin does not currently meet all these criteria.

A cryptocurrency bubble is a phenomenon where the market increasingly considers the going price of cryptocurrency assets to be inflated against their hypothetical value. The history of cryptocurrency has been marked by several speculative bubbles.

Binance Holdings Ltd., branded Binance, is a global company that operates the largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of daily trading volume of cryptocurrencies. Binance was founded in 2017 by Changpeng Zhao, a developer who had previously created high-frequency trading software. Binance was initially based in China, then moved to Japan shortly before the Chinese government restricted cryptocurrency companies. Binance subsequently left Japan for Malta and currently has no official company headquarters.

Cryptocurrency and crime describe notable examples of cybercrime related to theft of cryptocurrencies and some methods or security vulnerabilities commonly exploited. Cryptojacking is a form of cybercrime specific to cryptocurrencies that have been used on websites to hijack a victim's resources and use them for hashing and mining cryptocurrency.

Bithumb is a South Korean cryptocurrency exchange. Founded in 2014, Bithumb Korea has 8 million registered users, 1 million mobile app users, and a current cumulative transaction volume has exceeded USD $1 trillion.

Anthony Di Iorio is a Canadian entrepreneur primarily known as a co-founder of Ethereum and an early investor in Bitcoin. Di Iorio is the founder and CEO of the blockchain company Decentral, and the associated Jaxx wallet. He also served as the first chief digital officer of the Toronto Stock Exchange. In February 2018, Forbes estimated his net worth at $750 million–$1 billion.

Paxos Trust Company is a New York–based financial institution and technology company specializing in blockchain. The company's product offerings include a cryptocurrency brokerage service, asset tokenization services, and settlement services. ItBit, a bitcoin exchange run by Paxos, was the first bitcoin exchange to be licensed by the New York State Department of Financial Services, granting the company the ability to be the custodian and exchange for customers in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Celsius Network</span> American cryptocurrency company

Celsius Network LLC was a cryptocurrency company. Headquartered in Hoboken, New Jersey, Celsius maintained offices in four countries and operated globally. Users could deposit a range of cryptocurrency digital assets, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, into a Celsius wallet to earn a percentage yield, and could take out loans by pledging their cryptocurrencies as security. As of May 2022, the company had lent out $8 billion to clients and had almost $12 billion in assets under management.

References

  1. 1 2 "Roy Sebag exits cryptocurrency market". Globes. 10 March 2019. Retrieved 4 June 2020.
  2. ↑ "Executive Profile Roy Sebag". Bloomberg. Retrieved 14 December 2015.
  3. ↑ "You Want to Buy Art. Is It About Love or Money?". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
  4. ↑ Waddell, Nick. "GoldMoney Announces Graduation to the Toronto Stock Exchange". Cantech Letter . Retrieved 12 May 2016.
  5. ↑ "Toronto Stock Exchange Profile: Bitfarms Ltd". TASE Site. Retrieved 2 August 2019.
  6. ↑ "Blockchain merger to make Natural Resource NIS 2b co". Globes.co.il. Retrieved 26 May 2018.
  7. ↑ "Crypto Mining Outfit Bitfarms to Depreciate $19 Million as Founder Denounces Bitcoin". Ctech. 2019-11-03. Retrieved 2020-06-04.
  8. ↑ "Porsche Preferred Shares Merit a Faster Track". Barons. Retrieved 20 December 2015.
  9. ↑ "Global Gold Mine and Deposit Rankings 2013". Visual Capitalist. Retrieved 20 December 2015.
  10. ↑ "Global Gold Mines and Deposits Ranking 2012". Visual Capitalist. Retrieved 20 December 2015.
  11. ↑ "Will gold continue to shine?". CNBC. Retrieved 8 September 2016.
  12. ↑ "Gold starts to shine for investors". Financial Times. Retrieved 15 August 2015.
  13. ↑ "Jewelry Worth Its Grams in Gold". New York Times. 10 May 2018. Retrieved 4 June 2020.
  14. ↑ "The Guy Who Called Bitcoin a Bubble Now Wants to Help You Store It". Bloomberg. Retrieved 29 September 2017.
  15. ↑ "Coronavirus Sparks a Global Gold Rush". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 31 March 2020.
  16. ↑ https://americanmind.org/memo/a-cure-for-the-money-virus/
  17. ↑ https://booklife.com/booklife-review/9781399934206
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