Bryan Bishop

Bryan Bishop is a software engineer based in Austin, Texas.

He is a self-described transhumanist,¹⁾ and has been described as “a devotee of the Quantified Self movement.”^{2) 3)}

He was reportedly among those to receive the original Bitcoin email from Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009.⁴⁾ Since 2013, he has been represented by Michael Solomon at 10x Management.

From 2003-2006, Bishop worked on web and software design projects for several companies including Lockhart Woodworks, Dimensional Studios and Cruise & Travel Connection.⁵⁾

In 2007, Bishop started the hplusroadmap group – a think tank of radical technology innovators focused on high technology projects from gene therapy to brain uploading. Bishop created the Culture Shock electroporator, an open-source laboratory device that uses electricity to shock cells so that their membranes become temporarily porous to allow new DNA to be able to enter into the cells thereby reprogramming biology.

In the summer of 2008, Bishop volunteered as a programmer at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI) for a project called The Uncertain Future. The project was funded by the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, and focused on the “development of transhumanist technologies – including artificial intelligence, genetics, and biotechnology – as the key element in predicting the future”, while taking into account factors “such as the speed of scientific progress, the difficulty of building technology, and the possibility of catastrophe.”^{6) 7)}

Bishop worked as a research assistant in several laboratories at the University of Texas at Austin from June 2008 to December 2009.⁸⁾ At the Ellington Lab, he worked under Andy Ellington where he “setup and ran lots of PCR reactions and gel electrophoresis gels.” The resulting publication discloses funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Welch Foundation.⁹⁾

In the lab of K. Sata Sathasivan, Bishop “designed, simulated and built a microfluidic device for algae/water separation” and “helped scale up algae” for “biofuel production.” According to Bishop's resume, his script for “designing spiral microfluidic devices” was featured on the website for BRL-CAD.

Then, in the Automated Design Laboratory, he worked on Virtual Organization for Innovative Conceptual Engineering Design (VOICED), advised by Matt Campbell.

Bishop then went on to work as a software contractor for Betterhumans and Telisite in 2009 and 2010. At Betterhumans, he “developed a secure, proprietary bioinformatics system involving whole genome analysis.” He co-founded Hurricane Party in December 2009, for which he raised startup capital from Capital Factory.

He worked as a Facebook application programmer for Carbon Bay, a program to allow trading of carbon credits as a virtual currency.

He served as a technical director at Humanity+, a non-profit organization focused on human enhancement, to draft and execute technical projects from September 2010 to April 2011. According to Bishop's LinkedIn profile, one of his larger projects was the migration of the Gada Prize project and funding from the Foresight Institute to Humanity+. He “wrote project funding proposals and explored unique ways to create advanced technologies.”

He then worked on contract for Bohemian Innovation and Aquameta, the latter of which had him build a “comprehensive scraping system” to “monitor keyword trends”. More specifically, he used “math trickery to figure out the relative landscape of trending search phrases based on global datasets” and “estimate the global amount of data not being captured and enhancing conclusions with this data.” He also co-founded Hopper and AdSleuth.

He held further positions at StyleOwner, Gameprez, and RiverMeadow.

Bishop was an “early technical hire” at LedgerX (which later became FTX US Derivatives).¹⁰⁾ In his position, he acted as “a bridge to the Bitcoin Core project and Bitcoin Core developer community to keep updated on important protocol developments, to relentlessly track and document everything, and to participate in the technical proposal review process.” He worked at the company from September 2014 to September 2018.¹¹⁾

In September 2018, Bishop co-authored a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) along with former Morgan Stanley managing director Caitlin Long, e-commerce coder Christopher Allen, founder of Ernst & Young’s blockchain team Angus Champion de Crespigny and fund manager attorney Gavin Fearey, warning the agency “against certain types of enterprise adoption.”¹²⁾

In October 2018, BEAM announced that Bishop had been brought on as its strategic and technical advisor.¹³⁾

He co-founded Avanti Bank & Trust, later renamed Custodia Bank, in March 2020. He served as Chief Technology Officer at the company.

In May 2022, Shyft Network announced it had brought Bishop on “to collaborate on strengthening the global network security, scalability, and interoperability.”¹⁴⁾ At this time, Bishop remained a member of the Board of Directors for FTS US Derivatives. He also consulted for Blockstream and Genomic Prediction, and founded Webcash.

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