The blockchain scene is growing rapidly, and this largely owed to both the industry’s early leaders and its current pioneers. Anthony Di Iorio is both. The Toronto-born blockchain innovator was one of Ethereum’s co-founders and continues to play a key role in the decentralization movement taking place in Canada. As part of a regular series, Coinsquare News is profiling some of the Canadian blockchain industry’s most significant figures. This series is designed to provide a view into the backgrounds and minds of these prominent individuals for both new investors and experienced digital currency advocates.
Anthony Di Iorio was born and raised in Toronto and graduated from Ryerson University in 1998. With a bachelor of commerce behind him, he went on to serve as a marketing manager for DCL International in 1999.
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Over the next decade, he served a variety of roles in marketing and adjacent industries. He eventually became the CEO and owner of CityDrill Geothermal Drilling in 2007, a company which facilitated services for geothermal energy systems in Ontario. Di Iorio’s formal involvement with digital currencies began as early as 2013 when he served as a founding member and executive director of the Bitcoin Alliance of Canada. The organization looked to bolster Bitcoin’s status amongst Canadians and promote awareness about the industry’s merits.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gal_0OjNfkMIn November of the same year, Di Iorio launched his first digital currency wallet, KryptoKit, and soon became part of one of the industry’s largest movements to-date, Ethereum.
Many of Ethereum’s co-founders are Toronto-natives, and he was one of the instrumental figures behind the launch of the ambitious digital currency platform. Di Iorio met Vitalik Buterin, one of the largest names in the digital currency industry, at a Toronto Blockchain Meetup group he hosted in 2012. His motivation behind the movement was to find like-minded blockchain advocates in an industry that was only just beginning to take shape. From there, Di Iorio became the first reader of Buterin’s project, which would later become the Ethereum whitepaper. Believing in Ethereum from the beginning, Di Iorio supported the project both financially and with his efforts in helping assemble the project’s team. Today, Ethereum is the second most popular digital currency in terms of market cap, no doubt helping Diiorio when he joined fellow Canadian pioneer Joseph Lubin on Forbes’ list of the wealthiest digital currency owners.
Since his involvement in promoting Canada’s Bitcoin movement, and his work as a co-founder of Ethereum, he continues to further the country’s blockchain landscape. Largely, this involves his work as the CEO and founder of Decentral.Decentral is a Toronto-based blockchain company that aims to be a hub for innovative decentralized projects. One of its most successful projects to-date is Jaxx; a digital currency wallet that supports multiple currencies. Decentral opened its doors at King Street and Spadina Avenue in Toronto on New Year’s Day in 2014, alongside Toronto’s first ever Bitcoin ATM. Later that year, Decentral organized the Bitcoin Expo 2014, which claims to have been the largest digital currency event in Canada at the time. https://twitter.com/jaxx_io/status/973987875887951874In March 2018, Jaxx surpassed 1.2 million downloads since January of the previous year. This makes Jaxx one of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency wallets.“Decentralization is changing the very fabric of the global economy,” said Diiorio, in his statement on the Decentral website. “Decentralized technologies power trust-less, frictionless, efficient networks and markets […] without the assistance or cost of traditional middlemen.”
In May 2018, Decentral promised to unveil a disruptive project at the broadcasted afterparty it will host following the Consensus 2018 blockchain technology summit. According to Di Iorio, this new project will attract an even larger pool of adopters into the fold than Jaxx, and further Decentral’s status amidst a time of uncertainty reflected that he claims is reflected in our “digital lives.” He stated that the unveiled project will “unify and empower people,” and further the company’s mission to foster growth in the landscape.At the time of writing, it is not clear what Decentral’s next move will entail. What is clear, however, is that the Di Iorio-led company has proven itself as a fundamental part of both the decentralization movement, and Canada’s bustling blockchain scene. Image credit: Anthony Di Iorio
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