Sui's co-founder George Danezis and Celestia's co-founder Mustafa Al-Bassam were both his partners.

Written by: Crypto Journey

Introduction

If Musk is the godfather of the PayPal mafia, then Dave Hrycyszyn is one of the most influential figures hidden beneath the crypto iceberg. As the former founder of Chainspace and now co-founder of Side Protocol, Dave's significant influence is rarely reported by the media; however, his achievements in the crypto industry are not to be underestimated, as he is the low-key "brain behind" multiple top-tier projects.

During the interview with Dave, we met on the yacht he uses. This yacht can accommodate about five to six people, and he warmly invited us inside, telling us that his biggest hobby now is sailing. Even when he doesn’t go out to sea, he enjoys hiding in this small space with his laptop, coding and working, sometimes for an entire day, because the sound of the waves helps him relax and focus more, and he really enjoys this way of communicating with the world through code.

Dave does not give the impression of a stereotypical tech guy; on the contrary, he is witty, very talkative, and has a wide range of interests and knowledge. Our conversations ranged from politics to art and music, and when discussing the crypto industry, we could sense a perfect blend of lofty crypto idealism and technical pragmatism in him.

Early experiences and education

Dave Hrycyszyn was born in 1972 in Thunder Bay, Canada, and he enjoyed fishing, hunting, boating, hiking, and mechanical devices during his childhood.

Neighbors call me to their garage every day, and we assemble vintage game consoles together. That's when I knew I wanted to dive deeper into these things." These mechanical devices were the key for Dave to explore the unknown world, and programming was his path to this world.

In those resource-scarce years, Dave became a genius in programming through self-study. He independently explored the mysteries of computer hardware and programming languages through books and extremely limited tools.

By high school, he was already able to independently develop small applications and games, even writing several useful tools for classmates and the school while improving program efficiency and stability by optimizing system architecture. Programming was no longer just a skill; it became Dave's unique language for communicating with the world. Later, he was hired as a mentor to teach computer courses to university students who had more formal education but lacked experience.

Starting a career

After graduating from university, Dave decided to leave Canada and move to London. The city was at the forefront of the global tech revolution, with waves of internet innovation rising and falling. With a solid foundation built through self-study, Dave quickly found a job as a development engineer. In London, he encountered more complex computer systems and enterprise-level applications than he had in Canada, and this experience laid a solid foundation for his future technical development.

At work, Dave quickly rose from an ordinary engineer to a core technical staff member. With the accumulation of experience, he realized that the technical demands of European governments and large enterprises were becoming increasingly complex, and existing solutions were no longer sufficient.

He decided to start a business, focusing on providing innovative technology solutions for governments and large enterprises.

The company quickly became popular with clients, especially excelling in providing services to multiple European governments and multinational corporations. Dave's company not only helped clients achieve digital transformation but also built high-performance systems for some of the world's largest enterprises. Ultimately, he successfully sold the company to Zone, which was later acquired by the corporate giant Cognizant, which has 175,000 employees. The methodology he pioneered became cutting-edge technology for these companies' services.

In addition to entrepreneurship, Dave also authored books such as (Scalatra in Action), making significant contributions to the tech community, adopted by large companies such as BBC and Netflix, solidifying his position in the tech circle.

Entering the crypto space

In 2010, when Dave first encountered Bitcoin, he could not delve deeper due to the busy company business. It wasn't until years later, after reading the Bitcoin white paper, that he experienced an epiphany. Subsequently, he used part of the funds accumulated from entrepreneurship to buy Bitcoin and hold it long-term (although he unfortunately sold part during the subsequent bull market, he still has some that he hasn’t touched).

Since then, he has been more actively focused on and involved in the Bitcoin ecosystem. He rarely misses various Bitcoin meetups held in London. As the broader concept of blockchain was proposed, Dave realized that decentralized technology and blockchain would be the core technologies of the future.

In 2015, Dave began researching the scalability issues of blockchain. He later led the founding of Chainspace, a company dedicated to solving blockchain scalability issues and promoting the rise of high-performance public chains. This marked Dave's formal entry into the crypto industry and established his position as one of the pioneers in blockchain technology.

Building the crypto gang Chainspace

At Chainspace, Dave served as CTO (Chief Technology Officer) and played a key role. With a wealth of traditional technical experience, he drove breakthroughs in blockchain core technology. As the project's core figure, Dave not only designed the technical architecture but also led the overall strategic planning. Under his leadership, Chainspace quickly emerged as a new star in the global crypto industry, attracting intense attention from investors and tech enthusiasts. Project advisors included prominent figures such as Twitter's founding CTO Blaine Cook and Ben Laurie, the original implementer of Apache SSL.

In 2018, the crypto bull market propelled the rapid development of Chainspace. Although the team was confident, Dave received acquisition offers from several tech giants, including Facebook (Meta). Reportedly, various companies competed fiercely to acquire Chainspace's core technology. After much persuasion, Dave and his partners ultimately decided to sell the company. Some community members believe that if Chainspace had not been acquired, it might today rank among the top ten crypto companies globally.

After leaving Chainspace, Dave's two partners George Danezis (a professor at University College London) and Mustafa Al-Bassam founded Sui and Celestia, respectively. As of now, the former is valued at about $10 billion, and the latter over $5 billion. The community believes that without the technical foundation built by Chainspace, founded by Dave, the core technologies of Celestia and Sui might have taken several more years to emerge.

Dave later joined a privacy network development project, collaborating with professors from MIT and KU Leuven to provide top-notch decentralized privacy protection technology for global users. During this time, top investment firms such as a16z, Binance, and Polychain injected tens of millions of dollars to support the project's successful development.

"Nym is the project that allows me to realize my personal ideals, as I firmly believe that internet privacy should be a fundamental right for everyone. Once the project is completed, my goals will also be achieved. I will hand over management and technical responsibilities to a new CTO, allowing a more professional team to bring the project to market." After the project successfully launched, Dave turned his attention to larger goals, focusing on expanding the Bitcoin ecosystem and financial development.

Building the Side Protocol: Bitcoin Financial Infrastructure

Today, Dave collaborates with early members from Binance Labs and several crypto geeks to build a Bitcoin-based on-chain financial system—Side Protocol. The Side Protocol combines Bitcoin's native scripting and signing technology with the underlying technical architecture of Cosmos, creating a new type of financial infrastructure. The core products of the protocol include high-performance Bitcoin sidechains and native lending protocols, akin to public chains.

Dave's vision is: "Just as traditional banks serve fiat currency, we are building a native financial protocol on-chain to serve Bitcoin." He hopes that through this system, Bitcoin will no longer be just a "sleeping" asset but will be widely utilized, enhancing fund efficiency and promoting Bitcoin to become a more vibrant and practical asset.

Side Protocol is still under development, with the mainnet expected to launch in early 2025, regarded as one of the most anticipated projects in the crypto world.

Conclusion

Dave Hrycyszyn's career spans multiple technical fields, from programming prodigy to blockchain technology pioneer, and now a revolutionary in the Bitcoin financial sector. He continuously pushes boundaries, striving to bring about a more profound impact through decentralized technology. With the completion of Side Protocol, Dave's vision may reach new heights, propelling Bitcoin and blockchain technology towards a broader future.