Weirdly enough, there’s some truth to all these claims. “I tried to create electronic money in 2003, 2004,” he says, as if inventing a groundbreaking new system of money transfer is something you might knock up after dinner one night in your shed. “Obviously it never took off. But I always believed that the Internet should have its own money. I just didn’t figure out how to solve this double spend problem.” Unlike many crypto leaders, Mashinsky had a successful career long before blockchain. A tinkerer and inventor since he was a kid, Mashinsky holds 50 patents covering aspects of the tech behind Skype, Netflix video streaming and Twitter among others. He’s raised more than a billion in funds, headed eight companies since the 1990s and overseen $3 billion in exits. Mashinsky even talked the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority into hiring his company, Transit Wireless, to install WiFi and cell phone coverage throughout the subway system.