Bullish on bitcoin Adelman, 32, is no newbie to the online retail space. In his first start-up, Cosmic, Adelman and his co-founder, Matt Senter, created e-commerce technology that let consumers buy products from multiple retailers in one transaction. The company was acquired by PopSugar in 2015 and then by Rakuten in 2017. (Both acquisitions were for undisclosed amounts, but Cosmic was valued at about $16 million in 2015, according to PitchBook.) Adelman stayed on as Cosmic's CEO through both sales, and as a bitcoin bull for years, he tried to bring the cryptocurrency to his merchant partners there. But they were hesitant. "It was just not the right time," Adelman says.