Erik Voorhees
Erik Voorhees is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of ShapeShift, an instant exchange for digital assets. He also co-founded bitcoin startup Coinapult and the gambling website SatoshiDICE. Voorhees is recognized among the top serial Bitcoin advocates and entrepreneurs, understanding Bitcoin as one of the most important inventions ever created by humanity. He keeps his assets and finances in Bitcoin and is an outspoken critic of taxation, though Voorhees does file with the IRS as an American citizen. He has been a featured guest on Bloomberg, Fox Business, CNBC, and at multiple industry conferences.
Erik Voorhees Professional Experience / Academic History
Professional Experience
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Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Academic History
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BA in Business Leadership and Political Economics
- Voorhees is originally from Colorado.
- He later moved to Dubai, Panama, New York City, and New Hampshire, becoming a participant in the Free State Project.
- He participated in the development of KryptoKit.
- He believes the current monetary system has serious systemic problems with counterparty risk.
- He believes that the Federal Reserve System is “fraudulent” and advocates “the separation of money and state.”
- He has appeared as a guest on Real Vision.
Securities and Exchange Commission
- In 2014, Voorhees was fined by the U.S. SEC for his solicitation of funds for shares related to his two bitcoin-related ventures, SatoshiDICE and FeedZeBirds.
- According to the SEC, 30,000 shares of FeedZeBirds and 13 million shares of SatoshiDICE were sold for bitcoin amounting to a total of $737,659 at the time.
- He was accused of using social media platforms like Facebook between 2012 and 2013 to solicit investors without federal approval.
- This was the highest-profile case of securities violations for bitcoin ventures at the time.
- He settled with the SEC and agreed to pay $15,843.98 in disgorgement plus a $35,000 penalty.
- He was prohibited from participating in “any issuance of any security in an unregistered transaction in exchange for any virtual currency including Bitcoin for a period of five years.”