Former child actor Brock Pierce wants to save Puerto Rico with blockchain

Brock Pierce, aka the Hippie King of Cryptocurrency, has publicly vowed to put all his Bitcoin fortune, estimated at $1 billion (£760 million), towards the creation of a decentralised blockchain-run autonomous community.

Pierce did not specify where the community would be based, although because he lives in Puerto Rico and frequently speaks of helping the island out of poverty and crisis caused by massive hurricane Maria in September of last year, one can only speculate it will be there.

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“Puerto Rico has the possibility now to be put on the map as a hub of innovation,” says Pierce an interview with ABC. “And the pleasure of bringing essentially the most innovative industry the world has ever seen to a place that normally wouldn’t have been a hub, that’s a wonderful thing if it works.”

Pierce, 37, has a long history of technological entrepreneurship. He co-founded a precursor to YouTube called Digital Entertainment Network when he was 17.

Pierce in Bitcoin and blockchain

In 2013, he began his journey into the cryptocurrency and blockchain world. Firstly, he was the director of the Bitcoin Foundation and later joined Bart and Bradford Stephens in founding venture capital company Blockchain Capital.

Afterwards, he co-founded Block.one, the startup responsible for developing the EOS token with an ICO funding of nearly $700 million (£535 million), which was by far the most successful in 2017. Today, EOS has a market volume of almost $8 billion (£6 billion).

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