Liraz Siri

Liraz Siri is Serial entrepreneur and whitehat hacker. Security architect for a regulated crypto custodian. Co-founded a crypto incubator. Ran 1st block explorer and public API to the Bitcoin blockchain for 4 years. Co-founded TurnKey, which powers & protects 100,000+ servers worldwide. At 18 scanned the entire Internet for vulnerabilities and published the findings. Later, co-founded an Israeli cyber warfare unit as part of his military service. The slightly longer version: my background intersects cyber security and blockchain. Cyber security: I co-founded an Israeli cyber warfare unit in 2000 after auditing the entire Internet for vulnerabilities in the late 90s and publishing my findings (“Internet Auditing Project”). TurnKey, my first company is pushing out security updates to hundreds of thousands of servers worldwide. I patented a practical platform for high risk applications (WO 2007/066333) in 2005. Blockchain: I developed the first high-level interfaces to what later became OpenSSL in the mid 90s. Thanks to my background in applied cryptography I was lucky enough to fully appreciate the Satoshi whitepaper early enough to make aggressive investments into the space, including mining hardware and running the first web interface and public API to the Bitcoin blockchain for 4 years (BlockExplorer.com). Since Bitcoin Core is not optimized to be public facing I was maintaining my own fork and developed an intimate understanding of the inner workings of the Bitcoin blockchain. I ran BlockExplorer as a neutral open source resource with no ads or limitations on the public API and this simple approach was so successful it became a full time job just keeping it up. I sold it off in 2017 to focus on solving hard problems at the intersection of cyber security and blockchain. In 2017, I was the chief security architect and interim CTO at First, a blockchain Fintech firm I co-founded that incubated a range of companies in the space.