Meltem Demirors
Meltem Demirors is one of the most influential personality in cryptocurrency and fintech space, with investment in over 200 companies across the crypto ecosystem. A social media personality, Meltem has over 230K followers on her official Twitter @Melt_Dem.
Meltem Demirors was ranked 38 in the Fortune magazine’s “The Ledger 40 Under 40” list for 2018, along with other Women Crypto superstars like Arianna Simpson and Tina Bhatnagar. She was also featured in the Hackernoon’s 2018 list of “5 Notable Women in the Blockchain and Crypto Industry”, along with Bancor’s founder Galia Benartzi.
Recently in 2021, She was nominated in the “City AM Outstanding Industry Contribution Award” category at Crypto AM Summit & awards 2021. Meltem serve as an advisor to Blockdaemon, Casa, Ocean Protocol & Shyft Network and also a board director of the Stacks Foundation. Let’s look at the biography, professional career journey and future plan of Meltem Demirors – the Chief Strategy Officer at Coinshares.
Quick Wiki
| Name | Meltem Demirors |
| Known For | VP @DCG & CSO @Coinshares |
| Age | 35 years (as of March 2023) |
| Birth Place | Netherlands |
| Current Residence | New York, USA |
| Net Worth | $ 4,50,000 |
| Social Media | LinkedIn , Twitter |
Childhood
Meltem Demirors was born on May 14, 1987 in Netherlands. Both her parents were Turkish immigrants. Her father completed his PhD from “Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST)” and later worked as a researcher in a chemical company in Netherlands. Her mother was also an intellectual, who completed her major in accounting from Aegean University (Turkish: Ege Üniversitesi). She also has an elder brother “Elm Demirors”, born in late 1984.
Education
In 1997, when Meltem was around 10 years of age, her family moved to Michigan, United states. She completed her fourth and final year of her high school in 2004. She then enrolled in the Bachelor of Arts (BA) Degree program at Rice University (Houston, Texas), and completed her under-graduation in 2009 with a Major in Mathematical Economic Analysis.
Career
She briefly worked as a “Corporate Treasury” at “Exxon Mobil Corporation”, an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas.
After that she landed a “Strategy & Operation Consultant” job at well known Consulting Firm “Deloitte”. She worked at the company from 2009 to 2013. In 2012, the firm offered a sponsorship program for higher studies and Meltem grabbed the opportunity, though she later decided to give up the consulting sponsorship and enrolled in the course through student loan.
For her graduation, Meltem pursued the full-time, two-year MBA program from the prestigious “MIT Sloan School of Management” in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She was in the the 2013-2015 batch of the course and passed out alumni of the MIT Sloan class of 2015. While at the business school, she joined the “MIT Bitcoin Club” and co-founded the “MIT FinTech Club” for future students.
From Feb 18, 2015 to May 2015, she worked as a Marketing Consultant in “Elsen Inc.”, located in Boston, MA. Meltem first joined the cryptocurrency industry in 2015, when after a meeting with DCG CEO & Founder “Barry Silbert”, she landed a “Director of Development” job at the New York based venture capital company.
Meltem Demirors was the member of founding team at “Digital Currency Group” from April 2015 to January 2018. She worked many roles at the company from corporate investor, investing in blockchain technologies to Vice-president, at the end of her stint at the company. As VP @DCG, she helped push now-household names, like Coinbase and Ripple, into the limelight.
After she left the firm, Meltem started investing in companies in the digital asset ecosystem via her own personal crypto fund “Athena Capital”. Her personal investment portfolio is focused on pre-seed and seed stage opportunities in companies from diverse sectors like AI, Crypto, NFT, Defi, Capital market, Data Services and security etc.
Later in 2018, she joined UK Based digital asset management firm “Coinshares” as the “Chief Strategy Officer” for their New York City location. Currently, she is the head of “CoinShares Ventures”, a subsidiary, and serves as the managing director of the firm’s US operations. She also serves as a partner at 3.0 Capital, a leading crypto fund and a participating member at World Economic Forum Blockchain Council.
Crypto Portfolio
A full & updated list of Meltem Demirors portfolio can be found on her official website: meltemdemirors.com. Here we’ve listed the portfolio list of all crypto space companies, in which Meltem has invested till now (December 2021):
| Company | Sector | Website |
| Babylon | DeFi | https://www.babylon.finance/ |
| Benchmark Protocol | DeFi | https://benchmarkprotocol.finance/ |
| Blockade Games | NFTs | https://blockade.games/ |
| Blockdaemon | Dev Ops | https://blockdaemon.com/ |
| Bloom Credit | Data Services | https://www.bloomcredit.io/ |
| Casa | Security | https://keys.casa/ |
| Chia | Cryptocurrency | https://www.chia.net/ |
| Claystack | DeFi | https://claystack.com/ |
| Clipper DEX | DeFi | https://clipper.exchange/ |
| Compass Mining | Compute and Connectivity | https://compassmining.io/ |
| Connext | Cryptocurrency | https://connext.network/ |
| DAOJones | DAOs | |
| Derivadex | DeFi | https://derivadex.com/ |
| dTrade | DeFi | https://dtrade.org/ |
| Eco | Payments | https://eco.com/ |
| Faraway | Creator Communities | https://faraway.gg/ |
| Fei Protocol | DeFi | https://fei.money/ |
| Filecoin | Compute and Connectivity | https://filecoin.io/ |
| Fion | Data Services | https://www.fion.tech/ |
| Flare | DeFi | https://flare.xyz/ |
| Gro Protocol | DeFi | https://www.gro.xyz/ |
| Handshake | Cryptocurrency | https://handshake.org/ |
| Hawku | NFTs | https://www.hawku.com/zed |
| Hyype | Social Media | https://hyy.pe/ |
| Interchange (Acquired by Kraken) | Capital Markets | n/a |
| Jet Protocol | DeFi | https://www.jetprotocol.io/ |
| Liquality | DeFi | https://liquality.io/ |
| Liquity | DeFi | https://www.liquity.org/ |
| MCDEX | Capital Markets | https://mcdex.io/homepage/ |
| Meson Network | Compute and Connectivity | https://meson.network/ |
| Messari | Data Services | https://messari.io/ |
| Metalink Labs | NFTs | https://metalink.com/ |
| Mintgreen | Compute and Connectivity | n/a |
| Mirror | Social Media | https://mirror.xyz/ |
| Moonbeam Network | Dev Ops | https://moonbeam.network/ |
| MultiCoin Capital | Asset Management | https://multicoin.capital/ |
| NEAR | Cryptocurrency | https://near.org/ |
| Olive Capital | Asset Management | |
| Orca | DAOs | https://www.orcaprotocol.org/ |
| Paycase | Capital Markets | https://paycasemarkets.com/ |
| Polymarket | Capital Markets | https://polymarket.com/ |
| Qredo | DeFi | https://www.qredo.com/ |
| Radicle | Dev Ops | https://radicle.xyz/ |
| Replit (via SPV) | Dev Ops | https://replit.com/ |
| RNDR | Compute and Connectivity | https://www.rendertoken.com/ |
| Saffron Finance | DeFi | https://saffron.finance/ |
| Showtime | Creator Communities | https://tryshowtime.com/ |
| Smart DeFi | DeFi | https://trysmartdefi.com/ |
| Solstarter | DeFi | https://www.solstarter.org/ |
| Summa (Acquired by Celo) | Dev Ops | https://summa.one/ |
| SuperFarm | DeFi | https://superfarm.io/ |
| SyndicateDAO | DAOs | https://www.syndicateprotocol.org/home |
| Syntropy (fka Noia) | Compute and Connectivity | https://www.syntropynet.com/ |
| The Graph | Data Services | https://thegraph.com/ |
| TokenSoft | Capital Markets | https://www.tokensoft.io/ |
| Translucence | Security | |
| Twilight | DeFi | https://docs.twilight.finance/ |
| Unstoppable Domains | Compute and Connectivity | https://unstoppabledomains.com/ |
| Upshot | Creator Communities | https://upshot.io/ |
| Vesper Finance | DeFi | https://vesper.finance/ |
| xDeFi | DeFi | https://www.xdefi.io/ |
| XTMP | Social Media | https://xmtp.com/ |
| Zapper | DeFi | https://zapper.fi/ |
| Zebec Protocol | Payments | https://zebec.io/ |
Courses
Meltem offers a Free Self-paced micro-course on Skillshare called “Demystifying Cryptocurrency: Understanding Bitcoin and Beyond“. This beginner level course will let you learn the ins and outs of Bitcoin and how the digital currency ecosystem works.
Her Paid Intensive Programs includes advanced level courses like:
- University of Oxford Saïd Business School | Blockchain Strategy Programme via Get Smarter MIT
- Media Lab via MIT Connection Science | FinTech Certificate Course: Future Commerce
Meltem also co-hosts a weekly podcast titled “What Grinds My Gears”, with Jill Carlson, which centers around all buzzworthy happenings in the world of cryptocurrency. The 29 episode podcast started from January 2019 to March 2020 and can be accessed via iTunes.
Apart from these direct educational medium, Meltem Demirors is quite active at various cryptocurrency and blockchain related events. She delivered presentation on “Power by Proxy: The Case for Crypto Cartels” at AraCon 2019 and has been a speaker at following important Crypto happenings around the world:
| Event Participation | Period |
| Organizer @MIT Venture Capital & Innovation Conference, Boston | Dec 12, 2014 |
| Speaker @Consensus 2017, New York | May 22, 2017 |
| Speaker @Money20/20 2017, Las Vegas | Oct 22, 2017 |
| Speaker @TNW New York 2017 | Dec 12, 2017 |
| Speaker @Frontier Innovation Awards 2018, San Francisco | May 11, 2018 |
| Speaker @Benzinga Global Fintech Awards, NYC | May 15, 2018 |
| Speaker @Consensus Singapore 2018 | Sep 19, 2018 |
| Speaker @SF Blockchain Week 2019, San Francisco | Oct 28, 2019 |
| Speaker @Slush Helsinki 2019, Finland | Nov 21, 2019 |
