Dr Adam Back

Dr. Adam Back serves as Chief Executive Officer and a Director of BSTR.

Dr. Back is also the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Blockstream and is a
cryptographer and computer scientist widely known for inventing Hashcash in 1997, the
proof-of-work system foundational to Bitcoin mining. At Blockstream, he leads one of
the world’s most influential Bitcoin companies, with a focus on infrastructure and
scaling solutions for finance on Bitcoin. Key Blockstream innovations include the Liquid
Network, Bitcoin’s first and leading sidechain, designed to support faster, more
confidential transactions and the issuance of digital assets.

Dr. Back also served as a director of Columbus Circle Capital Corp I from May 2025 until
its business combination with ProCap Financial, Inc. in December 2025. Earlier in his
career, he served as a cryptographer and security architect at Zero-Knowledge
Systems and consulted for Microsoft, Nokia, and VMware.

Dr. Back holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Exeter. His work on
Hashcash was cited by Satoshi Nakamoto in the original Bitcoin whitepaper. Dr. Back
brings to BSTR a foundational role in Bitcoin, deep cryptography expertise, and proven
leadership of Bitcoin infrastructure companies.