At work, he makes one exception to secrecy. During conversations with clients, he often uses his real first name to introduce himself because he is concerned that traditional business people will feel uncomfortable working with someone known simply as Legend.
For the past year, the venture capital firm Paradigm has also hired engineers and researchers who work anonymously; they appear under pseudonyms on the company’s personnel page. The most recent hire was a crypto engineer going through Transmissions11 and attending high school “in his spare time,” according to his company bio. (Jim Prosser, a spokesperson for Paradigm, said the workers’ bosses knew their identities.)
In interviews, anonymous crypto entrepreneurs and engineers gave various reasons for keeping their names secret. Some feared a regulatory crackdown would put them in the crosshairs of law enforcement. Others said they hated the attention or feared that their growing wealth could make them a target for thieves and hackers.
The nameless entrepreneurs often take extreme steps to keep their identities private, by using voice-changing software during phone calls or by requiring business partners to sign nondisclosure agreements.
Some venture companies are still willing to invest in them. Last year, 0xMaki, a developer who helped run the prominent crypto project SushiSwap, raised $60 million from a group of venture capitalists, including Ms. Wu, without disclosing his real name to them. (The deal fell through after members of SushiSwap — a so-called decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO, in which individual investors hold significant sway — raised concerns about the funding.)
A guide to cryptocurrencies
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A word list. Cryptocurrencies have gone from being a curiosity to a viable investment, making them nearly impossible to ignore. If you’re struggling with the terminology, let us help:
bitcoins. A Bitcoin is a digital token that can be sent electronically from one user to another, anywhere in the world. Bitcoin is also the name of the payment network on which this form of digital currency is stored and moved.
blockchain. A blockchain is a jointly maintained database that reliably stores digital information. The original blockchain was the database where all Bitcoin transactions were stored, but non-currency based companies and governments are also trying to use blockchain technology to store their data.
Coinbase. Coinbase, the first major cryptocurrency company to list its shares on a US exchange, is a platform that allows people and businesses to buy and sell various digital currencies, including Bitcoin, at transaction fees.
Crypto Financing. The development of cryptocurrencies has spawned a parallel universe of alternative financial services known as Decentralized Finance or DeFi, allowing crypto firms to move into the traditional banking realm, including lending and borrowing.
Last summer, the anonymous founder of Alchemix, another major crypto project, raised $4.9 million from a group of venture companies led by CMS Holdings. Dan Matuszewski, one of the founders of CMS, said he never asked the project leader, who uses the pseudonym Scoopy Trooples, to reveal his identity.
“Many of these guys have built a reputation over the years,” said Mr. Matuszewski. “It doesn’t seem logical for them to run off and go into hiding with the money.”
