Brock Pierce

Brock Pierce
Born	(1980-11-14) November 14, 1980 Minnesota, U.S.
Residence	Venice Beach, California
Citizenship	United States
Occupation	Entrepreneur Director of the Bitcoin Foundation Former child actor
Years active	Acting: 1992–1997 Business: 1999–present
Organization	Bitcoin Foundation
Known for	Bitcoin[1], Blockchain, and crypto currency work

Brock Pierce (born November 14, 1980) is an American entrepreneur and former child actor. As a child actor, he was in Disney films The Mighty Ducks (1992), D2: The Mighty Ducks (1994) and First Kid (1996).

In 2000, three young actors filed a civil lawsuit claiming Pierce sexually abused them, also naming fellow Digital Entertainment Network executives Chad Shackley and Marc Collins-Rector.^[2] He was an Executive VP at Digital Entertainment Network when he was arrested with other company executives by Interpol in Spain in May 2002.^[2][3]

Pierce founded Internet Gaming Entertainment in 2001 and ZAM in 2003.^[4] Pierce has been involved in the establishment of digital currencies and virtual goods.^[5] Many of Pierce's companies have operated in this virtual space.

Pierce is active in the Bitcoin/Blockchain ecosystem, with numerous speaking engagements, conference activities, and community involvement. In May 2014, Pierce was elected Director of the Bitcoin Foundation.^[6] Pierce is founder and managing partner at Blockchain Capital,^[7] a venture capital firm that is amongst the most active venture capital firms in Fintech.^[8]

Pierce supports non-profit and advocacy efforts, and is a member of the Clinton Global Initiative.^[9] He has been a guest lecturer at the Milken Global Conference,^[10] Singularity University,^[11] Stanford, USC, Caltech,^[12] and UCLA.

Acting career

Pierce was born in Minnesota, and appeared in commercials as a toddler.^[13] His first major role was playing a young Gordon Bombay in The Mighty Ducks (1992). Pierce reprised the role in D2: The Mighty Ducks. He starred as Luke Davenport in First Kid (1996). Pierce had small roles in Little Big League (1994), Ripper Man (1995), Problem Child 3 (1995), Three Wishes (1995), and Earth Minus Zero (1996).

Entrepreneurship

Digital Entertainment Network

In 1999, Pierce was an executive vice-president of the Digital Entertainment Network, a company that created four-to-six minute streaming-video series, having raised $88m dollars from blue chip investors. As an 18-year-old, Pierce was making $250,000 a year and held 1% of the company's shares, a board member describing him as "the guy who could tell us what Gen-Yers were likely to think".^[14] Pierce resigned from DEN in October 1999.

IMI Exchange

Pierce founded IMI Exchange (originally Internet Gaming Entertainment) in 2001 and resigned from his CEO position on June 26, 2007, but remained an adviser and vice-chairman of the board of the company.^[15] Under Pierce’s leadership, IMI Exchange nurtured DAX, the largest virtual goods exchanges in South Korea and the US/Europe market with sites, such as ItemMania and Player Auctions, respectively. IMI Exchange raised over $100 million from investors such as Goldman Sachs and Oak Investment Partners.

Pierce worked at ZAM, a network of websites oriented around massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPG), such as World of Warcraft, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Rift, EverQuest, etc.^[16] The ZAM.com network included gaming websites such as ZAM.com, Wowhead, Thottbot, Torhead, and D3DB.

Internet Gaming Entertainment

In 2001, Pierce founded Internet Gaming Entertainment (IGE), a company which pioneered the MMORPG currency-selling services industry that link virtual economies with the real one. In 2004, CNN Money reported that IGE brought in more than $1 million USD each month. Between 2004 and 2005, IGE spent more than $25 million buying out seven smaller competitors, including four auction platforms and a number of fan and content sites.^[17] In 2005, Pierce estimated that IGE accounted for about 50% of this online market in the U.S., which has about $500 million in annual volume.^[17][18]

Titan Gaming/Playsino

In 2010, Titan Gaming recruited Pierce to sit on its board along with EA Executive Keith McCurdy.^[19] Pierce joined other Southern California angel investors, including MP3.com’s Michael Robertson, SOA Software’s Eric Pulier and William Quigley and Jim Armstrong of Clearstone Ventures.^[20] Also that year, Titan Gaming purchased the rising online gaming network Xfire from Viacom.^[21] In October 2011, after Xfire received over $4 million in fresh funding from Intel Capital, Titan Gaming and Xfire cut ties and went their own ways. Titan Gaming and Xfire now operate independently.^[22] In late April 2012, Titan Gaming announced that it would be rebranded as Playsino to embark in a complete makeover, with Pierce as the new CEO and $1.5 million of new funding.^[23]

Bitcoin/cryptocurrency career

Pierce is known for his work with Bitcoin and other digital currencies, as an advisor, founder, and investor. Pierce has invested in over 30 companies in the blockchain ecosystem, helped raise over $200MM for companies he is involved with, is a mentor for startup accelerators,^[24] and runs a top AngelList syndicate.^[25][26]

Pierce was elected Director of the Bitcoin Foundation in 2014. His election led several members of the organization to resign, citing allegations that Pierce had been involved in child abuse.^[27] Pierce has not been criminally charged and has repeatedly denied the allegations which stem from a 1999 lawsuit.^[28][29][30]

Pierce is a founder, board member, or advisor for several Bitcoin companies, including GoCoin, Tether, ZenBox, Blade Financial, Expresscoin, Noble Markets, BitGo and ChangeTip.^[7]

References

External links

• Brock Pierce on IMDb
• "How a Visionary Venture on the Web Unraveled" from the JosephMenn.com