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Sam Kazemian

Sam Kazemian
Sam Kazemian in 2018
Born
Sam Hamidi-Kazemian

(1993-02-12) February 12, 1993 (age 31)
EducationUniversity of California, Los Angeles
OccupationFounder of Frax Finance
Known forFounding Frax Finance & Co-founding Everipedia[1] [2]

Sam Hamidi-Kazemian (Persian: سام حمیدی‌کاظمیان; born February 12, 1993) is an Iranian-American software programmer. He is the founder of Frax Finance, a decentralized stablecoin cryptocurrency protocol. Previously, he co-founded Everipedia,[3] a for-profit, wiki-based online encyclopedia.[4] He founded Everipedia with Theodor Forselius in December 2014[1] and later served as its President. In 2019, he began development of Frax, a fractional stablecoin cryptocurrency.[5] As of January 2022, Frax is ranked the 5th largest stablecoin by market capitalization according to cryptocurrency ranking website Defipulse.com.[6]

Biography

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Education

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Kazemian attended Westlake High School, where he participated in athletics.[7] He was a member of the UCLA Powerlifting team from 2012 until 2015.[8] He graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2015.[9]

Career

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Starting as a small project in Kazemian's dormitory room at UCLA, Sam Kazemian founded Everipedia with Theodor Forselius in December 2014.[1]

In 2017, Kazemian told Boing Boing that "Wikia, like Wikipedia, uses really old software that was built in 2001. Meanwhile there are all these new, modern crowd-knowledge sites like Rap Genius, Quora and StackOverflow, but nobody ever tried to attack the original beast —a wiki of everything— with the new, modern tools. That is what Everipedia aims to do."[4]

In 2019, Kazemian founded Frax, a stablecoin cryptocurrency protocol.[5] In 2023, Forbes listed Kazemian in their 30 Under 30 in finance for founding Frax, citing the project's notable growth and $86 million of revenue in its first year of operation with only 8 employees.[10] In 2022, Kazemian and Balaji Srinivasan were credited for inventing a new category of cryptocurrency, known as 'flatcoins,' that are pegged to the Consumer Price Index rather than a national currency such as USD.[11] Frax issued the first known flatcoin cryptocurrency in 2022 named the Frax Price Index.[11]

Personal life

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Kazemian is a first generation immigrant from an Iranian family.[12]

References

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  1. ^ a b c "Everipedia Raises $30m in Series A Funding". FinSMEs. 10 February 2018.
  2. ^ "Trump's Fed Pick Stephen Moore Announces New Cryptocurrency". Fortune. Retrieved 2019-11-04.
  3. ^ Chavez-Dreyfuss, Gertrude (8 February 2018). "Novogratz's New Fund, Others Invest $30 Million in Online Encyclopedia". U.S. News & World Report.
  4. ^ a b James, Andrea (12 June 2017). "Can Everipedia remake collaborative encyclopedias to be inclusive and enjoyable?". Boing Boing.
  5. ^ a b John Roberts, Jeff (October 21, 2019). "Trump's Former Fed Pick Stephen Moore Announces Cryptocurrency to Compete With Central Banks". Fortune. Archived from the original on January 14, 2020. Retrieved December 28, 2020.
  6. ^ "DeFi Pulse | The DeFi Leaderboard | Stats, Charts and Guides". defipulse.com. Retrieved 2021-07-12.
  7. ^ "Sam Kazemian". Athletic.net. 2018.
  8. ^ "Sam Kazemian - 2013-14 Powerlifting Roster - UCLA Club Sports". UCLA Club Sports. 2018.
  9. ^ "Everipedia: Bản sao xấu xí và tội lỗi của Wikipedia" [Everipedia: ugly copy and sin of Wikipedia]. VNG Corporation. 10 August 2017.
  10. ^ "Forbes 30 Under 30 2023: Finance". Forbes. Retrieved 2022-12-03.
  11. ^ a b Ehrlich, Steven. "Beware Of Flatcoins, Crypto's Inflation Busting Fad". Forbes. Archived from the original on 2023-05-08. Retrieved 2024-07-13.
  12. ^ Geroulis, Tasha (October 15, 2018). "Second Brain Tumor Inspires Mahbod Moghadam to Change Corporate Philosophy". Jewish Journal. Archived from the original on November 3, 2020. Retrieved December 28, 2020.