Sam Hamidi-Kazemian ( fa, سام حمیدیکاظمیان; born February 12, 1993) is an
Iranian-American
Iranian Americans are United States citizens or nationals who are of Iranian ancestry or who hold Iranian citizenship.
Iranian Americans are among the most highly educated people in the United States. They have historically excelled in busine ...
software programmer. He is the founder of Frax Finance, a decentralized
stablecoin cryptocurrency
A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. It i ...
protocol. Previously, he co-founded
Everipedia
Everipedia () is a defunct blockchain-based and online encyclopedia. Everipedia was founded in 2014 and was officially launched in 2015 as a fork of Wikipedia by Larry Sanger (who co-founded Wikipedia). In 2022, Everipedia rebranded to IQ.wiki. ...
,
a
for-profit,
wiki-based
online encyclopedia.
He founded Everipedia with
Theodor Forselius
Theodor "Tedde" Mauritz Forselius (born 23 March 1995) is a Swedish computer programmer and internet entrepreneur from Jönköping, Sweden. He is best known as the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Everipedia.
Career
In December 2014, ...
in December 2014
and later served as its President. In 2019, he began development of Frax, a fractional
stablecoin cryptocurrency
A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. It i ...
.
As of January 2022, Frax is ranked the 5th largest stablecoin by market capitalization according to cryptocurrency ranking website Defipulse.com.
Biography
Education
Kazemian attended
Westlake High School, where he participated in
athletics. He was a member of the
UCLA Powerlifting team from 2012 until 2015. He graduated from the
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2015.
Career
Starting as a small project in Kazemian's
dormitory
A dormitory (originated from the Latin word ''dormitorium'', often abbreviated to dorm) is a building primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people such as boarding school, high school, college or university s ...
room at UCLA, Sam Kazemian founded Everipedia with Theodor Forselius in December 2014.
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."
In 2019, Kazemian founded Frax, a
stablecoin cryptocurrency
A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. It i ...
protocol.
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.
Personal life
Kazemian is a first generation immigrant from an
Iranian family.
[ ]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kazemian, Sam
1993 births
Living people
American founders
American people of Iranian descent
American people of Iranian-Jewish descent
University of California, Los Angeles alumni
American technology company founders
American computer businesspeople