Matthew Roszak Net Worth: The Wealth of Bloq’s Founder Explained

The net worth of Matthew Roszak, a prominent blockchain investor, entrepreneur, and advocate, is estimated to be $1.8 billion. Between the 1990s to the early 2000s, Roszak worked as a venture capitalist. He was an early investor in Bitcoin, learning about it in 2011, and he has been a fervent crypto enthusiast ever since.

In 2006, Roszak settled an insider trading case with the SEC. The case focused on Roszak’s stock purchases of Blue Rhino, a propane tank exchange business. The defendants in the case, who included Roszak, agreed to a settlement.

Roszak also joined in on a plan to offer $50 worth of virtual assets to every Congress member. However, some Congress members rejected the gift and the plan was quite controversial. In 2024, he was listed ninth on the Forbes Crypto Rich List.

Breaking Down Matthew Roszak’s Net Worth

Early Life

Matthew Roszak was born on December 9, 1972, in Chicago. While growing up, he attended local schools before moving to Lake Forest College in the early 1990s. He graduated from Lake Forest College in 1995, earning a Bachelor of Arts/Economics. Following his graduation, Roszak began working as an associate at Keystone Capital Partners.

Eventually, in 1998, he left Keystone Capital Partners. He then joined Advent International London. During his time with the private equity firm, Roszak served as a Principal. Later, he moved to Platinum Venture Partners. At the same time, he worked as the director and beneficial owner of some organizations on the side. These organizations include Eboost, MissionMode, NeuEntity, Onramp, SolidSpace, and TrueLook.

Roszak’s life was turned on its head when he learned about Bitcoin in 2011. One of his portfolio companies, a social gaming company in Singapore, was considering whether it could use Bitcoin as a potential payment source. This motivated the venture capitalist to learn as much about Bitcoin as possible.

Roszack quickly became fascinated by the opportunities that Bitcoin enables after reading Satoshi Nakamoto’s white paper. Roszak was convinced that Bitcoin’s open, decentralized, and secure architecture was the future of currency.

In September 2014, the AngelList investment syndicate recorded more than $1 million in financial backing from its investors. Roszak contributed heavily to this funding. The investment projected AngelList as the eighth most popular syndicate by total backing. The syndicate functioned as a platform for investors who were bullish on Bitcoin to pursue their funding target. 

Also, in July 2015, during a Bitcoin Conference in Chicago, Matthew Roszak launched the Chicago Bitcoin Center (later renamed the Chicago Blockchain Center). In the announcement, he referred to the initiative as an incubator that will function as the “center of gravity for blockchain-based technologies.” He said the Chicago Bitcoin Center would be open to designers, developers, entrepreneurs, and others dedicated to building tomorrow’s “next chapter of financial technology.”

Roszak attained prominence in the crypto industry when he emerged as a member of the Board of Advisers for the Chamber of Digital Commerce. The organization is one of the world’s foremost trade associations representing the blockchain sphere. He also served as a member of the board of directors of BitGive, a non-profit organization that details the practical applications of blockchain technology in humanitarian work. As a leading figure in the industry, Roszak testified before U.S. Congress. He also spoke at the U.S Federal Reserve about Blockchain and Cryptocurrency.

Silk Road Equity

In 2003, Roszak alongside Andrew “Flip” Filipowski founded SilkRoad Equity, based in Chicago. SilkRoad Equity is a global investment firm with a diversified portfolio of public and private companies. The firm aims to invest in companies with the intention of managing them for growth and profit. Through SilkRoad Equity, Roszak made his mark across various sectors like media and entertainment, gaming, healthcare, energy, and real estate. 

Roszak is co-founder and managing partner at SilkRoad and has invested in or acquired more than 200 companies there. Since the organization was established in 2003, its investment effort has exceeded $5 billion. 

Tally Capital and Bloq

Tally Capital was one of the early firms Roszak used to pursue his newly-found interest in Bitcoin. Upon learning about Bitcoin in 2011, Roszak became confident that it has the capacity to rewrite the existing status quo. He then founded Tally Capital in 2013 to invest in the entire virtual assets ecosystem. The name of the investment company was inspired by tally sticks, a type of currency invented by King Henry I in medieval England. 

With Tally Capital, Roszak has invested in numerous blockchain firms such as BitFury and BlockStream. The most recent one came in 2020 after the firm joined a group of investors and raised $5 million for The Graph. Notable crypto startups like Block.One, Blockchain Capital, Smart Valor, and Factom have also benefited from its investment. So far, Tally Capital has provided funding for more than 20 investment portfolio companies. 

Bloq, on the other hand, is an enterprise software company that offers blockchain technology solutions for global enterprises. Roszak co-founded the firm in 2016 alongside Jeff Garzik. Like SilkRoad Capital, Bloq has its headquarters in Chicago. The outlet provides a platform for firms to build, manage, and scale robust blockchain-enabled ecosystems. This initiative is backed by enterprise-grade service and support.

Jeff Garzik designed Bloq as a startup to replicate the mediator feature of the popular open-source company Red Hat. The organization is popular for its central product, BloqEnterprise, a powerful financial services product. BloqEnterprise has numerous components, including BloqCloud, BloqWallet, BloqRouter, BloqDev, BloqView, BloqThink, and BloqOra. In 2018, Bloq launched Metronome, a cryptocurrency invented to be interoperable with different blockchains. Metronome provides infrastructure to enable building on Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, and others.

In the interview below, Roszak discusses the technology underlying Metronome.

On October 14, 2020, Bloq launched Vesper in a bid to simplify the investment process of DeFi. The platform was designed to help users access risk preferences and determine the most suitable investment farm for them.

5/
Matthew Roszak, co-founder of Bloq,
has another approach to NFTs – utility tokens.

His Vesper aims to be an easy-to-use DeFi platform.

The NFT world is not just about digital art and games, folks! pic.twitter.com/8B08R1Aw0f

— Giftox🧱 (@Giftox2) July 26, 2023

Hemi Labs

Roszak’s latest venture is Hemi Labs. Founded in 2024, Hemi is a network whose goal is to combine the interoperability of both Bitcoin and Ethereum. Similar to Bloq, Hemi will develop applications that allow secure asset transfers between the blockchain industry’s two largest protocols, as they aren’t exactly interoperable.

While still very much in the startup phase, the company announced it will release major updates by the end of 2025. While Hemi is still the new kid on the block, it has already brought in major investments from blockchain heavy hitters like Binance.

Lawsuit

As mentioned, on June 9, 2006, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a complaint against Roszak, Douglas Jozwiak, Darrin Edgecombe, Trifon Beladakis, and Mark Michel. In the filing, the SEC alleged that Roszak engaged in insider trading. 

Roszak was allegedly tipped about a potential merger involving Blue Rhino and Ferrellgas Partners. According to the SEC, he told Edgecomb about the merger and the following day Edgecomb and other investors acquired a large amount of Blue Rhino stock. Roszak acquired stock both for himself and his investment portfolio companies. Roszak and the other defendants were eventually compelled to pay $432,000 as a settlement with the SEC. 

Is Matthew Roszak Pro Crypto?

Matthew Roszak is one of the biggest supporters of cryptocurrency. His first exposure to crypto was in 2011 after he came across the Bitcoin white paper. At that time, his social gaming firm in Singapore was considering integrating the asset as one of its payment sources. Thrilled by the open, decentralized, and secure features of Bitcoin, Roszak picked up interest and started his engagement in the industry. In a 2015 interview with a prominent publication, he reflected on his exposure to the largest crypto by market cap.

He said, “I was drawn to Bitcoin much like my initial experiences with personal computers, mobile phones and the Internet – I had this emotional reaction when I realized the ways in which these technologies can be very powerful change agents for innovation. Furthermore, there was this clear opportunity to be on the front end of something really transformative – on the scale of railroads, automobiles, telephony or the Internet – that has the potential to make a meaningful impact on society.”

Ever since the Bloq founder has shown remarkable commitment to advancing Bitcoin and the crypto sphere at large. He believes the crypto asset and its underlying technology, blockchain, have the potential to change the status quo in finance, providing greater inclusion for the unbanked. As a proven crypto advocate, Roszak has continued to evangelize cryptocurrency.

Matthew Roszak’s Crypto and NFT Holdings

Without any doubt, Roszak is one of the wealthiest crypto investors in the world. Much of his fortune is made up of Bitcoin and Ethereum holdings, but he reportedly holds other cryptocurrencies as well. Although the Bloq founder has yet to publicly disclose the overall value of his crypto holdings, Forbes estimates his net worth to be more than $1.8 billion, the majority of which is from investment in crypto.

Roszak’s personal investment in Bitcoin are far from new. He was one of Bitcoin’s very first adopters and investors, when Bitcoin was trading for less than $15. If he held much of his investment for even just a few years, he could have made nine or even ten figures on the investment alone.

Roszak was also an important early advocate for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general. He reportedly gifted both Richard Branson and Bill Clinton their first Bitcoins and co-led an initiative to give each member of the Congress a $50 worth of crypto assets. While some of them rejected the offer, several accepted it.

While Roszak hasn’t revealed that he owns any NFT holdings himself, his company Bloq is active in building applications for the Web3 market, including NFTs. In 2021, he participated as an angel investor in a $100 million funding round by Sfermion. The funding was used by the investment firm to advance its NFT and Metaverse projects.

Matthew Roszak’s Net Worth – Our Verdict

Matthew Roszak is living proof of what happens when investing in an emerging technology pays off. His early adoption of Bitcoin has fueled both his impressive personal net worth as well as the companies he owns and invests in.

His software company, Bloq, has been at the forefront of blockchain technology for over a decade now, at least partially thanks to Roszak’s determination and advocacy for cryptocurrencies. His speaking engagements and interviews likely helped grow the industry significantly in the early days and beyond. Whatever future crypto holds, Matthew Roszak’s name will be among those building that future. 

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