Charlie Shrem is co-founder and vice chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation and CEO and co-founder of BitInstant, one of the world’s largest alternative payment companies. Drawing on his experiences in the old banking world, as well as in the new alternative currency world, Shrem paved the way for the Bitcoin economy when he found the need for a more secure, fast, and convenient way of transferring funds between and within payment networks around the world. Shrem is now considered the world’s leading expert on virtual currency.