The Man Who Built 3 Bitcoin Unicorns | S4 E5 | Destiny Avenged | Weekend Ep

He bought Bitcoin at $20 when everyone called it "Magic Internet Money"

Today, he’s built an empire worth billions, powering Bitcoin’s infrastructure — from mining chips to AI data centers.

In this weekend episode of Season 4: Destiny Avenged, George Kikvadze, Vice Chairman of BitFury, joins Karthik to unpack how a Soviet-born financier, laid off the day Satoshi released the Bitcoin whitepaper, reinvented himself — and helped turn belief into billion-dollar reality.

This isn’t a crypto hype story — it’s a founder playbook: of betting on people, building infra when speculation was easier, and surviving brutal cycles with integrity intact.

In this episode:

🔹 From Soviet collapse → Hedge fund layoff → Bitcoin’s “whitepaper day”

🔹 The $20 Bitcoin bet that built Bitfury

🔹 Backing Ukraine’s chip-design geniuses & mining 600,000 BTC

🔹 Surviving a 99% chip-yield crash and rebuilding from scratch

🔹 The trade-off: Hold 300,000 BTC or build real companies

🔹 Spinning out billion-dollar ventures: Hut 8, Cipher Mining, cooling & AI chips

🔹 Why “Gandhi would’ve loved Bitcoin” — truth, self-reliance, decentralization

🔹 Why infra outlasts price charts and hype cycles

00:00:00 - Gandhi, Truth & Self-Reliance → Bitcoin

00:01:07 - Setup & Stakes: $20 BTC, job loss, Bitfury, the book

00:04:41 - Reinvention arc: crisis, travel, Cyprus shock → all-in

00:10:23 - Gandhi lens & India hook: 1 BTC = 1 crore sats

00:16:54 - Finding Val & the Ukrainian “textbook” chip team

00:26:39 -CNBC ‘this thing mines Bitcoin’ → 16nm yield crisis & fix

00:35:32 - The 300k BTC trade-off; spin-outs: Hut 8, Cipher, AI

00:40:09 - Macro playbook, $1M BTC thesis, 21 lessons, rapid-fire, wrap

Season Partners: IDFC FIRST Bank and Ultrahuman (Blume portco)

---------------------------------------

The views and opinions expressed in this content are for informational purposes only and do not constitute investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice, nor an offer or solicitation to buy or sell securities. References to companies, transactions, or market events are illustrative only and should not be construed as endorsements or statements of value. Any views expressed by individuals are solely their own and do not represent those of Blume Ventures, its affiliates, partners, or employees. Past performance is not indicative of future results.