Damijan Merlak is an Entrepreneur and Cryptocurrency Enthusiast based Valletta, Malta. He is the Co-Founder and was CTO of Bitstamp. ^[1] Merlak is the 6th richest person in Slovenia. ^[1]

Merlak is originally from Slovenia. ^[1] He started getting into software development when he was 13 and in college started working professionally as a Software developer. ^[1] In 2011, a colleague of his told him about Bitcoin and he built a small mining rig in his basement. ^[1] At the time, MT.GOX was the only exchange where one could buy and sell Bitcoin. Merlak and his business partner, Nejc Kodrič, thought that they could build an exchange of their own and launched Bitstamp that year. ^[1] Bitstamp has grown to be one of the largest and most liquid exchanges in the world. In 2017, Merlak did an ICO for Tokens.net, a platform for trading ERC20 tokens and other cryptocurrencies against each other. ^[1]