Jonathan Chester is an entrepreneur and blockchain enthusiast based in San Francisco. [4] He is the Founder and President of Bitwage, an international wage payment and staffing solution built on the Bitcoin blockchain. [1] He is also the Founder, President, and Managing Director of Inwage, a solutions provider for companies who want to run Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). [7]
In addition, Chester is a contributor to Forbes, where he writes about cryptocurrency, ICOs, and other blockchain-related topics. [3]
Early Life & Education
Chester is originally from Los Angeles, California. [4] He attended the University of California, Santa Barbara where he was a member of Alpha Epsilon Pi. [1] Chester would spend time studying abroad at Fudan University in Shanghai. [1] He graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor's degree in Economics in 2013. [1]
Career
Business Development
Upon graduating from college, Chester entered the tech industry as a business developer. He interned at various companies, including Oak Creek Energy Systems a subsidiary of Marubeni. [1] He also spent time at Oracle working as a sales representative where he led their open source support in Kansas and Iowa. [1] [8]
Cryptocurrency / Blockchain
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In the fall of 2013, Jonathan Chester began learning about the Bitcoin industry; [8] he became interested in the technology behind it after watching a TED Talk. Wanting to learn more about the efficiencies of Bitcoin, he started reading and studying white papers and listening to podcasts by Andreas Antonopoulos.
While advocating for Bitcoin, he understood that earning Bitcoin is a rigorous process for the common person. He believed Bitcoin could scale further if there were a Bitcoin project dedicated to payment processing.
In June 2014, Chester and John Lindsay founded Bitwage, a blockchain-powered international wage payment and payment processing company. [4] Bitwage has raised funds from high profile investors and companies, such as Tim Draper's Draper Associates, BPI France, and Orange Silicon Valley through the Orange Fab accelerator. [3]
In 2015, Chester founded Inwage, which provides IT consulting and development services for ICOs and blockchain projects. [1]
Forbes
In December 2015, Jonathan Chester began writing for Forbes. His first article, " Starting Bitwage, An International Payroll Company That Uses Bitcoin," was about the story behind Bitwage and how it became useful for freelancers, contractors, and eventually employers. [8]
His most popular article to date is "A New Way to Raise Money: The Initial Coin Offering," which was published on June 12, 2017 and has received over 60,000 views. [14]
Awards & Accomplishments
Chester has been featured in Les Échos, Entrepreneur, and Quartz. [3] He has consulted members of the European Parliament, Dutch banks, and the California Senate regarding regulation of the blockchain industry. [3]
In addition, Chester has spoken at conferences such as Viva Technology, SCAPayments, Transact15, BIP001 and CoinAgenda. [3]
