Trace Mayeris an entrepreneur, investor, journalist, monetary scientist, podcast host, and ardent defender of the freedom of speech.

He is known for being the founder of the Proof of Keys movement.

^[6]Mayer is based in Las Vegas. ^[0]

Mayer holds a J.D. from the California Western School of Law. ^[0]He also holds a degree in accounting. ^[3]In addition, Mayer has studied at the Austrian School of economics focusing on the work of Murray Rothbard and Ludwig von Mises. ^[3]

Mayer has been the Manager for Premier Ark, a holding company for various ventures, since 2006.

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In 2008 during the worldwide financial crisis, he wroteThe Great Credit Contractionexplaining the causes and likely effects.

Shortly later he was among the first popular bloggers to publicly recommend Bitcoin, as a virtual currency, in its infancy with a market cap under $2m and when it was only worth $0.25 per Bitcoin.

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Mayer is an investor in the Bitcoin wallet Armory Technologies, the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, and the Bitcoin merchant processor Bitpay. ^[5]

Mayer has presented on Bitcoin to a wide variety of audiences including members of the Federal Reserve, Bundesbank, major financial institutions, the IRS, FBI, FTC, HNWIs, and other conferences.

Other than Bitcoin, the topics of his talks pertain to cyber security, financial cryptography, digital currency, and entrepreneurship.

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Mayer is the host of the Bitcoin Knowledge Podcast.

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On December 9th, 2018, Mayer announced in a video the start of the annual Proof of Keys Celebration of Bitcoin's genesis block.

In the video, Mayer invites those who hold Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on exchanges and other third parties to withdraw them and move it back in order to hold exchanges accountable.

The Proof of Keys event has been endorsed by Symbiont president Caitlin Long, smart contract pioneer Nick Szabo, Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan, and CoinKite CEO Rodolfo Novak. ^[6]