Sam Hamidi-Kazemian (; born February 12, 1993) is an Iranian-American

software programmer A programmer, computer programmer or coder is an author of computer source code someone with skill in computer programming. The professional titles ''software developer'' and ''software engineer'' are used for jobs that require a progr ...

. He is the founder of Frax Finance, a decentralized stablecoin

cryptocurrency A cryptocurrency (colloquially crypto) is a digital currency designed to work through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. Individual coin ownership record ...

protocol. Previously, he co-founded

Everipedia Everipedia (), renamed IQ.wiki in 2022, is a blockchain-based online encyclopedia. Everipedia was founded in 2014 and was officially launched in 2015, as a fork of Wikipedia. Larry Sanger (who co-founded Wikipedia) joined the company in 2017, ...

, a

for-profit Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling products (such as goods and services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit." A business entity is not necessari ...

wiki A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or l ...

-based

online encyclopedia An online encyclopedia, also called an Internet encyclopedia, is a digital encyclopedia accessible through the Internet. Some examples include pre-World Wide Web services that offered the '' Academic American Encyclopedia'' beginning in 1980, Enc ...

. He founded Everipedia with Theodor Forselius in December 2014 and later served as its President. In 2019, he began development of Frax, a fractional stablecoin

. As of January 2022, Frax is ranked the 5th largest stablecoin by market capitalization according to cryptocurrency ranking website Defipulse.com.

Biography

Education

Kazemian attended Westlake High School, where he participated in athletics. He was a member of the UCLA Powerlifting team from 2012 until 2015. He graduated from the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

(UCLA) in 2015.

Career

Starting as a small project in Kazemian's dormitory room at UCLA, Sam Kazemian founded Everipedia with Theodor Forselius in December 2014. In 2017, Kazemian told ''

Boing Boing ''Boing Boing'' is a website, first established as a zine in 1988, later becoming a group blog. Common topics and themes include technology, futurism, science fiction, gadgets, intellectual property, Disney, and left-wing politics. It twice wo ...

'' that "

Wikia Fandom (formerly known as Wikicities and Wikia) is a wiki hosting service that hosts wikis mainly on entertainment topics (i.e., video games, TV series, movies, entertainers, etc.). The Privately held company, privately held for-profit Delaware ...

, like

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...

, uses really old software that was built in 2001. Meanwhile there are all these new, modern crowd-knowledge sites like Rap Genius, Quora and StackOverflow, but nobody ever tried to attack the original beast —a wiki of everything— with the new, modern tools. That is what Everipedia aims to do." In 2019, Kazemian founded Frax, a stablecoin

protocol. In 2023,

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

listed Kazemian in their 30 Under 30 in finance for founding Frax, citing the project's notable growth and $86 million of revenue in its first year of operation with only 8 employees. In 2022, Kazemian and Balaji Srinivasan were credited for inventing a new category of cryptocurrency, known as 'flatcoins,' that are pegged to the

Consumer Price Index A consumer price index (CPI) is a statistical estimate of the level of prices of goods and services bought for consumption purposes by households. It is calculated as the weighted average price of a market basket of Goods, consumer goods and ...

rather than a national currency such as USD. Frax issued the first known flatcoin cryptocurrency in 2022 named the Frax Price Index.

Personal life

Kazemian is a first generation immigrant from an

Iranian Iranian () may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Iran ** Iranian diaspora, Iranians living outside Iran ** Iranian architecture, architecture of Iran and parts of the rest of West Asia ** Iranian cuisine, cooking traditions and practic ...

family.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kazemian, Sam 1993 births Living people American founders American people of Iranian descent American people of Iranian-Jewish descent University of California, Los Angeles alumni American technology company founders American computer businesspeople Westlake High School (California) alumni