Rohas Nagpal is the Chief Blockchain Architect of the Hybrid Finance Blockchain (HyFi). He has authored the Crypto Playbook and is a columnist for NDTV and Mint.

He has developed the Crypto Asset Valuation Engine (CAVE) and conducts the free Blockchain ADDS course for developers and architects. He also mentors early stage Blockchain / Crypto / DeFi / Web3 startups.

How it started...

I come from a military family so I had the great fortune of growing up in many cities and attending many schools.

I started my career in the early 1990s as a hacker. Those were the days of Solaris, FreeBSD, Windows NT & Novell NetWare.

My life-long love affair with Cryptography started when I chanced upon David Chaum's work on blind digital signatures and the "Handbook of Applied Cryptography" by Menezes, Oorschot & Vanstonemy.

Cyber crime investigation...

In 1999, I co-founded Asian School of Cyber Laws.

Over the next 16 years, I worked in cyber investigation & cyberlaw. I proudly count some of the best investigators & lawyers amongst my students.

I have also had the privilege of assisting the Govt. of India in framing draft rules under the Information Technology Act.

My work spanned 18 countries and I have investigated cyber crimes & data breaches for hundreds of organizations across many sectors - from aerospace & banking to law enforcement, pharma & shipping.

I also had the privilege of leading the teams that developed "Collaborative Online Investigation Network" & the "ASCL Volatile Evidence Retrieval Tool".

I authored the Cyber Crime Investigation Manual, which has been referred to as a "bible for cybercrime investigators" by the Times of India.

Blockchain & crypto...

I first heard of Bitcoin in 2011, when I was assisting the police in a case involving the drug mafia. I found the concept fascinating and even mined some bitcoins.

And then I made one of my biggest mistakes. I "deleted" my bitcoins!

In 2015, I decided to move into the blockchain space. I barricaded myself at home and spent 4 months studying bitcoin technology and setting up multichain blockchains.

In 2016, I co-founded Primechain along with Shinam Arora, a brilliant engineer, and long-time colleague.

We also co-founded BankChain - a community of 37 banks plus IBM, Microsoft & Intel. Our core product was a "self-building" blockchain ecosystem with a web app, PWA, and a Blockchain REST API service.

The project went into hibernation in early 2018 after the Reserve Bank of India's ban on crypto.

I continued as a Blockchain Architect for some very interesting projects.

In 2020, after the Supreme Court struck down the RBI ban, I became actively involved with the crypto industry.

Currently, I am the Chief Blockchain Architect of the Hybrid Finance Blockchain (HyFi).

I have authored the Crypto Playbook and I write weekly columns for NDTV and Mint.

To add more logic and math to crypto price predictions, I have developed the ROHAS Crypto Asset Valuation Engine.

I also conduct the free Blockchain ADDS course course for developers and architects.

I also mentor early stage Blockchain / Crypto / DeFi / Web3 startups through the Startup Bootcamp.

Some of my publications