Beluga Spotlight: Jeff Garzik, Co-Founder of Hemi Network

About Jeff

Jeff Garzik is the co-founder and CEO of Bloq and leader of the Hemi Network project, backed by top tier investors including Binance. He has long been at the center of developing and commercializing open-source software related to Bitcoin and blockchain technology, a true legend of the industry. Previously, he spent five years as a Bitcoin core developer and ten years at Red Hat. His work with the Linux kernel is now found in every Android phone and data center running Linux today. Jeff also served as a board member of The Linux Foundation.

Questions

You’ve had quite the career in the crypto industry, however, you first started out working at RedHat.  How did you get into crypto?  How did you first get in touch with Satoshi?

Short version is that I was hacking in my Fleetwood Southwind RV that I used as a kind of hacker’s monastery. That’s when Slashdot, a popular news aggregation site, posted the Bitcoin team’s announcement of version 0.3 of the Bitcoin software in July 2010. This was nearly two years after Satoshi Nakamoto published the Halloween 2008 white paper and more than a year after the first (or “genesis”) block of the Bitcoin blockchain was written. 

The rest is history, which we cover in the Satoshi Stories mini-documentary series. 

In the early days, did you ever think the industry would become this big?  What would Satoshi be happy with and upset with about the industry today?

Early on, our main engineering focus was to solve the hard technical problems to prove that a decentralized payment system could work. Today’s adoption scale has certainly exceeded the expectations many of us had in those days. Satoshi would be pleased to see Bitcoin secure, global, and resilient. But I suspect that fragmentation, hype cycles, and projects that drift far from the principles of decentralization and sound engineering would be sources of disappointment.

I’m sure you’ve been asked many times, but are you Satoshi or do you have any ideas who Satoshi is?  Do you think Satoshi is actually a single person and alive or dead?

Every time I answer this question, it ends up the same: I’m not Satoshi. I don’t know who Satoshi is. The beauty of their contribution is that it stands on its own, independent of a known identity, and therefore it exists without the attachment of ego. I’ve always considered that Satoshi could be an individual or a tight-knit group, and it’s entirely possible they purposefully chose to step away permanently to let Bitcoin succeed without them. 

Why launch Hemi?

Hemi was launched to address a real need: making Bitcoin useful in the growing DeFi ecosystem without compromising its security or requiring trusted intermediaries. Hemi is about extending Bitcoin’s utility while staying true to the principles that made it valuable in the first place. Hemi is also about pushing the limits of what’s possible with an EVM-compatible network. By interweaving Ethereum’s programmability with Bitcoin’s security, Hemi achieves true interoperable synergy between the two networks.

What makes Hemi unique?

Hemi’s technology is unique, with an architecture that enables Bitcoin to interact on an EVM-compatible network, imparting to it smart contract functionality. Applications built on Hemi can natively access the state of both Ethereum and Bitcoin networks without oracles. And we aren’t wrapping assets to move them to Hemi like other networks; instead, we have trust-minimized tunnels, a type of crosschain bridge that achieves asset transfers without intermediaries or wrapping. Hemi also uses a unique consensus protocol, Proof-of-Proof, that ties finality directly to Bitcoin’s long-standing Proof-of-Work chain. 

Why is Hemi good for the Bitcoin ecosystem?

Hemi broadens the possibilities for Bitcoin holders, allowing them to participate in DeFi without giving up control or introducing counterparty risks. It allows Bitcoin holders to put a once idle asset solely built on price speculation and as a store of value to work in liquidity pools, lending protocols, staking, and other yield-earning onchain activities. 

Hemi builds on Bitcoin’s core strengths, even going so far as to integrate the Bitcoin security model into the network’s finality protocol via Proof-of-Proof. We’re not building something that sits on top of Bitcoin as an additive, or diverts from Bitcoin, we’re building an ecosystem that seamlessly integrates with it, maintaining a secure decentralized balance.

What are some key partnerships you are most excited about?

We have so many great partners, it’s difficult to pin any one down. What we’re most excited about are integrations with partners that open up what you can do with Bitcoin. Before Hemi, Bitcoin’s participation in DeFi was siloed and required trusted intermediaries. We welcome and are excited about partnerships that take advantage of Hemi’s architecture to deliver innovative use-cases for Bitcoin, so holders can benefit from any DeFi strategy they wish to leverage, be focused on passive earnings, or active portfolio management.

Any update on the token launch timeline you want to share?  Or the points program you want to share?

We’re not rushing our token launch, because we want to do this right. That means a meticulous approach, designed for long-term sustainability. The Hemi roadmap hinges on shipping responsibly, and our token generation event is no different. For now, our points program is currently live, and we’re seeing solid engagement from users as they provide liquidity and participate in the ecosystem. Once we hit key milestones, we can share more about the token launch and related dates.

What are some of the key roadmap developments you're working on for 2025?

Outside of the launch of HEMI tokens, we’re gearing up to expand the phased approach to fully decentralized Ethereum and Bitcoin tunnels. We’re also continuing to roll out integrations and partnerships with more crosschain integrations. Overall, we’re continuing to adapt Hemi and maintain a secure, transparent, and decentralized environment that supports both Bitcoin and Ethereum assets to truly unleash DeFi’s potential.

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