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Most crypto success stories start with lucky trades or viral tokens. George Kikvadze’s story begins with hyperinflation destroying his family’s savings in 1990s Georgia. That early lesson about centralized system failure would prove prophetic when he encountered Bitcoin at $20 in 2013.
“When the Soviet Union collapsed, I watched my doctor parents lose everything overnight,” Kikvadze recalls. “So when my friend showed me Bitcoin, I didn’t see speculative investment—I saw mathematical immunity to government monetary manipulation.”
As Vice Chairman of Bitfury Group, Kikvadze didn’t just ride Bitcoin’s wave from $20 to $100,000—he helped build the infrastructure that made institutional adoption possible. His new book, And Then You Win: A Startup’s Untold Story of Grit, Grind, and Glory, chronicles the technical and business challenges of scaling revolutionary technology through multiple market crashes.
Building the pipes, not trading the commodity
While crypto Twitter obsessed over price predictions, Kikvadze’s team was designing custom ASIC chips and building data centers across four continents. Bitfury became one of the foundational companies powering Bitcoin’s network, contributing up to 40% of global hash rate at peak operation.
The technical challenges were immense. In 2016, a catastrophic semiconductor manufacturing failure at Taiwan’s TSMC brought the company to near-bankruptcy despite 99% yields in testing. “We went from industry leaders to almost extinct in weeks,” Kikvadze explains. “A single production run failure nearly wiped out years of R&D investment.”
The business model required similar innovation. Rather than building one massive company, Bitfury evolved into an ecosystem incubator, spinning out specialized ventures that became publicly traded unicorns: Cipher Mining and Hut 8 (both NASDAQ-listed), as well as AI chip pioneer Axelera and data center cooling innovator LiquidStack.
Surviving the infrastructure wars
The 2018-2019 crypto winter tested every assumption about sustainable business models. With Bitcoin crashing from $20,000 to $3,700, Bitfury’s $10 million monthly burn rate became an existential threat. The solution required brutal efficiency: cutting the workforce by 90% and restructuring from growth-focused to survival-optimized operations.
“We had to choose between maintaining our chip development program or keeping the lights on,” Kikvadze remembers. “We mothballed projects that had consumed years of development and millions in investment.”
The diversification strategy proved crucial. While pure-play miners collapsed, Bitfury’s enterprise software and security products provided revenue streams independent of Bitcoin’s price volatility. Their Crystal Blockchain analytics platform served law enforcement and financial institutions, while Exonum provided enterprise blockchain solutions for government applications.
From Cypherpunk labs to Wall Street
Kikvadze’s network bridged Bitcoin’s countercultural origins with institutional finance. He co-hosted annual blockchain summits on Richard Branson’s Necker Island, facilitated cryptocurrency adoption discussions with UAE royalty, and witnessed BlackRock’s transformation from Bitcoin skeptic to ETF provider.
“I was literally in boardrooms where institutional policies shifted,” he notes. “Watching Larry Fink evolve from dismissing Bitcoin as speculation to launching the world’s largest Bitcoin ETF encapsulated the entire industry’s maturation arc.”
The regulatory environment required careful navigation. Working with former CFTC Chairman Jim Newsome and ex-DOJ Cybercrime Chief Jason Weinstein, Bitfury helped establish industry compliance standards and law enforcement cooperation protocols through initiatives like the Bitcoin Mining Council and Blockchain Alliance.
Technical innovation beyond mining
The book details technical pivots that kept Bitfury relevant as the industry evolved. When chip manufacturing became economically challenging, the team developed immersion cooling solutions that are now powering AI data centers. When Bitcoin mining faced environmental criticism, they pioneered renewable energy partnerships and grid stabilization services.
The AI transition proved particularly prescient. LiquidStack’s cooling technology, originally designed for Bitcoin mining efficiency, now serves NVIDIA’s growing data center requirements. Axelera’s edge AI chips apply lessons learned from Bitcoin ASIC development to machine learning acceleration.
Lessons for digital infrastructure builders
And Then You Win offers practical insights for anyone building transformative technology infrastructure. The book’s 21 principles address scaling challenges specific to emerging technologies: managing technical risk, surviving regulatory uncertainty, and maintaining team cohesion through boom-bust cycles.
“Most startup advice assumes stable markets and predictable regulations,” Kikvadze observes. “Building in emerging tech requires different strategies—you’re simultaneously educating customers, regulators, and investors about why your technology matters.”
Today, through Cryptic8 VC, he applies these lessons to investments spanning decentralized finance, AI infrastructure, and longevity technology. The fund focuses on infrastructure-layer innovations rather than consumer applications, continuing the thesis that foundational technology creates more durable value than platform plays.
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