Dan Held, often times spelled Hedl, is an American entrepreneur in the blockchain space known for his expertise in business development.   He is investing in Bitcoin DeFi as a GP at Asymmetric, and is also known as a marketing advisor at major exchanges, wallets, infrastructure companies, and protocols. He’s also a Bitcoin educator with over 1,000,000 followers on social media. ^{[1] [2]}

Early Life

Held was born and raised in the state of Texas and lived there for most of his life.   During his teenage years in high school, he was a star Linebacker.^[4]​

Education

Held holds a Business Administration, Finance degree from Mays Business School at Texas A&M University from 2006 to 2010. ^[2]

Career

Held Media and Kraken

In July 2022, Held founded Held Media, a firm providing marketing advisory and fractional CMO services to clients like L1s, L2s, exchanges, and ETFs.

Prior to this, he worked at the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken. He served as Head of Marketing from December 2019 to June 2022, scaling the team from 2 to 30 and managing a multi-million dollar paid acquisition budget across more than 30 countries. He initially joined as Director of Business Development in July 2019. ^[2]

Interchange and Uber

Held's role at Kraken followed the acquisition of his company, Interchange, which he co-founded in November 2017 and ran until the acquisition in July 2019.

From January 2016 to November 2017, Held was at Uber as a Senior Growth Marketing Manager and Head of App Store Optimization (ASO). He led the optimization for the Rider, Driver, and EATS apps, unlocking tens of millions of new installs and scaling the ASO team from one to three people. ^[2]

Early Crypto Career

Held's career in the crypto space began with several key roles. He was the Lead Product Manager at ChangeTip from December 2014 to December 2015, where he focused on developing a native iOS app and integrations with social networks like Reddit. ^[2]

He joined Blockchain.com as a Product Team Lead in December 2013 after they acquired his first company, Zeroblock. At Blockchain.com, he helped grow the user base from 1 million to 2.7 million in one year. As co-founder of Zeroblock from April to December 2013, he managed the development of its mobile apps, growing daily active users from zero to 10,000 in under eight months.^[3]​

During and after college, he was a financial analyst intern at Chapwood Capital Investment Management. His time at the firm allowed him to learn more about capital investment and portfolio analysis. ^[2]