Nik Bhatia

Nik Bhatia is Research Strategist at Tantra Labs, leading their research efforts as they strive to redefine the financial paradigm and usher in a future denominated in Bitcoin. Nik is a true Bitcoin believer. The difference between Nik and many others, though, is Nik backs up his beliefs with hard economic facts derived from years of experience and research. Magic Internet money Bitcoin may be, but Nik brings with him an academic rigor that makes even the stodgiest of critics raise an eyebrow with newfound interest. In his past Nik traded US Treasuries and interest rate futures for Payden & Rygel, a Los Angeles based investment manager with over $100 billion assets under management. Before that, Nik received his Masters in Finance from IE University in Madrid, Spain in 2013, and received his Bachelors in Social Sciences (Economics) from University of Southern California in 2011. When Nik fell down the Bitcoin rabbit hole, he didn’t stumble in blindly. As a family man, Nik has to allocate his time wisely. But after learning about Bitcoin, realizing its importance and potential, Nik dove in head first, and with a shovel in hand, he researched his way deeper & deeper. Like many bitcoiners, Nik learned a great deal from watching the videos of Andreas Antonopoulos. But when Andreas first spoke about Lightning Network and mentioned “streaming money”. He became obsessed with this idea of “streaming money”, and he plowed through everything and anything Lightning Network. It was then he learned about transaction malleability, the fix with SegWit, and why segregating the witness matters for Lightning Network, eventually leading to a comprehensive understanding of payment channels and the justice transaction involved that holds everything together. Today, Nik’s position is even more interesting. He is a professor at USC, where he uses his past professional experience to teach a class on global bond markets, but he definitely considers himself a “full-time” bitcoiner. In addition to his work for Tantra Labs, and complimenting his professorship and continued passion for global macro trends, Nik also conducts and writes research for OpenNode, one of the top payment processors in the Bitcoin space.