Dominik Schiener is an Italian entrepreneur, co-founder, and chairman of the IOTA Foundation. He oversees partnerships and the overall realization of the project's vision.^[2]

Early Career

Dominik Schiener first entered into the blockchain by hearing about Bitcoin in 2012. He mentioned in one of his interviews with Bitcoin.com:

But I seriously got involved as a dedicated member of the community in 2013.^[9]

He began by mining altcoins using the AWS credits he and a friend received for a previous startup. Since then, the blockchain space has become an integral part of his daily life, leading him to establish his own 'Bitcoin Startup' in Switzerland and the UK.^[9]

Blockchain Career

In May 2012, DEominik founded Fileyy and served as its CEO. This startup aimed to address the growing demand for business exposure by creating a new Affiliate Marketing Platform, connecting advertisers with affiliates to promote ads. After contributing for about nine months, he left in January 2013.

He co-founded Bithaus GmbH in June 2014, located in Zug, Switzerland. He tried to develop a 'cryptocurrency to fiat' exchange but failed.

In March 2015, Dominik co-founded Finhaus Ltd. in London, United Kingdom. He dedicated over a year to this venture before leaving in July 2016. In October 2015, he co-founded the IOTA Foundation and currently serves as its chairman.^[4]

In January 2016, he won the largest blockchain hackathon in Shanghai for the CargoChain project.^[5]

In 2021, Dominik invested in CredX, a venture that focuses on tangible digital assets use cases, specifically tokenizing financial assets on IOTA.^[7]

IOTA

The IOTA Foundation is a non-profit dedicated to maturing distributed ledger technologies and ecosystems. Co-founded by Dominik Schiener and David Sonstebo, its primary aim is to develop and standardize new distributed ledger protocols, simplifying the process of building production-ready applications.^[8]

CargoChain

In January 2016, Dominik Schiener won the 1st prize of $30,000 at the largest blockchain hackathon in Shanghai, hosted by Deloitte and Wanxiang Blockchain Labs, for his CargoChain project. CargoChain aims to change international trade by establishing a secure and permanent record of vital trade documents on the blockchain. It fosters 'smarter' contractual relationships among trading parties, mitigating the risks of forgery and losses from stolen payments and cargo.

Dominik, along with his partner John Freeman, identified this persistent challenge, which inspired the creation of CargoChain. The platform provides a transparent Chain of Custody, allowing all parties involved in product shipments to trace the origin, ownership, and destination of the cargo. This application was constructed in under two days using Meteor, Ethereum, and IPFS. He mentioned in one of his interviews with Bitcoin.com:

The blockchain can be the disruptive 10 times the force, that can help bring international trade and the entire shipment industry up to date to today’s technology standards.^[5]

Escrow System

Schiener developed an automated escrow system using smart contracts for CargoChain. Upon agreeing to shipment terms, a buyer sends payment (in Ether tokens) to the escrow system within the smart contract. This contract retains the funds until either the buyer releases them or predefined conditions are met, ensuring a trustworthy, cost-efficient, and timely transaction process.^[5]

Awards and Honors

• Winner Südtirol Innovation Challenge by Handelskammer Bozen, June 2014
• Winner Blockchain Hackathon by Deloitte, Wanxiang Blockchain Labs, FBS Capital, January 2016
• Emirates National Bank of Dubai Group FinTech Challenge: Technology Winner by Emirates National Bank of Dubai, April 2016
• GTEC Blockchain Challenge: 2nd Place by GTEC, RWE, Globumbus, May 2016^[1]