Meet the Team


Andrew Kamal
CEO and Cofounder
Andrew has built technologies for over 37 startups (as of EOY 2022) and has a prolific history of entrepreneurship. He recognized the need of BitBadges to transform into an independent blockchain and stop reliance on centralized platforms. Andrew is leading BitBadges on business development, growth, and structure as well as consulting on special research, partnership opportunities, and grants.

Trevor Miller
CTO and Cofounder
Trevor is the CTO and Founder of BitBadges. Trevor graduated with a Masters from Virginia Tech in Computer Science and has been enthusiastic in disrupting the blockchain industry. He conceptualized and built BitBadges 1.0 and helped lead the way in building the infrastructure for BitBadges to be an independent blockchain.


Why BitBadges?
To learn more and for more complete explanations, visit our documentation.

Need for BitBadges

Digital blockchain tokens have great potential and infinitely many use cases, but the existing infrastructure is simply not good enough. Existing interfaces are limited in functionality, lack consistency, limited scalability, and much more. BitBadges aims to build out this infrastructure, so blockchain tokens can realize their potential. We aim to make blockchain more accessible for everyone and build projects that are oriented towards adaptable, high-speed, peer-to-peer usecases. Learn more here.
Why are we better?
In addition to all the new features highlighted on the landing page, what makes our product better than competitors?

Multi-Chain
The same badge can be owned by users from different blockchain ecosystems.

Decentralized
We keep decentralization as a core principle, as opposed to some of our competitors who rely on more centralized architectures and censoring.

Rapidly-Evolving
Instead of relying on a rigid token standard that is not adaptable to new features, we iterate fast and constantly add new features to our token standard.

Community-Driven and Open-Source
By being open-source and developer friendly, we aim to facilitate an ecosystem of community-driven projects, tools, and more built on top of BitBadges.

Scalability, Security, and Ease of Use
Our product is scalable, easy to use, and battle-tested.
Target Audiences
Badges can be created for infinitely many use cases, so BitBadges has many different target audiences.

Creators
BitBadges offers several opportunities for creators whether it is for artists, event management, or musicians. For example, ticket badges can be created for events, concerts, etc. Using BitBadges, the tickets can be distributed in a peer-to-peer manner (no trusted third party), are more secure, more maintainable and much cheaper!

Memberships
Badges can be used for memberships and offering gated utility only to members. Because badges are stored on the blockchain, no one can forge, censor, or modify memberships in an undesired manner.

Authentication
Badges can be used for digital authentication, such as granting access to a website or granting access to certain features. Check out Blockin which offers native badge-gating for websites with BitBadges.

Recognition
Badges are a great way to verify and display your achievements. We envision that displaying educational achievements as badges will be a popular use case moving forward.

For Fun
Badges can also just be collected for fun! Maybe you collect a souvenir badge from every place you travel.

And more!



Our History

Version 1.0
March-June 2021

Trevor releases the first version of BitBadges on the BitClout (now DeSo) platform. The original idea behind BitBadges was to display a portfolio of badges on every user's social media profile, which allowed one to verifiably build thier digital identity through badges and display it on thier social media. However, soon after release, BitBadges realized that it could not realize its potential without becoming its own entity.
Andrew becomes Co-Founder
June 2021

Andrew becomes a co-founder of BitBadges. Trevor is supportive and the two start focusing on how BitBadges will keep thriving during their busy study/work schedules.
BitBadges 2.0 Announced
August 2021

After much internal discussions about potential expansion opportunities and potential future integrations, BitBadges 2.0 was announced. BitBadges 2.0 is the dubbed name for an independent BitBadges with the same key principles in mind. The vision of BitBadges 2.0 is to build out a full stack ecosystem for supporting badges. This includes the underlying blockchain, frontends, development tools, and much more. BitBadges 2.0 development begins.
Preprint and Digital Challenge XPrize
September 2021

BitBadges starts its brainstorming and development phase. Andrew publishes a paper on IACR preprints on a "A Privacy-Preserving Distributed Identity Offline-First PoCP Blockchain Paradigm" discussing his potential vision for BitBadges 2.0. Trevor starts experimentation with CouchDB for beta way before the technological core migrates to the Cosmos SDK Platform.
BitBadges is Incorporated
March 2022

BitBadges is officially incorporated (originally in the state of Delaware). Andrew and Trevor both own 3.75M shares. Andrew holds his shares in his startup, and both Andrew and Trevor's shares get diluted proportionally. BitBadges is officially a company, and ready to build technologies to take BitBadges to the next level..
Development
March 2022 - Betanet Release

Trevor and Andrew continue developing BitBadges and plan for the beta release of BitBadges. This time period not only consists of building out the BitBadges ecosystem but also research and development into other areas that could benefit BitBadges. Trevor completes his master's degree in Computer Science and gets his thesis on blockchain technologies and privacy-preserving protocols published at ICCCN 2023. Additionally, during his time at university, Trevor becomes a co-founder of Blockin which is the multi-chain sign-in standard used by BitBadges. Andrew continues to pursue other projects that plan to integrate BitBadges, such as Stark Drones, Mentors4EDU, and more.
Betanet Release
September 2024

The development phase is now in its later stages, as BitBadges releases a betanet. Betanet is a way to do a soft release in order to get feedback, iron out bugs, and build the best possible product. Betanet is subsidized for users at no cost.
Mainnet Release
TBD

Development has been completed, and a successful betanet is completed. BitBadges is now ready to go live with an official mainnet.