From ages 9 to 11, Edan Yago smuggled gold, hidden in his clothes by his mother, out of South Africa.

The apartheid government had instituted capital controls to stabilize the rand amid international sanctions. The authorities were hunting some of his family members whom it had designated as "terrorists."

"Eventually, we were forced out of South Africa," Yago shared.

His family were no strangers to tyranny. Some relatives had survived the Holocaust; others weren't so lucky.

That background, combined with his education in neuroscience and data science, directed him to a career in Bitcoin, which offers wealth that governments can't easily confiscate and transactions that central authorities can’t veto.

"Throughout, my focus has been on trying to develop tools for greater sovereignty," Yago stated.

As a self-described "bitcoin accelerationist," Yago is the founder of Sovryn, a decentralized bitcoin lending and trading platform. He is building BitcoinOS, a "rollup" stack designed to process more transactions and complex operations like smart contracts than the blockchain could handle otherwise.

In July, BitcoinOS marked a pivotal milestone by verifying a zero-knowledge proof on the Bitcoin mainnet. "This is a big deal," Yago remarked, adding, "We're constructing a platform to facilitate rollups on bitcoin, ensuring security without modifying smart contracts while enhancing scalability and privacy."

His team is collaborating with a business named Emurgo to develop Cardano (ADA) into a smart contract layer for Bitcoin. The first step involves integrating the BOS Grail bridge with Cardano’s ecosystem to enable "trustless bridging of BTC and Bitcoin assets using BOS’s ZK-based BitSNARK verification protocol."