JAN3 is proud to welcome Aleksey Bragin as our new Chief Technology Officer. With a rare combination of deep technical expertise, first-principles thinking, and a long-standing commitment to Bitcoin, Aleksey brings both vision and experience to the next chapter of JAN3.

Aleksey’s Bitcoin Journey

Aleksey’s journey through the world of Bitcoin and computer science is nothing short of legendary. He entered the Bitcoin community in 2011, back when Bitcoin was trading between $1 and $3. Like many early adopters, he was drawn in by mining, but quickly recognized Bitcoin's true potential as a superior form of money. At a time when volatility made everyday payments nearly impossible, Aleksey saw the need for tools that could stabilize the Bitcoin exchange rate.

That insight led him to help launch the first-ever Bitcoin futures exchange. Operating under the radar for years, his platform, known as ICBIT, allowed users to hedge price volatility long before such tools were commonplace. His innovations laid the groundwork for what would become perpetual futures, a now-standard instrument on major platforms like BitMEX and Coinbase. Aleksey’s early implementation of inverse contracts, where trades were denominated in Bitcoin rather than dollars, was a major breakthrough in crypto-native finance.

Despite the platform’s success, regulatory overreach from the CFTC eventually forced ICBIT to shut down. Rather than fight a landmark court case without billion-dollar backing, Aleksey and his team chose to wind down operations, return all customer funds, and walk away. His quiet exit contrasts sharply with other futures pioneers who chose fame and legal battles over prudence.

Shortly thereafter, Safello acquired ICBIT’s technical assets, bringing Aleksey on board as their CTO in Stockholm. After completing his tenure there, Aleksey took a well-deserved break from the industry to travel across Europe, enjoying a lifestyle he'd rarely had the chance to experience previously.

Several years later, he came across HBO’s film Money Electric featuring Samson Mow and Prince Filip Karađorđević from JAN3. It reignited his Bitcoin passion, and he reached out to us. The rest is history.

“When I heard Samson say Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency, and always will be, I felt like someone finally said the quiet part out loud. I had been through the ICOs, the NFT mania, the blockchain hype. AQUA was different. It was grounded in reality.”

With Aleksey at the helm of JAN3’s technical strategy, the vision is bold yet focused: make AQUA the most useful and intuitive Bitcoin Superapp in the world, creating more and more groundbreaking Bitcoin products.

Aleksey’s goal is to maintain AQUA’s simplicity while unlocking powerful capabilities under the hood. This includes deeper integration of Lightning and Liquid, advanced multisig features, and user experiences that abstract away complexity while preserving user sovereignty.

“AQUA will always be a non-custodial wallet at its core, but we want it to be something your grandma can use, and something a technical power user can rely on.”

We couldn’t be more excited to have Aleksey Bragin join the JAN3 team. His track record of innovation, ethical leadership, and commitment to Bitcoin’s core values makes him the perfect person to guide JAN3’s engineering team as we move into our next phase. Welcome to the team, Aleksey!