Gavin Andresen serves as the chief scientist of the Bitcoin Foundation, a group modeled after the Linux foundation that aims to provide some organization to bitcoin’s expansion, from establishing new ways to process transactions, to maintaining the Bitcoin.org site.

A kind of cash for the Internet, bitcoin marks the world’s first online, decentralized currency supported by peer-to-peer transactions, rather than government backing. Since mid March, the value of a single bitcoin skyrocketed from $47 to a record high of $250, then fell back down to its current price of around $72.

Andresen acts as arbiter and architect for the bitcoin community and helps coordinate improvements to the core bitcoin software used by the worldwide community. His toughest job, he notes, is trying to reach a consensus among the open source currency's distributed supporters, who correspond via inter-relay chat channels, on forums and on mailing lists.

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