I'm Marco. These days my time is split between two very different jobs. I'm back at Bernstein, the company I co-founded in 2016, working on business, product, PR and strategy. I'm also a substitute math teacher in Italian secondary schools.
These two roles look unrelated, and in many ways they are. But both come from the same wish: to build something that outlives me.
I'm a progressive bitcoiner. I came across Bitcoin in 2010, and it has quietly shaped most of my choices since. It's the technology at the heart of Bernstein, and the place where my convictions about privacy and social justice meet.
Part 1 — What I do
Bernstein, take two
I co-founded Bernstein in Munich in 2016 on a simple idea: use the immutability of the Bitcoin blockchain to give creators and companies verifiable proof of existence, integrity and ownership of their intellectual property. Our goal was "democratizing IP", and it still is.
In 2021 I returned to Italy and stepped away from Bernstein, but it survived thanks to my co-founder Paul. He moved the company to Strasbourg and did an amazing job improving both the product and the business strategy. When, in 2026, he asked me to rejoin and build on that momentum, it was an easy yes. Today I work across business development, product, communication and strategy. It's where my entrepreneurial side lives: I like building things, and I like seeing them used.
Teaching math
In 2023, looking for a change of pace from the startup world, I went back to an old love: mathematics. I'm a substitute teacher, moving between secondary schools on assignments that last anywhere from a few weeks to a full year, with students aged 14 to 19. It's precarious work, and I won't pretend otherwise.
I keep doing it because I like the challenge. Teaching math to teenagers today is hard, and I enjoy figuring out how to make it land. It also keeps me in touch with new generations. And what a good lesson leaves behind, a way of reasoning or a spark of curiosity, stays with students long after they've forgotten the teacher.
How I got here
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Academia (early '90s). After a computer science degree at the University of Bologna, I did research in parallel computing and numerical analysis there and at Loughborough University (UK).
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MCI Worldcom (1996-1998). I was the first employee of the Italian branch in Milan, and watched it grow from a small office into a data center with hundreds of people during the telecom boom.
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eXtrapola (1998-2005). My first startup, an online media monitoring service: press clipping for the digital age. I was CEO for seven years.
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Clipperz (2005-2016). With my friend Giulio Cesare Solaroli, I built the first online password manager and one of the first web apps that knows nothing about its users. It's based on client-side cryptography, has been online since its launch in 2006, and has never leaked any user data. Years later, Clipperz became the foundational cryptographic layer of Bernstein.
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Simplicissimus Book Farm, now StreetLib (2011-2015). I got into ebooks and digital publishing, co-organized the first Italian publishing barcamp, and became CFO and strategist alongside Antonio Tombolini.
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Capsule Social (2021-2023). I was co-founder and COO. We built Blogchain, a censorship-resistant publishing platform, backed by Polychain, Naval Ravikant and Balaji Srinivasan. Slow adoption and the crypto crash shut it down. That experience inside a token-based project convinced me, for good, that Bitcoin is the only technology in this space aligned with my values.
Part 2 — What I care about
A progressive bitcoiner
I joined the first community of Italian Bitcoin enthusiasts early on, and sixteen years later I still think Bitcoin is one of the most important inventions of my lifetime.
My Nostr bio says "progressive bitcoiner", and that sometimes earns me some heat from fellow bitcoiners. But Bitcoin works like a mirror: everyone finds in it what they're looking for. A libertarian sees money separated from the state. An investor sees digital gold. I see a tool for a society that widens opportunities instead of guarding privileges: a way for marginalized communities to build wealth, for women to keep savings out of an abusive partner's reach, for people under authoritarian regimes to hold money nobody can seize, and an incentive to build renewable energy where it's most needed.
The causes I care about most — equal rights, public education, public health services, financial inclusion, and closing the digital divide — don't clash with Bitcoin. Bitcoin doesn't care who you are, and that's exactly why it can serve them.
Owning your data
Clipperz taught me early that convenience shouldn't cost you your privacy or your freedom. I still live by that:
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I run my own Bitcoin node and self-host as much as I reasonably can.
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I'm on Nostr, because I want my voice, my followers and my identity to belong to me, not to a platform.
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I prefer open-source software whenever there's a choice, and I contribute where I can.
Urban cycling
I'm a convinced urban cyclist. In 2009 I started Ciclourbano.it (now defunct) with Antonio Tombolini, to promote cycling culture, with a soft spot for cargo bikes and family bikes. Cities built for people rather than cars are one of those causes I'll never stop advocating for.