15-Year-Old ‘Bitcoin Kid’ Wants to Make Ethereum Easier

Depending on who you ask, Whit Jackson is anywhere between 10 and 16 years old, his elastic age a testament to the general awkwardness of male puberty.
Jackson, aware of this, quickly clarifies in conversation. He’s 15, a soon-to-be sophomore at Brentwood School in Los Angeles, a K-12 coed day school that boasts an A-list of alumni including child actors Ben and Fred Savage as well as three current members of the pop rock band Maroon 5.
At school, Jackson already has a distinction, however. He’s “the bitcoin kid”, a nickname that seems to have stuck even if it’s origin story is less clear.
“All my teachers know me as ‘the bitcoin kid’. I told a few of my friends and it spread just because I’m really passionate. I’ll wear bitcoin t-shirts. They tease me for it,” he tells CoinDesk.
One reason for the attention is that after school and on weekends, Jackson works on cryptocurrency projects. He’s currently the CTO of Etherparty, a platform that aims to make issuing smart contracts on Ethereum easier for developers, and serves as a summer intern at blockchain-basedCURRENCIES TRADING PLATFORM Tether.
Jackson said he was inspired to begin work on Ethereum, the decentralized app development platform invented by another young wunderkind, 21-year-old Vitalik Buterin, shortly after reading the white paper. At the request of Etherparty CEO Lisa Chang, a friend and colleague, Jackson joined Etherparty earlier this year.

This post was published at Coin Desk on August 31, 2015.