Joshua Horosny is one of those people for whom math just clicks. He sees the world in equations and python code and the rest of us watch in awe as he acquires and analyzes data for use in quantitative investment research projects that guide Tantra’s investment decisions. He has a deep understanding of time-series mathematical models and uses those models to inform our overall risk management strategy. On a personal level, Josh always has a smile for everyone in the office, even on Mondays. Some might think it’s hard growing up with parents who are both teachers. But that’s only if you’re a bad student. And Josh always got straight A’s. At Tantra we give him an A+ for effort and results too. Having a mother who taught 5th grade and a father who taught high school English and History, Josh was always on the good side of all of his teachers. But even outside the classroom, Josh was an all-star. From the age of 10, when Josh wasn’t focused on academics, he was honing his skills on the basketball court. He even received an offer to play college ball, but he turned it down so that he could focus on school and work. After receiving his BS in Accounting from Cal Lutheran University, Josh went on to work at a small accounting firm that focused on bookkeeping and tax accounting. It wasn’t until 2017, however, that Josh heard about something called Bitcoin.. When Josh first heard about Bitcoin from some friends, he didn’t think much of it. At the time he was trading stocks and had most of his capital tied up in traditional markets. Like many of us though, Josh couldn’t ignore Bitcoin’s meteoric rise in 2017. He bought a little Bitcoin while it was on it’s way down and that is when, again like many of us, Josh fell into the altcoin trap. A friend told Josh about “The magical wonders of the alt coins and how you could make 10x BTC returns,” so Josh began researching these Bitcoin alternatives in earnest. He saw that many of them had what seemed like innovative ideas and exciting roadmaps, but as is so common, he didn’t yet understand the tradeoffs these projects were making in relation to Bitcoin. Nonetheless, Josh had been bitten by the crypto bug. His girlfriend at the time, now his fiancée, happened to be in an all-girl band with the fiancée of Tantra’s CTO, Russell LaCour. Josh met Russell after one of their shows and they got to talking about crypto. Russell invited Josh over to the office where he met our CEO, Ped Hasid, and Russell and Ped proceeded to give Josh the deep dive into Bitcoin that he so desperately needed. Shortly thereafter, Josh dumped his entire altcoin stack for bitcoin, began working full time at Block26 and later Tantra Labs, and he’s been trading bitcoin only and developing algorithmic trading and hedging strategies ever since. Josh’s biggest office pet peeve is “chatterboxes,” but the great irony here is that Josh will NOT stop talking about how much he loves his son. But to be fair, we can’t blame him. There’s no denying he’s got a cute kid on his hands. And the team at Tantra feels like one big family, so his kid is our kid. At Tantra Labs the first use case for our algorithmic research and development platform is trading Bitcoin options and futures in order to accumulate BTC. But our overarching goal is to help change the financial paradigm by using our tech to create innovative products for the mining sector, consumer sector, and beyond. Bitcoin is a beautiful system with beautiful incentives baked in. It leverages human greed in order to hopefully change the world for the better. Josh believes in Bitcoin and wants to change the world for the better too, but he’s greedy.