The Power of Statistics and Simulations in Crypto

“ I fundamentally believe that the technology that comes from this current excursion of capital into the cryptocurrency space will change society. However, I believe that claims need to be thoroughly and rigorously evaluated in a statistical manner that can be trusted.” — Tarun Chitra, Co-Founder and CEO of Gauntlet

Tarun Chitra, Co-Founder and CEO of Gauntlet, has spent his entire career working on computational simulations. Before focusing on crypto, he built simulations in physics, bimolecular systems, and applied math. It was in 2011, while working on Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), that he first discovered Bitcoin.

He began mining GPU on his own before exiting in 2013. As a nocoiner he turned to reading academic literature on cryptocurrency, which is where he discovered a paper that proved certain probabilistic properties about Bitcoin. He became certain that cryptocurrency was a worthy societal endeavor because it provided individuals with access to an alternative currency that could rival existing ones that were unstable and untrustworthy.

In 2016, Tarun joined Vatic Labs — a high-frequency trading company — where he built simulations that developed trading strategies for different markets by comparing strategies of adversaries and historical market data. Convinced that simulations held the power to transfer models from one environment to the other, he began researching methods to improve the scalability of Ethereum. This led him to create simulations that solved the problem of participants in large derivative markets being able to launch financial attacks on networks that don’t exist in the Proof of Work world.

In 2017, Tarun discovered there was robust demand for his simulations as crypto exchanges and base layer protocols began approaching him. He saw an untapped product opportunity to build a tool that could stress test and evaluate smart contracts and protocols. Armed with this insight, he raised a VC round in 2018 and met his future Co-Founder and CTO, Rei Chiang. Together they recruited John Morrow as COO and officially started Gauntlet.

In addition to the years Tarun spent creating financial models for blockchains, Gauntlet was founded on four core principles: mathematical rigor, statistical honesty, community engagement, and discovering ways to make capitalism fund transitional research. Over the last four years, Gauntlet has been building off these beliefs and Tarun’s original simulations through its Risk Management platform. The platform uses agent-based simulations to help protocols maximize capital efficiency while minimizing risk. As the company continues to grow and expand, they’re committed to providing solutions that leverage the power of statistics to advance decentralized economies.