Gabriel Kurman, co-founder of RSK (Rootstock), joins Sunny Ray to trace how growing up amid Argentina's recurring economic crises shaped his understanding of money and inequality. After a career in corporate finance and private equity, including living through the 2008 crisis in London, Kurman attended LABITCONF 2013 in Buenos Aires and had his worldview upended. He describes realizing that the same financial system offering cheap, low risk leverage to billion dollar buyouts denied ordinary families fair mortgage terms, a contradiction that convinced him incentives, not just technology, needed to change. He explains how meeting Diego Gutierrez Zaldivar and eventually Sergio Lerner, following an introduction from Nick Szabo, led to founding RSK to combine Bitcoin's security with smart contract programmability rather than choosing between Bitcoin and Ethereum. Kurman also unpacks his self described identity as a Bitcoin mutant, maximalist on Bitcoin as sound money but open to innovation in upper layers aimed at financial inclusion. The conversation blends personal history, economic theory, and the founding story behind RSK.
An Argentine economist explains how living through repeated financial crises led him to co-found RSK, merging Bitcoin's security with smart contracts.
Where does your story begin, in terms of growing up in Argentina and how that shaped your view of money?
I grew up in Argentina in a middle class family, living through major economic crises roughly every ten years. Every Argentine family has stories of losing homes to hyperinflation or losing savings from the bank. I studied economics at the University of Buenos Aires and by my first job in 2001, during another major crisis, I was already trying to earn a salary in US dollars because I knew we couldn't trust saving in our own currency.
What experience made you realize the financial system was fundamentally unfair to ordinary people?
I was working in private equity on a leveraged buyout where an international bank offered us hundreds of millions of dollars at extremely low rates with five years of grace. That same week I went to get a mortgage for my own house and received far worse terms as an individual. That contrast showed me the system is built so it's easier to make money when you already have money, which drives inequality.
You studied economics in a mostly Keynesian program. Wasn't there a disconnect when you encountered Bitcoin and Austrian economics?
Yes, my university at UBA taught Keynesian and Marxist ideas and emphasized protecting Latin American economies from major powers. What upset me was that we were never taught how abandoning the dollar's convertibility in 1971 let the US print freely and control the world, and we never questioned whether the dollar was really a stable store of value. I only read more into Austrian economics after encountering Bitcoin.
What do you mean when you call yourself a Bitcoin mutant?
It's the idea that you can be maximalist and Austrian at the base layer, valuing Bitcoin's antifragility and monetary policy, while still supporting innovation and proactive social good at upper layers. I sometimes see the same profit-only mindset among maximalist Bitcoiners that I saw in private equity. For me the revolution isn't the technology itself, it's coding a financial system whose incentives naturally lead toward a better, more decentralized society.
Were you drawn to computers and programming early on, or was your path always more economics focused?
I was always more of a user than a builder. I took a children's Logo programming class as a kid but never got into real coding, and I still can't program today. I understand how blockchain works and its potential, but I rely on our technical team, people like Sergio, Diego, Adrian and Bruno, to help me translate that understanding from a non-technical mindset.
How did the idea for RSK come about, combining Bitcoin's security with smart contract programmability?
We were Bitcoiners who understood its value as a store of value, but all smart contract capability lived on Ethereum, which had different consensus plans. We didn't want to choose between the two. A mutual friend introduced Diego to Nick Szabo in San Francisco, who told us to talk to Sergio Lerner, known for Ethereum and Bitcoin Foundation security audits. That conversation led directly to founding RSK and Rootstock.
What was your team's early activity in the Bitcoin space before founding RSK?
We started by helping local VCs understand and invest in Bitcoin, spending about 90 percent of our time just explaining Bitcoin to people. We looked at various cryptocurrencies like Stellar and Storj at the time, but always understood Bitcoin had the breakthrough technology. When Ethereum's whitepaper launched in 2015, we knew we eventually needed both Bitcoin security and smart contract programmability to serve billions of unbanked users.
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