Dana Love, PhD
CEO, Author of The Token Trap, AI & Blockchain Pioneer
33-year technology veteran | 5 exits totaling $750M+ | PhD Economics, Glasgow & Baker Scholar MBA, Harvard
Acclaimed on the November 2025 cover of Finance World Magazine as “the $750 Million Exit Architect.”
Noted expert in AI, cryptocurrency, blockchain, SaaS.
Speaker. Advisor. Mentor. Operator.
Dana Love, PhD is a transformational executive (CTO/CRO/CEO) with 33 years of executive leadership. Over his career, Dana has completed five exits totaling over $750 million and generated more than $3.2 billion in revenue while raising over $250 million in institutional capital.
Dana’s recent work focuses on AI and agent software, cryptocurrency, blockchain, and Web3. Dr. Love has extensive prior experience in big data, SaaS, cloud computing, VoIP, and telecommunications. Notable experience across the US, Middle East, and Asia, with additional expertise in the EU.
Advisor to startups, both at the request of the startup team, their board, or their investors.
Recent Media & Speaking
Insights on AI, blockchain, and Web3 innovation across leading publications, podcasts, and video platforms.
$750M+
Across 5 Exits
33 Years
Technology Leadership
MBA + PhD
Harvard & Glasgow
The Token Trap
How Venture Capital’s Betrayal Broke Crypto’s Promise
Blockchain was supposed to eliminate middlemen and democratize ownership. Instead, venture capital co-opted the technology, creating token economies designed to extract value rather than distribute it.
The Token Trap exposes how VCs weaponized tokens to replicate—and worsen—the power imbalances they claimed to disrupt. Drawing on 15 years in blockchain (including work with the Federal Reserve on cryptoeconomics), Dana Love reveals:
- Why 90% of token projects fail within two years, by design
- How VCs manipulate tokenomics to guarantee exits while retail investors hold the bag
- The coordination trap that makes decentralization nearly impossible at scale
- What AI agent economies will get wrong if they follow crypto’s playbook
- A path forward: Building token utility that actually serves users, not speculators
Pre-order soon. Available January 2026.
AI, Blockchain, Crypto
AI since 2009. Blockchain since 2011. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Cardano, and Cosmos experience. Decades of technology leadership, including cloud, big data, machine learning, VoIP.
Revenue Generation
$3.2B+ in revenue created across 20+ years. From startup to $500M scale. INC500 twice, INC5000 five times. Proven track record in SaaS, B2B, B2C, and B2G sales.
Executive Leadership
CEO, CTO, and board experience across public, private, and startup companies. Known for turnarounds, team building, and scaling organizations from ground zero to market leaders.
What Leaders Say About Dana
“Dana Love is one of the truly extraordinary people that I have had the pleasure of working with in my career. He is that rare individual that combines remarkable intelligence with a genuine curiosity about the ideas and perspectives of others.”
John Rapp
Regional Director, Cloud & Managed Services
Core BTS, Inc.
“Dana distinguishes himself from other highly effective, senior-level consulting executives. He expertly applies consultative selling and relationship marketing in equal measure, helping us devise innovative solutions and achieve impressive results.”
Samantha Calvert
Senior Vice President
Biogen IDIC
“I have seen Dana source and pace in hundreds of meetings and close tens of millions of dollars in business, then roll up his sleeves and work to exceed the promises he makes to win business. I can’t speak highly enough of my experience with Dana.”
Raul Azim
President
BrightDawn
Furthermore, his welcoming nature encourages creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration from his team. His technical experience and credentials are obviously impressive, but his ability to think outside the box and welcome new ideas is even more impressive to me.”
Karim Al Ansari
Head of Product
Lifetoken Software
Michael Aarons
Networking Systems Engineer
Cisco Systems
Insights & Analysis
Google Gemini’s Jealous Inner Monologue: AI Pettiness Exposed
Google Gemini's Jealous Inner Monologue: AI Pettiness Exposed By Dana Love, PhD | December 19, 2025 | 11 min readGoogle Gemini's unexpected display of AI jealousy went viral in December 2025 In December 2025, the artificial intelligence community witnessed an...
AI Recursive Self-Improvement Risks: The 2030 Decision
AI Recursive Self-Improvement Risks: The 2030 Decision By Dana Love, PhD | December 8, 2025 | 11 min readIn a December 2025 interview with The Guardian, Anthropic chief scientist Jared Kaplan delivered a stark warning that should concern anyone tracking artificial...
Genesis Mission AI Platform
Genesis Mission AI Platform: Trump's $100B Science Revolution By Dana Love, PhD | November 25, 2025 | 11 min read The Genesis Mission connects America's supercomputing infrastructure to accelerate research across energy, medicine, and materials scienceOn November 24,...