Maxime Desalle

Desalle was born and raised in Belgium. When he was about fourteen, a high school teacher mentioned Bitcoin while discussing investing, and he began teaching himself economics, reading books such as “Economics in One Lesson” and adopting the Austrian school’s view that money should not be controlled by governments. After high school he attended 42, a self-paced programming school, where he studied computer languages.⁠[1][2][2][2][2][2][1]

Desalle led operations at Sablier, a crypto token distribution company. While he was working there, his boss Paul Razvan Berg suggested he read physicist David Deutsch’s “The Beginning of Infinity,” which persuaded him of the quantum multiverse. He later earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and physics at the University of Montreal; he recalls being disappointed that the physics professors there were mostly instrumentalists uninterested in what theories say about the world itself, and during his time at university he befriended Conjecture Institute fellows Sam Kuypers, Charles Bédard, and Paul Raymond-Robichaud.⁠[3][2][2][1][2][2]

In July 2023, Desalle published the long essay “In Defense of Growth and Capitalism” on his personal website, rebutting the Degrowth movement, which advocates shrinking the economy to address climate change; he argued that climate change is real but that the answer lies in growth and technological progress rather than going backward.⁠[4][4][4][4]

In September 2025, Desalle published “Understanding Many-Worlds: A Beginner’s Guide,” a long introduction for readers with no physics background that covers the history of quantum mechanics, the wave function, Hilbert space, and the Schrödinger equation and argues against the collapse interpretation; it was reviewed by Logan Chipkin, Sam Kuypers, and Charles Alexandre Bédard of the Conjecture Institute. He is a Conjecture Institute fellow in its economics topic area and is writing a book on the physics, history, and philosophy of many-worlds.⁠[5][5][5][5][5][3][3]

On January 10, 2026, Desalle released “Taking Schrödinger Seriously,” a course produced with the Conjecture Institute’s support that teaches quantum mechanics from the Schrödinger equation up, without wave function collapse.⁠[6][6][6]

On January 12 he published the long Zcash guide “Mastering Zcash: A Study in Private Money,” available as PDF, EPUB, and in Spanish. It runs from David Chaum’s digital cash, the cypherpunk movement, Zerocoin, and Zerocash to Zcash’s genesis block, then explains shielded notes, commitments and nullifiers, the transaction lifecycle, the philosophy of privacy, governance, and development funding, compares Zcash with Tornado Cash, Monero, Aztec, and others, answers common misconceptions such as “Zcash is not private by default” and “Zcash uses a trusted setup,” and closes with Project TachyonTachyon (Zcash)Tachyon (Project Tachyon) is a Zcash scaling upgrade proposal put forward in 2025 by Zcash cofounder Sean Bowe and developed by community members. It uses “oblivious synchronization” and proof-carrying data (PCD) to shrink shielded transactions and cap the state validators must keep, and removes on-chain secret distribution to achieve full post-quantum privacy; as of October 2026 it remained in development, and mainnet activation requires community approval. In 2026 its team also led the formal verification of the Ironwood upgrade.Open the full entry, the Network Sustainability Mechanism, and quantum resistance plans. He says he became passionate about Zcash only about nine years after first encountering Bitcoin, and he is expanding the guide into a book.⁠[7][7][7][7][7][7][7][7][7][2][2]

On June 3, 2026, Desalle launched his podcast with an interview of Zcash co-founder Zooko Wilcox covering why Wilcox became an advisor to Cypherpunk, quantum computing’s implications for Zcash, Crosslink, Tachyon, and his ten-year vision for Zcash. On June 19 he gave a talk on the history of the Venetian Republic and the idea of futarchy. The second episode, on July 2, featured Conjecture Institute fellow and quantum physicist Sam Kuypers, discussing his work with David Deutsch and the many-worlds interpretation.⁠[8][8][8][8][8][8][9][10][10][10]

As of October 2026, Desalle is an investment analyst at Winklevoss CapitalWinklevoss CapitalWinklevoss Capital is a family office and early-stage venture capital firm founded in New York in 2012 by brothers Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss. It got its start by buying large amounts of bitcoin and has since invested in companies such as Gemini, Flexport, and Crusoe Energy and in crypto networks such as Ethereum, Zcash, and Filecoin; since 2025 it has led and driven the transformation of Nasdaq-listed Leap Therapeutics into Cypherpunk Technologies, which holds Zcash as its treasury asset.Open the full entry and continues to research quantum mechanics for the Conjecture Institute in his spare time. He is based in Montreal and says he will soon move to New York. At the Zcash Zummit session of the Network State Conference in Singapore on October 9, he was listed among the speakers as a member of Winklevoss Capital.⁠[2][11][11][1][12][12]

Desalle describes himself as a beginner pianist who started only a few years ago, and has posted recordings of pieces by Bach, Chopin, and Michel Polnareff on his website; he also posts unedited photographs taken with a Fujifilm X100VI. He lists Christopher Alexander, Karl Popper, F. A. Hayek, and David Deutsch as his favorite contemporary thinkers, and his website includes a list of personal startup ideas, such as a service for building artificial islands at scale.⁠[13][13][13][13][13][14][15][16][16]

Personal website: https://maxdesalle.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[11]

Winklevoss Capital: Official website: https://winklevosscapital.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[17]

Conjecture Institute: Official website: https://conjectureinstitute.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[1]

X: Public account: https://x.com/maxdesalle (opens in a new window)⁠[11]