Martin Köppelmann is Co-Founder and CEO of Gnosis, one of the most prolific builders of Ethereum infrastructure and public-good tooling. He co-founded Gnosis with Stefan George. Köppelmann studied IT Systems Engineering at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, Germany, where he completed his degree before entering the blockchain space.
Gnosis began as a prediction-market platform on Ethereum, aiming to harness decentralized crowd forecasting for information aggregation. Over time, Gnosis evolved into a broader Ethereum infrastructure and product ecosystem. Key products and spinouts include Gnosis Safe (now Safe — an independent entity), CoW Protocol (a batch-auction DEX aggregator), and the Gnosis Chain (formerly xDAI Chain, an Ethereum sidechain using STAKE and later GNO for consensus). Gnosis Pay, a debit card and onchain payments product using Gnosis Chain, is an active product in 2026. Circles, an experimental UBI and community currency project associated with Köppelmann, continues development.
Gnosis Chain operates as an EVM-compatible proof-of-stake network governed by GNO token holders and the Gnosis DAO. Gnosis Limited is the company. It is important to distinguish these entities: Gnosis company, Gnosis Chain (network), Gnosis DAO, Gnosis Pay (product), Safe (independent company/foundation), and CoW Protocol (independent protocol). Köppelmann is not described as founder of Safe or CoW Protocol — both emerged from within Gnosis but have independent governance and teams.
