Our Cryptocurrency Team

Martin D. Weiss, PhD, founder of Weiss Ratings, began his career in 1971 when he began rating the safety of U.S. commercial banks for high net worth investors. Years later, he launched the first-ever independent ratings of U.S. life/health insurers, and warned millions of consumers about major insurers that subsequently failed. The U.S. Congress repeatedly invited Dr. Weiss to testify about the failures and subsequently requested a major study of insurance company ratings by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). After two years of exhaustive research, the GAO reported that Weiss beat America’s leading rating agencies by at least three to one in accuracy.Today, Dr. Weiss writes and speaks frequently about Weiss Ratings projects. His doctoral thesis and degree, from Columbia University, was economic anthropology, specializing in precisely the topic Dr. Weiss is most passionate about — the evolution of money. The next major phase of that evolution, according to Weiss, is cryptocurrencies.

Mandeep Rai is a financial analyst specialized in developing formulas for the analysis of company valuations and the forecasting of market trends. He began his Wall Street career on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and then earned his MBA from University of Florida’s Warrington/Hough School of Business. His contributions to the Weiss Cryptocurrency Ratings  include the Risk and Reward indexes as well as managing the data collection and analytical processes.

Juan M. Villaverde is an econometrician and mathematician devoted to the analysis of cryptocurrencies since 2012. For the Weiss Cryptocurrency Ratings model, he has played an important role in building the sub-models that calculate the Cryptocurrency Technology Index and Fundamental Index. In addition to his technical skills, he brings to the project encyclopedic knowledge about cryptocurrencies and the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Tony Sagami calls himself a technology “nerd.” He studied math and investing from a very young age, and launched his own software company that devised one of the first quantitative models to forecast stock prices. His now-four decades of investing experience serve him well here at Weiss Ratings, where he writes and edits founder Martin D. Weiss Ph.D.’s Weiss Ultimate Portfolio stock and ETF trading service. Tony also spends much of his time scouring the globe to find companies that are leading the digital money revolution. His views have also been featured in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, Kiplinger’s, Smart Money, Business Week, New York Times, Washington Post, Investor’s Business Daily, Bloomberg, Financial Planning Times, Mutual Funds Magazine, Chicago Tribune and the LA Times, as well as on CNBC and CNBC Asia. Tony holds a degree in economics from the University of Washington.

Gavin Magor has more than 30 years of international experience in credit-risk management, commercial lending and insurance as well as banking and stock analysis. He oversees the Weiss Ratings processes to ensure accurate data collection as well as accuracy in the implementation of the Weiss Ratings models for life and health insurers, property and casualty insurers, commercial banks, savings and loans, credit union, common stocks, Exchange Traded Funds, mutual funds and money market funds. In addition, he is the architect of the Weiss computer models that help create the Weiss Sovereign Debt Ratings and the Weiss Global Bank Ratings.

Italo Silveira, President of Weiss Ratings, built his career as a software developer and analyst for over 15 years before taking on the role as leader of several Weiss Ratings model development teams, which include both programmers and financial analysts. Today, in addition to his executive functions, he is dedicated to leading the team of developers and analysts responsible for the Weiss Cryptocurrency Ratings. Prior to joining Weiss Ratings, Mr. Silveira was a software systems analyst for Suntrust Bank.