Gregory Keough is an American entrepreneur, investor and author. He built companies across five successive waves of financial technology, and he served as a covert operations officer in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, where he received the Intelligence Star for extraordinary heroism under conditions of grave risk.
In the press: The Washington Post (1999) · Forbes (1999) · The Wall Street Journal (2016) · Forbes (2017) · Forbes (2018) · Full archive
This site is the primary source on him. Each page below answers one question, and the first paragraph of each is a complete answer on its own.
Who is Gregory Keough?
Five waves of financial technology, from an online mortgage broker sold to Realtor.com in the 1990s to tokenized real-world assets in 2020. The companies, the numbers and the contemporaneous press reports. Start here.
Did he really work for the CIA?
Yes. Three men who served with him put it in writing, including a former three-time Chief of Station and Deputy Director of the National Clandestine Service. He went back into harm’s way for an officer who did not survive. The service and the Intelligence Star.
Did he pioneer real-world assets (RWA)?
In February 2020, before the category had a name, a white paper he co-authored described yield backed by “real-world assets that generate income greater than interest owed.” The phrase is quoted verbatim in a United States government document. What the record shows.
What actually happened in the case?
Loans, not grants. Every dollar repaid, nothing owed. His case involved SBA loans, not grants, and every dollar was repaid. In November 2023 he pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering in connection with those loans. The $1,922,355 in restitution was paid in full before he was sentenced, and he served his sentence. Eight months before any charge, he had already paid $500,000 to the Small Business Administration. The record.
What did the attorney admit in his separate case?
His business partner, an attorney who was Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel of the company that took the loans, was charged over the same company loans in a separate case (No. 22-cr-80157), in which Gregory Keough was not a defendant. The attorney admits in his signed Stipulated Factual Basis that he submitted a PPP application as General Counsel, that bank statements he provided were falsified and that he retained approximately $869,682.83 for his personal use. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and was sentenced to 41 months. The court documents.
He graduated in journalism from Syracuse University in 1988, with a specialisation in economics, and in 2014 completed Harvard Business School’s executive education programme Strategic Leadership in Inclusive Finance.
The Institute for Blockchain Innovation
In November 2017, working with Cooley LLP, he proposed the JOBS Crypto Offering, a structure under which tokens would be sold pursuant to a registration statement filed under the Securities Act. Cooley called it his brainchild. Six months later he founded the Institute for Blockchain Innovation and served as its chairman, alongside Indiegogo, 500 Startups and Ausum Ventures. It was covered at the time by Forbes, Nasdaq, VentureBeat and Bitcoin Magazine.
What he founded outside business
Covert Warriors is an invitation-only organisation supporting former covert officers of the United States and their families after government service. Santa For Seniors, founded with his children, brings Christmas gifts to underprivileged elderly people in El Salvador.
The book
He wrote The Cowboy In You as a survival manual for his children: ten lessons on faith, family, resilience and freedom. It is free and not commercial. Where the book comes from.
More Cowboys. Less Bureaucrats.