The 22-year-old grew up in Los Angeles, the child of Sri Lankan immigrants, before studying engineering at Duke. It was there she met Luke Truitt, with whom she launched a company, sold it, fled to Denver for 6 months, and then came back to New York to launch Bridgesplit. They also run together, triathlon together, you get the picture. “I’m not competitive,” she says, “but I like the competitiveness of it.”

With much of her family still in war-ravaged Sri Lanka, Gooneratne is constantly thinking of her privilege, the luck with which she was born, and what she owes to the world for bestowing so much upon her. “It's my moral responsibility,” she says of her determination to make something of consequence, and to work tirelessly at making it the best it can be.

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“If you can, you should. And I can in a way that people close to me can’t.”

Right now, that means making crypto more inclusive. She and Truitt launched Bridgesplit in 2021 to connect the traditional economy to the blockchain. They raised $4.25 million with help from CoinFund and Jump Capital and set out to build infrastructure that will create liquidity for all assets on the chain, not just crypto.

The decentralized platform is designed with longevity in mind, layered with index funds and financial markets, all the things a free-flowing economy needs. Finance, however, isn’t the sexiest to talk about, which is why Gooneratne’s leaning into the cultural moment. “NFTs are the coolest thing right now,” she says, “but longer term there needs to be a total crypto eco system — real estate, debt, land — it will all need to be on the chain.”

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“If I'm not doing something that feels risky, I'm probably not pushing myself enough.”

“There’s been exponential growth in the amount of capital available which has made for a relatively risk-free way to start a company,” Gooneratne says. If you can take that risk, “you almost owe it to people who don’t have the ability to.”