Big names including Bain Capital and Mastercard are backing Barry Silbert's bitcoin venture

Barry Silbert doesn't appear to be a big fan of 'down time.'

He sold SecondMarket, the startup he founded that morped into an online stock exchange for hot, private startups' shares, to Nasdaq last week.

Now he is setting up bitcoin-related startup Digital Currency Group with the backing of some big names in finance.

The list of backers includes: Bain Capital Ventures, CIBC, CME Ventures, MasterCard, New York Life and Transamerica Ventures

DCG was formed after Genesis Global Trading and Grayscale Investments - two companies built under the SecondMarket parent company - were unified to support an early-stage investing portfolio targeting digital currency operations. Grayscale Investments manages the publicly traded Bitcoin Investment Trust.

"Some of the earliest investments I made via Bitcoin Opportunity Corp. included BitPay, Circle, Coinbase, itBit, Ripple and Xapo - which at the time were long shots for many investors," Silbert said in a statement. "Since then, we've invested into 57 companies across 18 countries, and continue to grow at a rapid pace."

Existing investments span from Africa to Asia, Europe to South America and, of course, the US. Simi Wurtzel will serve as comptroller and vice president of finance; Ryan Selkis will be director of investments at DCG.