Joseph Lubin #70

Biography:

Joseph Lubin was born and raised in Toronto and educated at Princeton University. As a software engineer and consultant, he spent his early career at the intersection of cryptography, engineering and finance, serving as vice president of technology in private wealth management at Goldman Sachs and subsequently establishing his own hedge fund. 

Infatuated with blockchain technology and Bitcoin, he eventually teamed up with Vitalik Buterin after reading the Ethereum white paper. In 2014, Lubin became a primary figure in the creation and launch of Ethereum. He was also a co-founder of the Ethereum Foundation and chief operating officer of Ethereum Switzerland.

In 2015, he established the decentralized Ethereum development studio ConsenSys to help build a commercial ecosystem around the platform. Additionally, as a DAO investor, portfolio manager and chairman of independent incubator ConsenSys Mesh, Lubin played a role in the success of companies such as Gitcoin and MetaMask. ConsenSys has incubated over 50 projects, including key infrastructural elements of the Ethereum network such as Kaleido’s Blockchain-as-a-Service, MetaMask’s Web3 onramp, Truffle’s developer suite, PegaSys’ mainnet client, and Ethereum network essentials like Infura and Alethio. 

Lubin’s 2021:

Lubin championed the Ethereum Consensus Layer’s imminent arrival all year long, as the network’s highly anticipated merge to proof-of-stake is expected to take shape in 2022. At various conferences and interviews, Lubin expressed optimism toward layer 2 and attributed any scaling issues, like high gas fees, to Ethereum’s success. The network’s popularity as the largest smart contract blockchain increased considerably thanks to the rise of nonfungible tokens, most of which are bought and sold through the Ethereum network. Despite rival networks doing their best to catch up, decentralized DApp development on Ethereum remained high with nearly 3,000 applications currently available.

Additionally, ConsenSys achieved a valuation of $3.2 billion thanks to multiple fundraising rounds and the popularity of Metamask wallet and Infura tool. ConsenSys also partnered with Mastercard to enable expansion on both the Ethereum mainnet and for private use. ConsenSys also hosted virtual team meetings between their global offices in the Decentraland Metaverse.

Lubin’s  2022:

Lubin is expected to continue working on scaling Ethereum and funding enterprise blockchain development via ConsenSys, especially as Ethereum approaches its transition to Consensus Layer and it merges into proof-of-stake this year. ConsenSys appears keen on expanding the public’s understanding of the potential of Web3 and DeFi, and it’s reasonable to expect that more startups will come out of ConsenSys Mesh. Since their foray into the Metaverse, Lubin and his team are likely to further build out their digital community. 

Lubin has also prioritized the need to increase wallet extensibility in order to accelerate Web3 innovation. ConsenSys is currently in the process of building the “ideal” crypto wallet, as it plans to merge the technology behind the MyCrypto and MetaMask wallets. Lubin is also a champion of blockchain gaming and the concept of play-to-earn and even learn-to-earn games. Thus, more innovation can come out of ConsenSys this year when it comes to gaming and NFTs in order to “keep crossing the chasm from the decentralized Ethereum ecosystem into mainstream adoption,” as stated on Twitter.