Robert Leshner is a San Francisco-based innovator and entrepreneur. He co-founded the DeFi platform Compound in 2017, a protocol for money markets on Ethereum. Leshner is a chartered financial analyst and an alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania, from where he graduated with a degree in economics.
With Safe Shepherd, his pioneer project, Leshner and his team focused on showing users how their personal data was being accessed and used by businesses for monetary gain. The Safe Shepherd team was helping remove online personal information long before regulatory bodies began cracking down on private companies’ use of personal data.
Leshner has also worked for popular food delivery app Postmates as the head of its merchant division. In August 2017, he co-founded Compound along with Geoff Hayes. It had two funding rounds that successfully raised over $33.2 million. The company’s token, called COMP, hit a high of $231 apiece in June 2021, cementing its status as one of the essential cornerstones of DeFi.
2021 was quite a ride for Leshner and Compound. In September 2021, a bug in the Compound protocol mistakenly awarded its users a combined $90 million worth of COMP. Frazzled, Leshner took to Twitter to beg users to return any erroneous additions to their account. While he offered to let users “keep 10% as a white-hat,” he also proceeded to threaten to dox noncompliant users by reporting it “as income to the IRS.”
The DeFi community was quick to blast Leshner’s “doxxed” comment, prompting even Blockstream chief strategy officer Samson Mow to tweet: “Code is law. Unless we fuck up. Then we call the IRS on you,” highlighting the irony in Leshner’s sentiment. It also raised questions in the community over Compound gathering personal data and willingness to expose users in a highly unethical move. Leshner was quick to admit fault and apologize for his “bone-headed” statement: “I appreciate your ridicule and support.”
Compound passed Proposal 064, dubbed “Fix COMP Accrual Bug,” in an attempt to repair the bug. The proposal resolves accrual issues, but doesn’t facilitate safe return of the lost funds. As per protocol, the funds can only be reclaimed on an individual basis, leaving the decision to each user’s moral discretion.
Compound has since announced several updates, among them the move to make the platform open-source: “Community members can improve, modify and fork the front-end. We’ll assist the community with maintaining this repo, as new assets and features are added,” Compound announced.
Compound’s educational and decentralization campaign that launched in June 2020 concluded in November 2021, resulting in 5 million people learning about the Compound protocol. 500,000 COMP was allotted to the program, with all undistributed COMP and tokens returned to the Compound community when the program ended.
Compound’s bug issue brought some of the vulnerabilities inherent in DeFi platforms to the forefront. The bug placed approximately $150 million worth of COMP at risk of a third-party attack and naturally caused quite a stir in the DeFi community. Nonetheless, it was a massive learning opportunity, which Compound and most of the community took in stride, as most of the funds have indeed been returned.
Leshner, for the most part, has his sights set on growing Compound even further in 2022: “Compound Labs plans to grow Compound Treasury into a primary bridge between traditional financial markets and DeFi, and release new research/products for the Compound community to use, modify and adopt.” As such, Compound will likely remain a prominent platform in the DeFi space in 2022.
USA
DeFi
University of Pennsylvania, BA in Economics
Compound
