Joseph Lubin is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

-American

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

. He has founded and co-founded several companies including the Swiss-based EthSuisse, contributing heavily to

Ethereum Ethereum is a decentralized, open-source blockchain with smart contract functionality. Ether (Abbreviation: ETH; sign: Ξ) is the native cryptocurrency of the platform. Among cryptocurrencies, ether is second only to bitcoin in market capita ...

, the

decentralized Decentralization or decentralisation is the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those regarding planning and decision making, are distributed or delegated away from a central, authoritative location or group. Conce ...

cryptocurrency A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. It i ...

platform. Lubin is founder of

ConsenSys ConsenSys is a blockchain software technology company founded by Joseph Lubin and based in New York City. History Joseph Lubin founded ConsenSys in early 2015 as a software foundry to develop decentralized software services and applications ...

, a

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

-based software-production studio. In February 2018,

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

estimated Lubin's net worth in cryptocurrency to be between one and five billion dollars.

Career

In early 2014, Lubin was a co-founder of

and served as

chief operating officer A chief operating officer or chief operations officer, also called a COO, is one of the highest-ranking executive positions in an organization, composing part of the "C-suite". The COO is usually the second-in-command at the firm, especially if t ...

of Ethereum Switzerland GmbH (''EthSuisse''), a company working to extend the capabilities of the type of blockchain technology first popularized by

Bitcoin Bitcoin ( abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is a decentralized digital currency that can be transferred on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network. Bitcoin transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distr ...

, and extend the capabilities of the blockchain to store programs in addition to

data In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted ...

, as well as facilitate, verify, or enforce the negotiation or performance of

smart contract A smart contract is a computer program or a transaction protocol that is intended to automatically execute, control or document events and actions according to the terms of a contract or an agreement. The objectives of smart contracts are the re ...

s.
The new generation of distributed crypto-secure databases with smart contract functionality has been referred to as " Blockchain 2.0" Lubin was also involved in the creation of the Ethereum Foundation. He subsequently founded

in 2015 which is a decentralized blockchain production studio. It develops software mainly for the Ethereum blockchain system. It also provides decentralized software services to companies. They also do enterprise and government consulting. Lubin has been personally involved in cross-industry groups attempting to advance solutions to governance issues in the blockchain industry. Lubin graduated from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

with a degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and worked with

Goldman Sachs Goldman Sachs () is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered at 200 West Street in Lower Manhattan, with regional headquarters in London, Warsaw, Bangalore, H ...

. Lubin's roommate at Princeton was

Michael Novogratz Michael Edward Novogratz (born November 26, 1964) is an American investor, formerly of the investment firm Fortress Investment Group. He is currently CEO of Galaxy Investment Partners which focuses on investments in cryptocurrency. Early life R ...

References

Canadian emigrants to the United States Living people Princeton University alumni People from Toronto American technology executives People associated with cryptocurrency People associated with Ethereum Canadian billionaires 1964 births {{US-business-bio-1960s-stub