Joseph Lubin

Born and raised in Toronto, Lubin graduated from Princeton University with a degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He worked in the Princeton Robotics Lab at Tomandandy Music developing an autonomous music composition tool and at private research firm Vision Applications Inc. building autonomous mobile robots. As a software engineer and consultant, Lubin worked with eMagine on the Identrus cryptographic payments and trade finance network project and was involved in the founding and operation of a hedge fund. He held positions as Director of the New York office of Blacksmith Software Consulting and VP of Technology in Private Wealth Management at Goldman Sachs. Through these posts, Lubin focused on the intersection of cryptography, engineering, and finance.

_{Photo credit: Zaza Weissgerber}

In early 2011 Joe read the Bitcoin whitepaper written by Satoshi Nakamoto. In that moment he had the epiphany that decentralization was a game changer. Satoshi had invented a mechanism that could enable the world to build far better alternatives to the legacy systems. Alternative structures for economic, social, and political systems that could exist on a foundation that could not be improperly manipulated. 

When he read the whitepaper by Vitalik Buterin describing the Ethereum platform, it crystallized for him all the potential with which he thought the Bitcoin whitepaper was infused with. Bitcoin taught us that we had a new paradigm that we could use to build better systems. And now with Ethereum, Vitalik showed us in some detail a scalable method for building systems that would change everything. Recognizing this potential, Joe devoted himself to nurturing Ethereum. With his background in both tech and business, Joe quickly emerged as a key strategist and took the title of Chief Operating Officer of the entity that would bring Buterin’s vision to fruition. 

The subsequent rise of blockchain, cryptocurrency, and Ethereum has been one of the most remarkable stories in tech since 2016. This then gave way to the birthing of Consensys, a hub for fostering faster adoption of Ethereum, by incubating projects and exploring the vast potential of the ecosystem.

Since 2015, through Consensys, Joe has been bringing to life the vision of building a decentralized future that will introduce new ways of interacting, innovative business models, and entirely new industries, all while directly empowering self-sovereign individuals. Since the beginning, his primary focus has been on developing an ecosystem around the platform, but more significantly, to build a new trust foundation for the planet that will serve more people more fairly, and will enable communities to have economic, social, and political agency. 

Joe’s story represents the vanguard of the web3 revolution, shaping a world where trust is decentralized, builders regain control from the intermediaries that fed off their work for centuries, and the creativity and power of finance becomes directly accessible to all. To him, this is what a decentralized future looks like.