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One-page resume can be downloaded here and viewed at the bottom of this page

Professional Summary

  • Research/engineer, technical leader, and entrepreneur working at the intersection of blockchain infrastructure (Solving, Market Making, Arbitrage) and Decentralized protocols (Intents, Liquidity Management, Settlement).
  • Track record of driving projects from conception to completion, identifying research gaps, and providing solutions.
  • Proven leader of engineering teams with the ability to drive collaboration across the organization and the entire ecosystem.

Achievements

Research and Engineering

  • Designing and Building an Intent Based, Liquidity Management and Settlement Platform jincubator
  • Researching, designing and building a protocol for stablecoins on a dedicated L3 roll-up at eco (docs, eco-routes codebase)
  • Wrote multiple DeFi whitepapers (see here)
  • Researched consensus, bridging, cryptographic primitives and zero knowledge proofs.
  • Built Layer 1 platforms, DeFi protocols, non-custodial wallets, web3 identity, wallet infrastructure and NFT contracts for gaming character token sales.

Building Great Technical Teams

  • Lead a team of 8 Engineers at ECO
  • Grew Harmony from 6 to 20 Engineers
  • Managed 7 engineers at LOYYAL
  • Founded an enterprise consulting startup onboarding a team of 5.

Successful Product Launches

Founder

  • Founded an enterprise consultancy firm which I grew to $800k in annual revenue and ran from 2000-2009.
  • Lead research, legal framework for incorporation, compliance and fundraising efforts for multiple blockchain protocols.

Projects / Work History

Below are links to projects I have designed and built or contributed to.

Founder / Research Engineer

johnwhitton: July 2018 - Present, Silicon Valley

  • jincubator.com: Solving, Arbitrage and Indexing (Tycho), Intents (ERC-7683,EIP-712), DEX(Uniswap V4 Hooks), UHI5 Atrium Academy.
  • isolab.gg: Trustless Bridge Research using Zero Knowledge Proofs including cryptographic primitives, consensus layer and zero knowledge implementations. See the
  • hiddenstate.xyz: 1.country implementation inspired by ENS and enhanced to integrate web2 DNS server and SMTP routing.
  • modulo: 1-wallet and sms-wallet: non-custodial crypto wallet and lightweight crypto sms wallet.
  • kanga.finance: Dex implementation inspired by Sushi and proof of concept integration with one-wallet. (github). Winner of $30,000 in prizes from Harmony Hackathon.
  • eave.network: Polkadot DeFi Parachain (github) inspired by Acala and launched on the Rococo Network.
  • em∆sset (github):
    • Designed StableCoin Payment Platform integrating with banking systems
    • Defi Research: Uniswap, Polkadot, Curve, Balancer, Coinbase Rosettanet
    • Built gRPC API Layer: proto, golang, grpc-gateway, openapi, MongoDB
    • Mobile App: Flutter, Dart integrating with gRPC Services
  • WASDEX: designed a decentralized regulated platform for digital securities
  • Shell protocol: developed initial prototype of the COWRI protocol, a stable coin, meta layer which leveraged the 0x Protocol and became Shell Protocol.
  • Project X: wrote white paper for a layer 1 blockchain platform
  • Pocketh - wrote design document for a mobile payment platform for restaurants using stable coins and collateralization.
  • Jincubator: researched layer 1 platforms including polkadot, cosmos, stellar and ethereum

Work History

Below are the organizations I have been fortunate enough to work for.

Engineering Manager - Senior Protocol Engineer

Eco: Aug 2023 - Jan 2025, Silicon Valley

A protocol for stablecoins on a dedicated roll-up using intents and account abstraction

  • Lead a team of 8 engineers up until August 2024
  • Senior Protocol Engineer from April 2024 to present
  • L3 roll-up design and implementation of the ECO chain, read the docs
  • Developing Intent Protocol and cross-chain proving mechanisms, see the open sourced version of the code at Cross-L2-Actions
  • Manage development of bend.eco - fast cheap stable coin payments
  • Lead the Eco Association - Currency 1.5 upgrade

Ecosystem Architect

Harmony: August 2019 - May 2020, Silicon Valley

Layer 1 Proof of Stake, Sharded Blockchain Protocol

  • Hired and Mentored over 10 Engineers growing the team from 6 to 20
  • Launched Mainnet ONE, Token Swap and Open Staking
  • Owned Developer Tooling including API, SDK, HRC and IDEs
  • Deployed Network Upgrades including over 50 rollouts of complete Harmony Protocol and Network
  • Presented Internationally at Technical Conferences
  • Responsible for Partner Success and Developer Advocacy

Chief Technology Officer

loyyal: July 2016 - Jun 2018, New York

Loyalty Platform leveraging tokenization of points using blockchain

  • Hired and mentored a team of 7 engineers
  • Launched LOYYAL program management suite on HYPERLEDGER
  • Built Dubai Points the first loyalty mobile application built on blockchain
  • Deployed and maintained a private ethereum network
  • Owned partner success with IBM, Deloitte, Emirates Airlines, CIBC Bank

Founder, Engineering Manager, Architect, Developer

Enterprise Software and Consulting: July 1986 - Jun 2016, Global

Enterprise Software and Integration Platforms

  • Managed over 100 initiatives and 50 staff at EFI
  • Built EFI Business Integration Services an SOA platform integrating SAP, Salesforce, FLEXERA and external partners including CANON and Fedex
  • Founded Global Enterprise Solutions a niche SAP technical consultancy and hired and mentored a team of 5
  • Lead Autodesk Subscription Program integration - integrating SAP, TIBCO, SEEBEYOND, registration systems and CRM systems
  • Developed Enterprise Software for the Mining Industry

Whitepapers and Design Documents

Codebases

Websites and Applications

Presentations and Videos

Education

Bachelor of Science, The University of Queensland (1984-1987)

Additional Information

  • Gitcoin: John on Gitcoin
  • Hackathons: Kanga Harmony Hackathon Proposals
    • Awards: Kanga winning multiple awards in Harmony Hackathon
  • Proposal: Kanga Launch Proposal