• John's work
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    John's work

    Summary

    John is a research engineer, founder and engineering manager.

    John Whiton has been passionate about software and technology since high school. He graduated from the University of Queensland in Computer Science and travelled globally leading the design and development of many Service Oriented Architectures. He has built private permissioned blockchains on Ethereum and Hypersphere Fabric, grew the ecosystem for a public blockchain at Harmony. He has worked extensively with decentralized financial protocols, bringing a unique perspective by combining his extensive corporate experience with IBM, SAP, Deloitte and KPMG with the disruptive financial models being developed on blockchain. He recently has been designing and prototyping multiple defi and layer1 protocols and consulting as a research engineer on Trustless Bridging incorporating knowledge of DeFi, Cryptographic Primitives, Consensus Layer and Zero Knowledge Proofs.

    John has over 20 years of experience. An early entrepreneur, he founded his own consultancy firm which he grew to $800k in revenues and ran from 2000-2009. One of his former clients, EFI ($1.6 billion market cap) brought him on as a Manager in Enterprise Systems Architecture where he remained for 6 years. The next stage of John’s career brought him to Blockchain where he was CTO for Loyyal (BaaS company) and an Ecosystem Architect at Harmony. At Harmony, John helped launch the Mainnet while also being intimately involved with hiring decisions and business strategy.

    Since April 2020, John has worked as a founder providing strategy, research, design and building out DeFi infrastructure including trustless bridging, web3 identity and wallets, Parachains and Trading Protocols on Polkadot and Solidity Based DeFi applications.

    Achievements

    Founder

    Founded an enterpriser consultancy firm which he grew to $800k in revenues and ran from 2000-2009.

    Founded and co-founded multiple crypto startups, writing whitepapers, reviewing legal infrastructure, fundraising and securing seed funding comittments. Although startups had good designs and team and obtained funding commitments the projects did not move forward due to a combination of team commitment, market fit and crypto market conditions.

    Building Great Technical Teams

    Grew Harmony from 6 to 20 Engineers, managing 7 engineers at LOYYAL and founding an enterprise consulting startup onboarding a team of 5.

    Successful Product Launches

    5 blockchain launches and multiple ecosystem releases, Gama Space Station NFT Launch, dot-country web3 identity and web2 backend launch.

    Research and Engineering

    Have written multiple DeFi whitepapers, researched Layer 1 consenusus and zero knowledge proof and built Layer 1 protocols, Non-custodial wallets, Web3 identity and wallet infrastructure. Developed NFT contracts for gaming character token sales.

    Projects

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

    Founder / Research Engineer

    johnwhitton: July 2018 - Present, Silicon Valley

    • isolab.gg: Trustless Bridge Research using Zero Knowledge Proofs including cryptographic primitives, consensus layer and zero knowledge implementations.
    • hiddenstate.xyz: dot-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)
    • 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

    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

    • 1ns (dot-country): dot-copuntry design and deployment overview.
    • Draft EAVE Whitepaper (2021): a multi-chain web3 engine (Trading, DeFi, Liquidity and NFTs)
    • EAVE Parachain Design (2021): A Dedicated DeFi Polkadot Parachain
    • KANGA Whitepaper(2021): a DeFi Trading and Yield Engine]
    • projectX (2018): layer one blockchain protocol

    Codebases

    • dot-country: implementation inspired by ENS and enhanced to integrate web2 DNS server and SMTP routing.
    • 1wallet: non-custodial crypto wallet
    • NFT Contracts: Smart Contracts for Gama Space Station
    • Cross chain bridge: Horizon trustless Bridge (not the one that got hacked)
    • Core Protocol: EAVE Network (a polkadot parachain) Rust, Substrate, ORML, TypeScript,Flutter
    • Decentralized Finance: Kanga Finance: Solidity, Javascript, React
    • Solidity Development: Smart Contract Development Framework using hardhat and typescript.
    • API Framework: emasset: golang, dart, protobuf
    • Layer One Protocol Research: jincubator: layer one portocol comparison

    Websites and Applications

    • 1.country: Web3 Identity integrated with web 2 DNS services
    • 1wallet.crazy.one: Non custodial crypto wallet
    • Decentralized Finance: KANGA App on Harmony Testnet
    • Website: KANGA website
    • Website: EAVE website

    Presentations and Videos

    • Defi Presentation: KANGA Web3 Engine
    • Defi Video: Kanga Demo for Harmony Hackathon
    • Core Protocol Presentation: EAVE DeFi Polkadot Parachain
    • Defi Presentation: WASDEX: Digital Exchange
    • Defi Investor Fact Sheet: WASDEX: Investor Fact Sheet
    • Ecosystem article: Devcon5 lessons learned
    • Defi Demo Video: KANGA Demo
    • Defi Demo Vido: EAVE Mobile Demo
    • Core Protocol Video: EAVE Overview
    • Leadership Video: Harmony Engineers on fire
    • Defi Investor Video: WASDEX: World Asset and Securities Digital Exchange

    Additional Information

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