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Dan Larimer Announces Departure From EOS Builder Block.One

Dan Larimer has left Block.one, the company that raised $4 billion to build the software behind the EOS blockchain.

Updated May 9, 2023, 3:14 a.m. Published Jan 10, 2021, 2:33 p.m.

Dan Larimer speaks at the Voice launch event in Washington, D.C., June 2019.

Serial blockchain entrepreneur Dan Larimer has left Block.one, the company that raised $4 billion to build the software behind the EOS blockchain.

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Larimer, who co-founded the company and had served as its chief technical officer since April 2017, announced the movehttps://www.voice.com/post/@dan/resignation-as-cto-of-blockone-1610285996-1071500676 on Block.one social network Voice.com on Sunday:

"I will continue on my mission to create free market, voluntary solutions for securing life, liberty, property and justice for all. I do not know exactly what is next, but I am leaning toward building more censorship-resistant technologies."

Larimer said he left Block.one as of Dec. 31, 2020. The Virgnia-based technologist announced his boycott of Twitter yesterdayhttps://www.voice.com/post/@dan/im-boycotting-twitter-1610161863-636, saying its "censorship has gotten out of control," likely a reference to the company's banning of U.S. President Donald Trump the previous day. He also hit out at Apple for its threatened, and since carried out, ban of conservative social media service Parler.

"Voice has a huge battle ahead and will need to adapt if it wants to escape the same kind of coerced censorship of its users," he wrote. "We can no longer rely on these services. Voice is not immune from this censorship pressure. We are entering dark times."

Block.one confirmed the departure, saying Larimer "left to pursue new personal projects."

"I'm not alone in being grateful for the contributions Dan has made to date, and I look forward to seeing what he will do next," Block.one CEO Brendan Blumer said in a statement.

Larimer founded BitShares alongside Charles Hoskinson (a co-founder of Ethereum) in 2013. Larimer later founded the Steem blockchain in 2016.

In 2018, Block.one raised over $4 billion in the largest initial coin offering (ICO) in history. As a result, the firm is sitting on a massive reserve of bitcoin. CEO Brendan Blumer recently announced on Twitter, "we have accumulated well beyond our previously announced 140,000 #BTC position."

The price of EOS fell on the news of Larimer's departure, dropping to as low as $2.93, before recovering slightly to $3.03, down 15.1% over the last 24 hours.

UPDATE (Jan. 10, 15:33 UTC): Adds Block.one response, background, EOS activity.
UPDATE (Jan. 10, 17:43 UTC): Updates drop in the price of EOS.

Steem EOS Dan Larimer Block.one Voice Parler

Zack Seward

Zack Seward is CoinDesk’s contributing editor-at-large. Up until July 2022, he served as CoinDesk’s deputy editor-in-chief. Prior to joining CoinDesk in November 2018, he was the editor-in-chief of Technical.ly, a news site focused on local tech communities on the U.S. East Coast. Before that, Seward worked as a reporter covering business and technology for a pair of NPR member stations, WHYY in Philadelphia and WXXI in Rochester, New York. Seward originally hails from San Francisco and went to college at the University of Chicago. He worked at the PBS NewsHour in Washington, D.C., before attending Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism.