Dan Larimer

Dan Larimer is a software programmer and entrepreneur who played a role in the creation of multiple blockchain projects including Steem, Bitshares, and EOS.

Larimer is the creator of the delegated-proof-of-stake (DPoS) consensus model, in which elected delegates validate transactions and create blocks. He is also the former chief technology officer of EOS.IO creator Block.one.

In 2013, Larimer co-founded Bitshares, a decentralized exchange integrating a technology Larimer invented, Graphene. Bitshares uses a native token, BTS, and is structured as a decentralized autonomous corporation, in which there is supposedly no central authority. The goal of this project is to become an e-commerce platform that allows merchants and customers to trade and to minimize the costs providers and consumers incur every time a service is performed. Larimer has highlighted the losses both parties incur when converting bitcoin to dollars to explain the project's aims.

In 2016, Larimer co-founded Steem, a decentralized social networking platform, which rewards content curators, publishers and user attention with STEEM tokens. Steem’s most popular app, Steemit, allows users to post blurbs and articles, and, depending on "upvotes," distributes tokens to the creators of popular content. Steemit is comparable to Twitter and Medium in design and function, but it differs as content is published to the immutable Steem blockchain and accounts receive payouts in cryptocurrency.

In 2017, along with the developers at Block.one, Larimer created EOS, a smart contract platform for building decentralized applications and facilitating decentralized storage. The blockchain, which was designed as an Ethereum competitor, aims to eliminate transaction fees while scaling to millions of transactions per second. Block.one raised $4 billion through a yearlong initial coin offering (ICO) to develop the project.

At the start of 2021, Larimer announced his departure from Block.one after almost 4 years as the company’s Chief Technology Officer.

“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.”

Prior to his work in the blockchain industry, Larimer worked on defense projects for Raytheon and Torc Robotics.