To create a vibrant decentralized network and open programmable currency—so we can all participate, build, exchange and thrive.
Every day, we give up control of intimate data to large tech companies to use online services. We give up control of our finances to banks and unaccountable credit bureaus. We give up control of our elections to voting system companies who run opaque and unauditable elections.
Even when we try to escape this power imbalance and participate in blockchains, most of us give up control and trust to third parties to verify transactions. Why? Because directly participating in a blockchain requires expensive hardware, unsustainable amounts of electricity and tons of time to sync increasingly heavier and heavier chains.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
In June of 2017, O(1) Labs kicked off an ambitious new open source project to design a layer one protocol that could deliver on the original promise of blockchain—true decentralization, scale and security. Rather than apply brute computing force, Mina offers an elegant solution using advanced cryptography and recursive zero knowledge technology.
The project has come a long way since 2017. Mina is now stewarded by the Mina Foundation, growing its community and ecosystem worldwide. Several testnets have been conducted, and the network has launched successfully on mainnet as of March 2021. Here, developers build powerful zkApps, or decentralized apps based on zero knowledge, so their users can take advantage of dapps without compromising their privacy or security.
While there are still many challenges, Mina is the first project leveraging recursive zero knowledge proofs to enable the world’s lightest, most accessible blockchain.
Here’s to a more efficient, elegant and fair future – for all of us.
“What attracted me was a small, scalable blockchain that's still independently verifiable on small nodes.”
Mina Protocol Backer, O(1) Labs Investor
The Mina network enables an uncapped4 number of block producers via proof-of-stake consensus. A uniquely decentralized blockchain, Mina gets even more secure and resilient as it grows.
BLOCK PRODUCERS
SNARK PRODUCERS
Mina is growing and improving due to the hard work and contributions by ecosystem partners. Here are some of the teams that are part of Mina’s ecosystem.
With Mina’s uniquely light blockchain, you don’t have to have expensive hardware, or wait days for the blockchain to sync, or use a ton of computing power to stake and participate in consensus.
Mina Foundation Board of Directors
Jill has worked with the IMF and is an advisor to cryptocurrency and blockchain-based ventures. Previously, Jill ran strategy at blockchain start up Chain, where she managed initiatives with Nasdaq and State Street. Jill has conducted academic research on cryptocurrency at the University of Oxford, where she focused on the economic and political implications of bitcoin. Jill began her career as a credit trader at Goldman Sachs. She holds a MSc from Magdalen College, Oxford, and an AB from Harvard, where she studied Classics.
Prior to joining O(1) Labs, Joon Kim served as the general counsel of Terra, which is a blockchain technology company focused on algorithmic stablecoins with primary operations in Asia. Before that, he was Vice President and Associate General Counsel at Lightyear Capital, a private equity firm based in New York City. He also served as Assistant General Counsel and Vice President at Goldman Sachs for three years, advising its asset management division. He started his career at international law firms, including Kirkland & Ellis LLP. He attended Cornell Law School and New York University. He is admitted to practice law in the state of New York.
Mina is an inclusive open source protocol uniting teams and technicians from San Francisco and around the world.
Joseph is an assistant professor at NYU. His research has spanned a variety of topics in cryptography and security including HTTPS and web security, passwords and authentication, cryptocurrencies, end-to-end encrypted communication tools, and side-channel cryptanalysis. He is co-author of the popular textbook "Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies" and co-taught the first MOOC on cryptocurrencies. He holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge and BS and MS degrees in computer science and cryptography from Stanford University.
Paul Davison co-founded Clubhouse, an audio-based social media app where users can join in or listen to people across unlabeled chat rooms. He also co-founded and served as CEO of CoinList - the leading platform for high quality, compliant token sales and airdrops. Prior to CoinList, Paul was the Founder/CEO of Highlight (acquired by Pinterest), an EIR at Benchmark Capital, and a VP at Metaweb (acquired by Google). He holds a BS from Stanford University and an MBA from Stanford Business School.
Before joining the Mina Foundation, he was with the Diem Association (formerly Libra) He was part of the early team serving initially as Head of Business Development, he later transitioned to run HR and Internal Business Operations. Prior to that, Kurt was an early employee at Zong, a mobile payments company that was acquired by PayPal in 2011 where he then served as a Senior Director leading several significant global initiatives with mobile network carriers. Kurt holds a Master’s in Computer Science from the Stevens Institute of Technology and a BS in Computer Science from Bucknell University.
Nathan is a passionate, self-taught programmer who loves programming languages and paradigms and using high-level abstractions to create high-performance systems. Some of his favorite projects have been developing an array programming languages that targeted GPUs, an Elixir DSL for service buses, a MySql binary log deserializer, and a VR-based window manager on Linux. Most recently, Nathan was building a unique educational program to teach people how to program from the ground up using simplified programming languages and a simple virtual machine.
Claire's career has focused on using technology to reimagine financial services and building community to increase engagement and opportunities for individuals. Prior to joining the team at O(1) Labs, she was at Ripple, where she led a number of strategic projects and served as the main liaison to the XRP community. Prior to that, Claire was an early employee at SoFi, were she was involved in the day-to-day operations across all functions of the marketing team during four years of hyper growth, including leading their member engagement strategy. Earlier in her career, she designed and mplemented a community-based micro grant program in rural India that has sponsored 300+ women to attend university. Originally from rural Pennsylvania, Claire graduated with distinction from Dartmouth College (A.B.) and holds an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin.
Brandon Kase loves functional programming. He was first introduced to it while pursuing his BS in computer science at Carnegie Mellon. He has worked as a software engineer for Highlight (acquired by Pinterest), Pinterest, Facebook, and Mozilla. Brandon is excited about the safety and clarity strong statically typed functional programming techniques can bring to the software industry. He also enjoys proselytizing, so you may find him speaking at a conference near you.
Akis is a PhD candidate in Computer Science at NYU's Courant Institute, where he is advised by Professors Joseph Bonneau and Yevgenyi Dodis. His research revolves around cryptography, privacy, and security, currently focusing on the privacy and scalability issues affecting cryptocurrencies. He also works on differential privacy and its applications to distributed systems and private learning. Akis holds an MSc in theoretical computer science from the University of Toronto and a BSE from Princeton University.
Deepthi is a functional programming enthusiast and software engineer. In her recently completed master's work, Deepthi designed GitQL, a novel embedded DSL for querying textual changes in software repositories. Her interests span programming languages and program analysis. Deepthi holds an MS in computer science from Oregon State University and a BE from Visvesvaraya Technological University.
Sherry is a marketing and communications professional who enjoys telling stories that resonate. Her previous experiences have been in the hardware (semiconductor) space, but she is really interested in how blockchain can solve problems by disrupting the status quo. She is excited to work on developing blockchain technology that will open up more opportunities to more people. Sherry holds a BA in Communications/International Studies from Northwestern University.
Gillian is excited about joining Mina Foundation and being part of the team to create a secure, democratic future through zero-knowledge technology. Prior to joining Mina, she worked for Baker McKenzie New York Transactional Group where she provided general corporate counseling and corporate governance advice. Gillian graduated from University of California, Berkeley with a master's degree in Business Law.
Zaki Manian wears many hats in the blockspace. Zaki is an active contributor to Cosmos and related protocols. He was a founding team member at Cosmos, and is an expert in cryptography and distributed systems. Zaki is excited about extending access and availability of secure computing to as many people as possible. Zaki has been active in the blockchain space since 2013.
Brian McKenna is passionate about building products that allow people to self-organize and take back control and trust over their digital lives. Brian holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science and spent over a decade in fintech, specializing in trading systems. More recently, he spent four years working in the blockchain industry with IOHK.
Izaak Meckler is a mathematician and computer scientist. Most recently, he was a PhD student studying cryptography at UC Berkeley. Prior to that, he worked as a software engineer at trading firm Jane Street, and has contributed to numerous open source projects including the Elm compiler.
Martin is an avid programming and technology enthusiest. He started with O(1) Labs as an intern and has since been focused on making applications that help enable Mina to grow and develop. Martin enjoys working with new technologies and learning as much as he can about the ever growing blockchain industry.
Having being involved in the blockchain sector for 5 years hands on, I imagine no other area or industry to work in. The online movement by projects and individuals only continues to grow. I found Mina and the team to be the most appealing, constructive and positive. Helping towards the growth and education of zk-SNARKS within the MINA ecosystem and beyond.
Crystal Pham graduated from UC Davis with a degree in Psychology and a minor in English. Crystal started her career as a paralegal and volunteered with local community organizations. She is excited to see Mina Foundation grow and is proud to be a part of its growth.
Aneesha's career in software engineering has spanned a wide range of technology companies from biotech startup to big enterprise. She has an MSE in computer engineering from the University of Michigan and most recently came from an identity company as an Engineering Manager. Her primary background is in QA, so believes in delivering high quality, scalable and maintainable software. She loves team building and working with individuals to achieve their goals.
Vanishree is a theoretical and applied cryptographer with deep experience in industry and academia. She earned her PhD at UCLA through her work on zk-proofs, multiparty computation, hashing, and pseudorandom functions, among other projects. She then worked in industry at Xerox PARC and Intertrust Technologies. Vanishree enjoys developing cryptographic solutions for real-world challenges and communicating intuitive explanations of complex cryptography concepts.
I’m fortunate to have had the opportunity to work in a variety of fields and in different countries and cultures. Throughout these experiences I have always found myself gravitating towards areas where I can work with many kinds of people to accomplish ambitious goals. Discovering the online world of open-source software, cryptocurrency and blockchain was like arriving on a new planet for me. So alien, and yet so fundamentally the same. With having such a great number of facets to explore and experiment with I think this will keep me busy for a long time to come!
Andrea graduated from the University of Florida with a Master in International Business and a BS in Marketing and minor in Innovation. She then went on to work as marketing manager for a technology-based golf venue, Topgolf. During her time at Topgolf she began to grow an interest in blockchain technologies as she helped her family grow their crypto mining project based in her hometown, Caracas, Venezuela. Now Andrea looks forward to making meaningful contributions in the blockchain era by being part of the O(1) Labs team, especially in regards to web privacy.
Nacera has had a career spanning startups, medium sized companies, and corporations. After earning her BS and MS from IAE in Lille, France, Nacera moved to San Francisco. Over the next decade, she worked with Bleacher Report (through growth from 10 to 60 employees and an acquisition by Turner), Mokum Solutions, Sephora, Venture Beat, AMSI, Oracle, and a software sales business which she helped start up and scale.
Matthew Ryan is a self-taught programmer with a strong interest in computer-aided theorem proving, formal program verification, and functional programming. He has been involved with several open-source projects, and passionately believes in the open-source philosophy. He has a BSc in Mathematics from the University of Warwick, U.K., where he studied cryptography.
Amit Sahai is a Professor of Computer Science at UCLA, Fellow of the ACM, and Fellow of the IACR. His research interests are in security, cryptography, and theoretical computer science. He is the co-inventor of Attribute-Based Encryption, Functional Encryption, Indistinguishability Obfuscation, author of over 100 technical research papers, and invited speaker at institutions such as MIT, Stanford, and Berkeley. He has also received honors from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Okawa Foundation, Xerox Foundation, Google Research, the BSF, and the ACM. He earned his PhD in Computer Science from MIT and served on the faculty at Princeton before joining UCLA in 2004.
Joseph loves cryptography, decentralized systems and security. Most recently, he was a principal software engineer at Akamai developing Secure Web Gateway technology. Prior to that, he developed a MITM https proxy for Bloxx Ltd and studied for a PhD in Computer Science at the University of Edinburgh, specializing in decentralized P2P systems. He also contributed as a research assistant at the File Systems and Storage Lab, SUNY Stonybrook and holds a BS in Computer Science from NYU Tandon School of Engineering.
Paul is a functional programmer and researcher. In the academic realm, he's followed his interest in PLs, type systems, and formal verification through collaborations with INRIA, the MIT PLV Group, and NICTA. He also worked on the initial implementation of Alacris, a cryptocurrency solution layered on top of existing blockchains. He holds a PhD in computer science from Northeastern University.
Jiawei loves writing interpreters and type checkers. He received his BS in computer science from Indiana University, and he's fascinated by categorical semantics and dependent type theory. Currently, he is implementing a toy dependently typed language called Pie.
Emre's career has focused on bringing new economic opportunities to societies using the power of technology. Before O(1) Labs, he spent two years at Coinbase's Business Development team where he led a number of strategic programs during a period when the company grew 10x. Before Coinbase, Emre was a Product Manager at Intel's wearable devices group. Originally from Istanbul, Turkey, Emre has an MBA degree from Columbia University.
Andrew is a blockchain enthusiast and technologist that has been working for crypto startups since 2016 when he received a BA in Computer Science from Boston University. Since joining O(1) Labs he has been focused on making Mina networks easier to deploy, test, and scale so that we can fulfill the promise of the world's lightest blockchain.
Ben’s career has spanned finance, technology, and strategy. Prior to O(1) Labs, he spent four years working as a management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) where he focused on corporate strategy for the world’s largest financial institutions. During his time at grad school, Ben worked at Kraken Digital Asset Exchange in the Strategy team. Originally from Sydney, Australia, Ben has an MBA degree from Stanford University, and an MPA degree from Harvard University.
Christine is an early contributor in the community with broad experience in multidisciplinary engineering teams. She previously worked for global firms in the US, The Netherlands, Czech Republic, and Hong Kong. She believes that we can take more ownership of our lives than ever before by using blockchain technology. She supports the community and Mina by combining their efforts in achieving a decentralized future.
Luke is the founder and CEO of Blockscale, an early pioneer of blockchain and crypto technologies. In 2018, he helped launch the Tezos network by creating the staking infrastructure for the Tezos Foundation, becoming the largest decentralized proof of stake validator in the world overnight. Since then, Blockscale has successfully generated over 20 million XTZ in baking rewards and operates highly available API endpoints for Tezos that are used by major wallet providers. Luke currently works as a staff software engineer at Coinbase Custody, where he launched Tezos Staking Rewards.
Supporting the Mina Protocol
We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished with our community so far — and look forward to tackling challenges and building more with a whole new generation of participants.
From its protocol architecture and roles framework to its incentive structure and monetary policy, Mina is designed to maximize network scalability and security.
Economics Whitepaper
