Who is Dan Larimer in this blockchain era? Even with the meteoric rise in new tokens and ICOs each day he is a maestro.
Every industry has its masters. So, does the blockchain industry. One thing you may ignore is the masters wield a lot of influence wherever they come up with any whiff of information. So, to know all about Dan`s effect, stick around.
Have you heard of the ‘Ethereum Killer’? Oh! The Ethereum killer is EOS. And do you know who created it? Daniel Larimer. Daniel is a top executive in the blockchain industry and has shifted through projects he has created.
Dan Larimer is a developer and has taken part in previous projects. The previous projects he has served are still on. He is currently on the latest trending project – EOS. For this reason, his influence and power in the blockchain industry are unrivaled.
His contribution in the crypto verse has reaped him massive returns besides the influence.
Now, let me give you who is Dan Larimer in the blockchain world. What has he attained and how he managed to be accomplished.
Who is Daniel Larimer: Bio
You have by chance encountered EOS, Bitshares online. And then some of the content you have read has probably come from Steemit. But do you know the one who has seen them from start to the heights they have achieved? These among other projects have been created by Dan Larimer. And like I said, you have likely used his products.
Every token and project you have heard of has its owner. Of great importance is the role played by Dan.
Dan is a software programmer. He is founded BitShares in 2014, Steemit in 2016, and EOS token and its blockchain. Additionally, EOS is owned by block.one in which Dan serves as CTO. Dan is also the CEO of Cryptonomex, Inc, a company they founded with the father. Now, this shows how immense and active Dan Larimer is in the blockchain industry.
Besides being a developer, Dan is also a contributor in blockchain conferences. He has offered knowledge to others. I could call this a very good form of social responsibility.
Dan operates on a progressive philosophy rather than a conservative one. His projects are based on this mantra. This philosophy goes on to incite his dislike for the government as a centralized unit.
In his high-ranking profile, there must exist contentions and accords sprouting from his life growing up. Let us now look at Dan` youth and background. It must have contributed to what he is today.
Background of Larimer` Youth
Dan is an American. He was born in Colorado. But he was privileged to grow up in 2 states: Virginia and Florida.
As a growing child, Dan was exposed to computers at such a tender age. He would further toy with computers. With curiosity comes freedom of exploration. And with freedom comes the creation of things. This is how Dan moved to know his way with computers.
In Virginia, he attended Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. And he later on in 2003 graduated with an undergraduate in Computer Science. Within the same breadth, he learnt about economics. And economics got him into volunteerism and sparked the synergy in anti-state control.
Even with knowing about computers another skill in needed to become a software engineer – programming. So, where did Dan get his coding skills? How fortunate to have a mentor programmer for a dad. Dan`s programming skills were learned from Stan Larimer, his dad while in elementary school.
Another skillset for you to be something in any corporate world is entrepreneurship. Dan became a serial entrepreneur from his youth. And that entrepreneurial mindset set him up to do great things now.
So, after college, he created something with friends. He partnered with friends and launched a virtual reality company. Albeit making money every year, they closed the company after five years. And then they went on to do other things.
Dan` First Blockchain Discovery
Dan being an active software programmer made him predisposed to knowing blockchain and crypto easily.
Dan`s quest for something to do led him to realize state control in money matters. Remember Dan learning about economics. This chapter in his life proved useful in identifying the state control in money matters.
Money was and still is the reason for the huge government power. Since the use of money is voluntary, the initial idea was to embrace the use of silver or gold. However, this was not accepted by the government.
The opposing nature of the government against other forms of currency drove Dan to seek for other currencies. Promoted by his anti-state personality he researched for other currencies against state-controlled and property related fiat money.
The result was a stumble upon Bitcoin in 2009. The discovery of Bitcoin was as a result of ‘decentralised currency’ online search. The result was Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym for the Bitcoin developer.
It is alleged that Dan soon after the online search result began communicating with Satoshi. The chat between the two inspired Dan to learn more about blockchain.
In the same time of doing research on blockchain, he attempted to create a digital currency. With the discovery of Bitcoin as his arsenal, Dan became an instant promoter of Bitcoin. And this encounter endeared him to the crypto verse.
Dan`s Blockchain Career
The pursuit of truth about everything – Dan Larimer
The quote is a pillar of Dan`s career. In Ron Paul presidential campaigns Dan was stimulated to be curious about how the world works. On the same note, Dan became a libertarian having a passion informing his unique fusion of innovation, politics, economics and the common good.
All his innovations are geared towards limiting government control. Admittedly, he shares that he believes in voluntary associations. The idea is to move from a contract society where you are forced to do things. To him, contracts are government forced. And that raises the costs and misery in transactions.
So, Dan wants business to be about reputation and not coercion. This thought bases its argument on the Golden rule.
Do unto others as you want them to do unto you – Golden Rule
Another principle that guides his way in limiting government control. You may think that Dan is an economist. But that is not the case as his way up was to learn how the world works. And in so doing he now knows about economics. Hence, identifying 3 key elements of demand.
Life, liberty, and property are the key elements of demand that guide his projects in the quest to improve the standard of living.
Let us look into another part of Dan life that has informed his choices and decisions. And that is family life.
Family Life and Affairs of Dan
Before you see Dan`s direct effect and efforts in the blockchain field, the family also mattered to him. At least that is what we know after his bad experience with divorce. And it laid down how Dan reasons.
Around the same time, he was first hooked to Bitcoin, Dan was engaged in a marriage tussle. What a painful event to him? He was going through a divorce due to his thoughts about how the world works. Specific of interest was his rejection of old Christian beliefs. The result was a conflict.
Though the divorce disturbed him, he picked useful lessons. Surprisingly, his method of voluntary conflict resolution to divide property and settle child custody and support was in vain.
Though somewhat achieving what he wanted, he realized the government owns our property even kids. That parents having no say in custody of their children infuriated him. In the arrangement, Dan would pay huge spouse and child support and the wife would live within 30 minutes.
The arrangement did not please his ex-wife. So, she challenged the outcome in the courts. How hypocritic for her to do that? Yet she values Christian beliefs – beliefs Dan questions. From the court outcome, Dan realized how biased the process was as he had to follow the court`s orders.
Also punitive in Dan`s imagination, his salary was predetermined by the court not considering his desire to switch careers. He was forced to live with his parents due to the former wife taking over half of his pay. This was humiliating for Dan. Though, bankrupt and broke from legal expenses spanning 2 years Dan did not despair in his quest for the common good.
He still went further with his blockchain interests. And that’s what we see today in as BitShares and EOS.
Dan`s Blockchain Energy and Projects
The events in his younger ages hammered him into shape. As a result, his prolific nature has established him to be a creator.
The experience Dan has is sourced from the roles he has played in different sectors. Dan served as software developer intern for SAIC. Then went on to become a research assistant at Virginia Tech. After college, he became the CEO at Open Tech demonstrating managerial skills.
Dan`s software skills were enhanced when he was tasked as a software engineer at Raytheon, TORC Robotics, Park Intuit, and Phoenix Integration.
The fusion of entrepreneurial and programming skills is exhibited in the starting and growth of Bitshares, Steemit, and EOS. He has also managed to be if not chief executive then chief technologist of Invictus innovations, Cryptonomex and BlockOne. These are companies that he started.
BitShares
After his divorce, Dan had renewed commitment to blockchain. In the same period of meditation from divorce, Bitcoin grappled with government closure or exchanges and their bank accounts. The thought of this technology`s death made Dan unsettled and made him create an alternative to exchanges.
So, he came up with the Graphene framework. The framework is the basis of Bitshares. The framework has hence then been used to create his other projects.
BitShares, a decentralized exchange is his first blockchain platform built in 2014. He proceeded to invent the Delegated Proof of Stake. This system delivered the fastest and most decentralized blockchain of 10-second blocks then.
Within this project, Dan has seen growth from the first version of BitShares to the current one. Particular improvements have been to scalability and performance. Markedly, their software boasted of 100, 000 transactions per second.
In 2015, Cryptonomex was started by Bitshares developers. Additionally, later in the year the company licensed Graphene and upgraded BitShares blockchain to version 2.0.
Though, with a lot of potential BitShares` price did not reflect to support its developers. Therefore, the investors preferred stabilization of the business over taking new employees.
As you read this piece, BitShares is self-sustaining and whoever wants to be a developer is elected by shareholders. At this instant, Bitshares is among the top exchanges.
Steem and Steemit
Another sector that Dan Larimer exploited is social media. In 2016, Dan and his friend Ned Scott teamed up to create Steem and Steemit on concepts of mutual aiding the society. Yet again, Graphene was the basis of this project.
They agreed Dan be the CTO while Ned became the CEO. They built a working blockchain and website within a few months. In effect, Steem token was mined using the proof-of-work system.
It did not attract people at first. Therefore, Steemit mined 80% of Steem. Facing a challenge of costly transaction costs, Steemit gave new user $5 in Steem for reading, voting, and posting.
Now, with the introduction of rate-limited transactions, Steem transactions do not cost any fee. The improvement limits bandwidth instead of asking for a fee.
Steemit was criticised of being unsustainable. The premise bases its argument on Steemit having less than 50% of Steem within 6 months due to inflation. But Steemit has maintained a minority stake giving it the ability to pay its developers.
Amidst Dan`s desire to build a general purpose digital contract blockchain outside Steemit made him quit together with his friend Ned. It was amicable but to quell false rumors Dan and Steemit gave a joint statement.
Now, Steemit is stable and boasts of wide attraction to several new users even after he left.
His desire to have a blockchain supporting parallel processing and no-fee services have been forefront. Thus, the reason for his departure.
EOS
Dan again got involved in blockchain in 2017. With him as CTO of Block.one, Dan has built EOS blockchain. It is a blockchain developed to support commercial-scale digital contracts.
EOS is a big competitor to Ethereum which also is the forerunner of smart contracts.
EOS platform supports parallel processing to enhance horizontal scalability and ensure no transaction fees for DAOs and dApps. Would this be the reason he left Steemit? I think so because it’s a thought he has had till recently when EOS started.
EOS protocol outstanding feature is using different programming languages for dApps and 16 times faster apps than those using Ethereum`s Solidity.
Final Thoughts from Daniel Larimer
People have questioned his dedication after he left his previous projects. But as for now, Dan has concentrated his efforts to develop EOS platform and build all of his future projects on it. Nonetheless, his ingenuity has sometimes caused him to be arrogant and somewhat misunderstood.
But even with his arrogance, he can touch you by his inspirational recommended reading. Among the many books he has been able to read, he shares with you 13 of his best reads.
All in all, you now know who is Daniel Larimer. What he is capable of. And now you can write and earn crypto on Steemit.
Resources
https://hackernoon.com/dan-larimer-visionary-programmer-of-bitshares-steem-and-eos-7e6d94b241d7
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkauflin/2018/02/07/fintech-crypto-billionaires-dan-larimer/
https://bytemaster.github.io/
