Daniel Larimer, CTO of EOSIO developers block.one, resigns

Published at: Jan. 10, 2021

Daniel Larimer, the CTO of EOSIO developers block.one and founder of early crypto exchange Bitshares and blockchain-based social media platform Steem, announced in a short blog post today that he has resigned.

“[I] am proud of the EOSIO software I was able to create and launch with the help of an extremely talented group of engineers. Alas, all good things must come to an end. As of December 31, 2020 I have resigned my position as CTO of block.one,” the post read.

While the post didn’t specify a reason for the departure, his recent social media activities may hint at the founder and technologist’s next moves.

In Friday Twitter post, Larimer said that “it’s time to abandon” the social media platform, and warned of users’ “last chance” to download certain social apps — a possible response to Twitter banning president Donald Trump and multiple app stores deplatforming Parler. Additionally, his resignation was posted to Voice, a social media app built on EOS.

It’s time to abandon Twitter. If you want to follow me then join https://t.co/epHnV9y13Y and subscribe to my mailing list on https://t.co/q79po8kITh. Meanwhile, this may be your last chance to download certain apps from Apple.

— Daniel Larimer (@bytemaster7) January 9, 2021

“I will continue on my mission to create free market, voluntary solutions for securing life, liberty, property, and justice for all,” the second half of his post read. “I do not know exactly what is next, but I am leaning toward building more censorship resistant technologies,” he wrote.”

“I have come to believe that you cannot provide “liberty as a service” and therefore I will focus my attention on creating tools that people can use to secure their own freedom.”

Larimer’s exit comes during a rocky period for the EOSIO ecosystem. While much of the cryptocurrency market has rallied throughout 2020, EOS has been a notable laggard. Additionally, from a technological perspective EOS seems to be playing catch-up, having recently launched a wide range of wrapped DeFi tokens on Eosfinex.

Larimer is not the only high-profile executive exit in recent weeks. In December, the IOTA Foundation “parted ways” with IOTA founder David Sønstebø in a “unanimous decision.” Sønstebø then followed up the announcement with a puzzling, rambling blog.