# Derek Chiang

> Derek Chiang founded ZeroDev, a smart-account and wallet infrastructure company acquired by Offchain Labs in August 2025. A Cornell computer science alumnus who grew up in Shenzhen, he previously cofounded Eternal and worked on distributed systems at HashiCorp, Mesosphere, Nebula, and Pachyderm. He joined Ethlabs in August 2026 to help turn Ethereum technologies into practical products.

- **Role:** Team member at Ethlabs; founder of ZeroDev
- **Organizations:** Ethlabs, ZeroDev, Offchain Labs, Eternal, Tenfold Protocol, DFINITY, ThunderCore, Pachyderm, HashiCorp, Mesosphere, Nebula
- **Education:** Cornell University
- **Known for:** Founded ZeroDev, acquired by Offchain Labs in 2025., Contributed to the ERC-4337 specification and reference implementation, according to his Blockworks speaker biography., ZeroDev helped develop ERC-7579 with Rhinestone, Biconomy, and OKX.

## Career timeline

- **2013** — KPCB Engineering Fellow; software engineering internship at Nebula.
- **—** — Worked on distributed systems at Mesosphere and HashiCorp, and as lead engineer at Pachyderm.
- **—** — Senior engineer at DFINITY; director of DApp development at ThunderCore; built and sold Tenfold Protocol.
- **2020** — Eternal participated in Y Combinator Winter 2020; Chiang was cofounder and CTO.
- **2022** — Founded ZeroDev.
- **2023** — ZeroDev participated in YC Winter 2023 and launched at ETHDenver; Kernel announced in April.
- **2024** — Explained ZeroDev’s support for ERC-7579 and published Ethereum governance analysis.
- **2025** — Offchain Labs announced its acquisition of ZeroDev on August 13.
- **2026** — Joined Ethlabs in August.

## Achievements

- Founded ZeroDev, acquired by Offchain Labs in 2025.
- Contributed to the ERC-4337 specification and reference implementation, according to his Blockworks speaker biography.
- ZeroDev helped develop ERC-7579 with Rhinestone, Biconomy, and OKX.
- ZeroDev reported more than five million smart accounts at its August 2025 acquisition.
- Founded Eternal (YC W20) and ZeroDev (YC W23).
- ETHDenver finalist in 2019 for an insurance protocol for MakerDAO.
- Selected as a 2013 KPCB Engineering Fellow.

## Latest updates

- **2026-08** — Announced joining Ethlabs on August 12; the lab lists him on its team.
- **2026-03** — Published essays comparing native account abstraction approaches and advocating Frame Transactions.
- **2025-08** — Offchain Labs announced its acquisition of ZeroDev on August 13.

## Links

- Website: https://derekchiang.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/derekchiang93/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/decentrek
- GitHub: https://github.com/derekchiang

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/derek-chiang
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-11