# Karl Floersch

> Karl Floersch is an Optimism co-founder and OP Labs Chief Scientist, formerly its CTO and CEO. His work spans Ethereum consensus and scaling research, developer education, the OP Stack, and advocacy for retroactive public-goods funding. He also encouraged his college friend Hayden Adams to build the project that became Uniswap.

- **Role:** Co-founder of Optimism; Chief Scientist at OP Labs PBC
- **Organizations:** OP Labs PBC, Optimism, Plasma Group, Ethereum Foundation, ConsenSys
- **Education:** BS in Computer Science, Stony Brook University
- **Known for:** Co-founded Optimism and helped architect its Ethereum rollup infrastructure., Helped champion retroactive public-goods funding., Created blockchain education material through karl.tech and Cryptoeconomics.Study.

## Career timeline

- **2016** — Published Ethereum development tutorials and a critique of JavaScript-dependent Solidity tooling.
- **2017** — Worked on Ethereum Foundation consensus research; encouraged Hayden Adams to learn Ethereum and develop an automated market maker.
- **2018** — Published Plasma Cash and Plasma incentive analysis; worked on blockchain education.
- **2019–2020** — Plasma Group scaling research evolved into Optimism.
- **2022** — Served as CTO of OP Labs; the OP Stack was introduced in October.
- **2023** — OP Labs announced on April 28 that Floersch would become CEO; the supplied profile information dates the tenure from May.
- **2026** — Published a post-quantum roadmap in January; identified as Chief Scientist by an October Smart Economy Podcast interview.

## Achievements

- Co-founded Optimism and helped architect its Ethereum rollup infrastructure.
- Helped champion retroactive public-goods funding.
- Created blockchain education material through karl.tech and Cryptoeconomics.Study.
- Encouraged and connected Hayden Adams during Uniswap’s development.
- Published the Superchain post-quantum roadmap on January 14, 2026.

## Latest updates

- **2026-10** — Appeared on The Smart Economy Podcast as OP Labs Chief Scientist, discussing enterprise adoption, sovereign specialized chains, interoperability, and post-quantum security.
- **2026-01** — Published a ten-year roadmap for deprecating ECDSA-based externally owned accounts by January 2036, subject to governance approval.
- **2026-01** — Optimism announced that Retro Funding would pause for at least twelve months as it focused on core OP Stack infrastructure.

## Links

- Website: https://karl.tech/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karlfloersch/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/karl_dot_tech
- GitHub: https://github.com/karlfloersch

---

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