Contact Us
Contact Us

Top 17 Bitcoin Experts You Can Rely On

bitcoin experts - Top 17 Bitcoin Experts You Can Rely On

Bitcoin has revolutionized money, security, and freedom—but it wouldn’t exist without the brilliant individuals driving it forward.

This list spotlights some of the most influential Bitcoin developers, researchers, and educators active today. From pioneering protocol engineers and Lightning Network architects to veteran cryptographers and fearless open-source maintainers, these experts shape the future of the world’s most important decentralized system. Whether they’re contributing to Bitcoin Core, scaling infrastructure, advancing privacy, or building tools for global adoption, each person here has left a lasting mark on the ecosystem.

  1. Adam Back
  2. Gleb Naumenko
  3. Andreas M. Antonopoulos
  4. Neha Narula
  5. Jameson Lopp
  6. Bryan Bishop
  7. Jimmy Song
  8. John Newbery
  9. Matt Corallo
  10. Rusty Russell
  11. Olaoluwa Osuntokun
  12. Christian Decker
  13. Peter Todd
  14. Jack Mallers
  15. Elizabeth Stark
  16. Gloria Zhao
  17. Luke Dashjr

Now, let’s delve deeper into their remarkable contributions and impact.

Adam Back

YouTube Video

Nationality: British

Dr. Adam Back is a British cryptographer and cypherpunk who invented Hashcash, the proof-of-work system that Bitcoin’s mining is built upon.

Now the CEO and co-founder of Blockstream, Back has been instrumental in Bitcoin’s development and scalability projects (such as sidechains and the Liquid Network). He was cited in Satoshi Nakamoto’s whitepaper for Hashcash and has been involved in Bitcoin since its early days as an advisor and developer. Under Back’s leadership, Blockstream has advanced Bitcoin technologies like compact multisignatures (MuSig) and Lightning Network infrastructure. Adam Back’s career spans decades of contributions to digital cash and privacy — from early anonymity networks to today’s Bitcoin improvements — making him one of the most respected Bitcoin experts in the world.

Gleb Naumenko

Nationality: Ukrainian

Dr. Gleb Naumenko is a Bitcoin protocol researcher and developer specializing in peer-to-peer networking and scalability. Originally from Ukraine, Gleb co-authored “Erlay,” an efficient transaction relay protocol that can reduce Bitcoin’s bandwidth usage by up to 40%. As a researcher at Chaincode Labs, he has implemented Erlay’s concepts and worked on unifying Bitcoin’s P2P message handling.

Gleb is also a co-author of BIP-324, which proposes encrypting Bitcoin’s P2P traffic to improve privacy and security. In recent years, he’s explored new ideas like CoinPool (a multiparticipant channel mechanism) and contributed to mitigations for Lightning channel jamming. Naumenko has a foot in academia and industry: he’s published papers at conferences and also gets his hands dirty writing and reviewing Bitcoin Core code (he has contributed to refactoring Bitcoin’s networking code to be more modular). With a unique focus on the network layer, Gleb Naumenko is driving improvements that make Bitcoin’s infrastructure more robust and efficient for the future.

Andreas M. Antonopoulos

Andreas M. Antonopoulos - Top 17 Bitcoin Experts You Can Rely On

Nationality: Greek

Andreas Antonopoulos is a celebrated Bitcoin educator, author, and speaker who has made complex Bitcoin technology accessible to millions.

He wrote the influential book Mastering Bitcoin (2014) and has delivered countless talks explaining Bitcoin’s inner workings and potential. Known for his clear and engaging communication style, Andreas has been one of the foremost advocates of Bitcoin as an open, decentralized network. He has testified before governments, hosted the “Let’s Talk Bitcoin” podcast, and taught university courses on Bitcoin and blockchain. Antonopoulos is regarded as one of the most well-known and respected figures in the Bitcoin community, making technical concepts easy to understand for developers and newcomers alike. His work as an educator and open-source evangelist has inspired a generation of Bitcoin developers and users.

Neha Narula

Nationality: American

Dr. Neha Narula is the Director of MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative (DCI) and a leading researcher bridging academia and Bitcoin development. With a PhD in computer science from MIT (focused on distributed systems), Neha now leads a team at MIT that includes several Bitcoin Core developers and researchers.

Under her leadership, the DCI has contributed to Bitcoin Core (funding projects and finding vulnerabilities) and explored advanced topics like Bitcoin scalability, smart contract covenants, and crypto-economics. She has spoken at numerous conferences (including a TED Talk on the future of money) and serves on advisory councils (e.g., the Federal Reserve’s fintech advisory). Neha Narula’s work often involves studying Bitcoin’s security and robustness—for example, her team worked on techniques for scaling Bitcoin’s UTXO set. By running Bitcoin developer residencies and research collaborations, she has helped bolster Bitcoin’s development for the long term. Neha is a key figure ensuring that academic rigor and open-source ethos guide Bitcoin’s evolution.

Jameson Lopp

Jameson Lopp - Top 17 Bitcoin Experts You Can Rely On

Nationality: American

Jameson Lopp is a prominent infrastructure engineer and Bitcoin security expert, known for his advocacy of personal sovereignty through running nodes and multi-signature custody.

As co-founder and CTO of Casa, a Bitcoin custody startup, Lopp has built key management solutions for securing bitcoin holdings. Previously an engineer at BitGo, he created the Statoshi project, a Bitcoin node metrics dashboard, to analyze node performance and network statistics. Lopp is a prolific writer and speaker on Bitcoin technology and cyber resilience, publishing respected resources on running Bitcoin nodes and contributing to open-source projects. He is also known for his extreme personal security practices (famously “going dark” after a swatting incident) and his annual “State of Bitcoin” resources. With over a decade in the space, Lopp is both an influencer and a hands-on builder of Bitcoin tools.

Bryan Bishop

Nationality: American

Bryan Bishop (a.k.a. kanzure) is a longtime Bitcoin Core contributor and security engineer known for his work on Bitcoin custody and infrastructure. He has been active in Bitcoin’s developer community since 2011, contributing code reviews and proposals on the Bitcoin-Dev mailing list (which he also helped moderate and archive).

Bishop is credited with prototyping Bitcoin Vaults – a mechanism for improved coin security via pre-signed transactions – and released early implementations of vault contracts. He served as CTO of Custodia Bank (formerly Avanti), a Wyoming bank bridging Bitcoin and traditional finance, and previously as an engineer at LedgerX (a regulated Bitcoin exchange). Bryan has also launched the Webcash project, exploring new e-cash ideas. Recognized as a “Bitcoin core developer and veteran of the industry”, Bishop is often consulted on matters of Bitcoin opsec, cold storage design, and scaling. His blend of low-level development and high-level architecture makes him a unique Bitcoin expert.

Jimmy Song

Jimmy Song - Top 17 Bitcoin Experts You Can Rely On

Nationality: American

Jimmy Song is a Bitcoin developer, educator, and author who has helped train developers and spread understanding of Bitcoin’s code. A former VP of Engineering for Armory (an early Bitcoin wallet), Song has been contributing to Bitcoin open-source projects since 2013.

He was an early contributor to Bitcoin Core and btcd, and is known for writing the book Programming Bitcoin (O’Reilly, 2019) which teaches how to build Bitcoin from scratch. Jimmy Song runs Programming Blockchain, a seminar series that has taught many engineers how to write Bitcoin software. He’s also a regular speaker on Bitcoin podcasts and conferences, often discussing Bitcoin’s philosophy and technical roadmap. As a core contributor and experienced C++/Python developer, Song focuses on improving wallet technology and consensus code, while also mentoring new Bitcoin developers.

John Newbery

Nationality: British

John Newbery is a Bitcoin Core developer and the founder of Brink, a non-profit dedicated to funding Bitcoin development. After starting to contribute to Bitcoin Core in 2016, Newbery quickly became a respected figure for his work on wallet and relay logic.

He co-founded Bitcoin Optech in 2018, an organization that produces weekly technical newsletters and workshops to help companies adopt the latest Bitcoin tech (like SegWit and coin selection improvements). At Chaincode Labs and later through Brink, John Newbery has mentored many new Bitcoin Core contributors and coordinated global developer efforts. He has contributed improvements to Bitcoin’s fee estimation and review process, and played a key role in proposing activation mechanisms for upgrades like Taproot. Newbery’s combination of coding, coordinating, and educating makes him one of Bitcoin’s most impactful experts in recent years.

Matt Corallo

Matt Corallo - Top 17 Bitcoin Experts You Can Rely On

Nationality: American

Matt Corallo is one of Bitcoin’s earliest developers, having started contributing in 2011 as a teenager. A co-founder of Blockstream and later an engineer at Chaincode Labs and Spiral, Corallo has worked on numerous projects to improve Bitcoin’s decentralization and scalability.

He created the Fast Internet Bitcoin Relay Engine (FIBRE) to propagate blocks more quickly across the network, helping reduce mining centralization. Corallo also implemented BetterHash, a mining protocol to give individual miners more control over block composition. His work spans Bitcoin Core (he’s contributed to peer-to-peer networking and refactoring), BitcoinJ (Java library), and even Rust-Lightning development. Matt’s breadth of contributions – from coding and testing to founding companies – plus his focus on keeping Bitcoin decentralized, have earned him a reputation as a “core” expert on Bitcoin.

Rusty Russell

Nationality: Australian

Rusty Russell is an Australian programmer and the lead developer of Blockstream’s Core Lightning (formerly c-lightning) implementation of the Lightning Network. A veteran open-source developer (known for his work on Linux kernel networking), Rusty authored the majority of the Lightning Network’s protocol specification, making trustless instant payments on Bitcoin possible.

Since 2015 he has been building Lightning software, writing countless specs and guiding interoperability between different Lightning implementations. Russell is also spearheading improvements to Bitcoin’s scripting capabilities (he’s proposed new opcodes to enhance smart contracts) and working on Bitcoin Script restoration for advanced contracts. Renowned for his humor and teaching, Rusty regularly blogs and speaks about Lightning’s development. His contributions at the Layer-2 level (and earlier contributions to Bitcoin like BIP IRC work) cement his status as a top Bitcoin expert.

Olaoluwa Osuntokun

Nationality: American

Olaoluwa “Laolu” Osuntokun is the co-founder and CTO of Lightning Labs, and the lead developer of lnd (Lightning Network Daemon), the most widely used Lightning Network implementation. A former Google engineer with a passion for Bitcoin, Laolu has been a driving force in bringing Lightning Network from concept to reality.

He helped formalize the Lightning Network specification and then implemented it in Go as lnd, enabling functionalities like atomic swaps and “Neutrino” light clients (which he also co-created). Osuntokun has also contributed to Bitcoin’s on-chain improvements – for example, he proposed Taproot Asset Protocols to extend Lightning. In the community, Laolu is revered for his deep knowledge of Bitcoin scripting and for building a bridge between the Bitcoin base layer and instant, high-volume Lightning payments. Under his technical leadership, Lightning Labs has deployed mainnet Lightning infrastructure making Bitcoin payments faster and cheaper.

Christian Decker

Christian Decker - Top 17 Bitcoin Experts You Can Rely On

Nationality: Swiss

Dr. Christian Decker is a Bitcoin researcher and engineer at Blockstream who has been involved in Bitcoin since 2009. Decker was among the first in academia to study Bitcoin (completing one of the earliest Bitcoin PhDs) and he independently invented payment channel architectures similar to Lightning around the same time as the Lightning paper.

Now a senior Lightning Network researcher, he works on the Core Lightning team and has co-authored advancements like eltoo (a next-generation channel update mechanism). Christian has published influential papers on Bitcoin’s propagation (reducing block delays) and contributes to Bitcoin Core’s networking code. He is also known for launching Greenlight, a hosted Lightning node service. With his blend of academic insight and practical engineering, Decker has advanced Bitcoin’s Layer-2 and P2P reliability. He continues to push the boundaries of Bitcoin’s scalability and has mentored many new Bitcoin developers globally.

Peter Todd

Bitcoin is valuable precisely because no one can change it arbitrarily—not me, not you, not anyone.

Nationality: Canadian

Peter Todd is a Bitcoin protocol researcher and applied cryptography consultant who contributed significantly to Bitcoin Core in its early years. Todd is well-known for introducing Replace-by-Fee (RBF) logic into Bitcoin’s transaction relay – a once-controversial feature that allows transactions to be resent with higher fees, now standard in wallets.

He also developed OpenTimestamps, a protocol for timestamping data on Bitcoin’s blockchain, which is widely used for proof-of-existence. During his time as a Bitcoin Core contributor, Peter focused on security and consensus-critical code, often reviewing others’ work and uncovering vulnerabilities. Beyond Core, he has remained active in proposing ideas like Softchain/Drivechain variants and contributed to privacy projects (he was an early advisor to the Blockstream satellite and other side projects). Peter Todd’s frank communication and deep understanding of Bitcoin’s game theory and cryptography have made him an influential (if sometimes contrarian) voice in the community. He continues to consult on Bitcoin and blockchain security.

Jack Mallers

Bitcoin is the best monetary network in human history.

Nationality: American

Jack Mallers is the founder and CEO of Strike, a Lightning Network-powered payments company, and has become one of Bitcoin’s most influential young entrepreneurs. A software developer by training, Mallers launched Strike (and its precursor Zap) to enable low-cost Bitcoin remittances and fiat-to-Bitcoin transfers over Lightning.

He famously worked with the government of El Salvador on Bitcoin adoption, as Strike’s technology helped El Salvador become the first country to make Bitcoin legal tender in 2021. Jack was also one of the earliest Lightning application developers – writing Lightning wallets in the very early days – and is considered one of the Lightning Network’s earliest active developers. He continues to push for Bitcoin’s use in the global payments arena, recently expanding Strike to dozens of countries. Mallers’ passion for Bitcoin as “the monetary network” and his hands-on coding of user-friendly apps have made him a key figure bridging Bitcoin’s tech and adoption.

Elizabeth Stark

Elizabeth Stark - Top 17 Bitcoin Experts You Can Rely On

Nationality: American

Elizabeth Stark is the CEO and co-founder of Lightning Labs, the leading company building on Bitcoin’s Lightning Network. With a background in law and internet policy (previously a lecturer at Stanford and Yale), Stark has been a driving force in taking Bitcoin’s Layer-2 technology from theory to real-world products.

Under her leadership since 2016, Lightning Labs developed lnd and launched Lightning applications like mobile wallets and merchant tools, bringing instant Bitcoin payments to users around the world. Stark is also an advocate for Bitcoin development, often speaking about scaling solutions and the importance of maintaining Bitcoin’s decentralization. She has played a key role in securing funding for Bitcoin infrastructure and fostering a developer community around Lightning. While not a coder herself, Elizabeth Stark’s vision and management have been crucial in making the Lightning Network a cornerstone of Bitcoin’s future.

Gloria Zhao

Nationality: American

Gloria Zhao is a Bitcoin Core developer and the first woman to become a Bitcoin Core maintainer (with commit access to the codebase). She began contributing to Bitcoin Core in 2020 right after graduating from UC Berkeley, focusing on the peer-to-peer and mempool (transaction pool) areas.

Gloria is best known for leading the work on Package Relay – an upgrade to allow Bitcoin nodes to relay transactions in packages, enabling more efficient fee bumping of transactions. In 2022, she was granted maintainer status, coinciding with Pieter Wuille’s retirement from the role, reflecting her excellent track record and trust within the community. Zhao has also organized the Bitcoin Core PR Review Club, mentoring new contributors and reviewing countless pull requests. Funded by Brink and others, Gloria’s recent work has improved Bitcoin’s robustness against congestion and attacks, making her one of the rising stars and key maintainers in Bitcoin development.

Luke Dashjr

Nationality: American

Luke Dashjr is one of the longest-standing Bitcoin Core developers, actively involved in the project since 2011. He is known for his strong stances on protocol conservatism and security.

Luke-Jr authored significant parts of Bitcoin’s mining infrastructure early on – he founded Eligius, one of the first Bitcoin mining pools, and wrote the popular BFGMiner mining software. As a Bitcoin Core contributor, he has made over 200 commits to the codebase, focusing on areas like script enhancements and block size policy (he was an advocate for smaller blocks for decentralization). He also maintains the Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIP) repository, helping manage the process of proposing changes to Bitcoin. Luke was involved in SegWit’s implementation and famously proposed the user-activated soft fork (BIP148) in 2017 to ensure its activation. Despite some controversy due to his uncompromising views, Luke Dashjr’s impact – from mining to protocol rules – has been substantial in Bitcoin’s history.

Wrap Up

These legends represent exceptional talent, making them extremely challenging to headhunt. However, there are thousands of other highly skilled IT professionals available to hire with our help. Contact us, and we will be happy to discuss your hiring needs.

Note: We’ve dedicated significant time and effort to creating and verifying this curated list of top talent. However, if you believe a correction or addition is needed, feel free to reach out. We’ll gladly review and update the page.

Ready to get started?