DEVCON0 self-introduction
Joe Lubin is one of Ethereum's eight co-founders and the later founder of ConsenSys. In Ethereum's earliest months, he was one of the senior business figures around the project and later became one of the key financial backers of the ecosystem.
Joining Ethereum
Episode 16 adds a concrete origin story for Lubin's entry into Ethereum. According to Anthony Di Iorio, Lubin attended the January 1, 2014 launch event for Bitcoin Decentral while visiting Toronto for the holidays. Vitalik invited him back to the space a few days later, and he soon joined the trip to Miami for Ethereum's first public announcement.
Di Iorio described him as someone who had retired from Wall Street, had been living in Jamaica, and immediately seemed like "a really interesting guy" who connected well with the emerging team.
Miami and the Early Team
Lubin stayed at the Miami house Di Iorio rented for the January 2014 Bitcoin conference. Taylor Gerring's photos place him at the center of the scene around Vitalik's first public Ethereum presentation.
(Joe Lubin and Anthony Di Iorio can be seen next to Vitalik as the crowd encroaches - 26th January 2014. From Taylor Gerring's photos)
Di Iorio also notes that Ethereum's very earliest bootstrap money came from his sale of Satoshi Circle, "before Joe Lubin put more money," placing Lubin in the next phase of early project funding.
Early Leadership
Kieren James-Lubin later described the business side of early Ethereum this way:
"Joe, my dad, and Anthony Di Iorio [were] the other business guys who probably had the most operating experience." — Kieren James-Lubin
During the June 2014 "Red Wedding," Lubin was one of the founders Vitalik asked to continue in the post-shakeup leadership structure.
Later Work
Lubin went on to found ConsenSys, which became the dominant commercial company in the Ethereum ecosystem for years and incubated or funded a large number of Ethereum-adjacent projects.
Primary Sources
Back-links
Other pages that reference this:
- Taylor Gerring Photos (Articles, January 25, 2014)
- CoinTalk 015 – BTCMiami Debate Featuring Ethereum, Mastercoin and Bitshares (Videos, February 06, 2014)
- "Red Wedding" (Articles, June 07, 2014)
- DEVCON0 (Articles, November 24, 2014)
- Can Ethereum Restore Online Freedom & Transform the Internet? (Videos, March 18, 2016)
- The Cryptopians (Articles, February 22, 2022)
- Early Days of Ethereum - Episode 1 (Videos, August 28, 2023)
- Early Days of Ethereum - Episode 3 - Bob Summerwill (Videos, November 14, 2023)
- Early Days of Ethereum - Episode 4 - Taylor Gerring (Videos, August 08, 2025)
- Early Days of Ethereum - Episode 5 - Anthony 'Texture' D'Onofrio (Videos, September 03, 2025)
- Early Days of Ethereum - Episode 9 - Amir Taaki (Videos, December 31, 2025)
- Early Days of Ethereum - Episode 11 - Ryan Taylor (Videos, February 04, 2026)
- Early Days of Ethereum - Episode 12 - Fabian Vogelsteller (Videos, February 25, 2026)
- Museum of Ethereum walkthrough (Videos, March 13, 2026)
- Early Days of Ethereum - Episode 16 - Anthony Di Iorio (Videos, May 16, 2026)
- ConsenSys (Articles)
- Amir Chetrit (People)
- Anthony Di Iorio (People)
- Charles Hoskinson (People)
- Gavin Wood (People)
- James Hormuzdiar (People)
- Joel Dietz (People)
- Kieren James Lubin (People)
- Mihai Alisie (People)
- Steve Hsu (People)
- Taylor Gerring (People)
- Victor Wong (People)