Juan Benet

Juan Benet is the Founder and CEO of Protocol Labs, an open-source research and development laboratory based in Palo Alto, California. He holds a BS and MS in Computer Science from Stanford University and previously served as Co-Founder and CTO of Loki Studios, a mobile gaming startup acquired by Yahoo in 2013. After participating in Y Combinator in 2014, Benet created the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) and Filecoin, leading a 2017 initial coin offering that raised $257 million. Under his leadership, the Filecoin network has grown to include over 3,300 storage providers managing more than 12 exabytes of data capacity. In March 2023, his organization successfully launched the Filecoin Virtual Machine to bring smart contract capabilities to the network. Benet's current focus remains on advancing decentralized web infrastructure, peer-to-peer networking protocols, and distributed blockchain storage systems.