# Liam Horne

> Software entrepreneur and engineer working on Ethereum scaling, stablecoins, and blockchain technology.

I'm an English-born, Canadian-raised software entrepreneur and engineer. I went to the University of Waterloo to study Computer Science before dropping out to start a startup. For most of my twenties, I've been working on technology for ethereum.

This started with scaling payments on Ethereum using a technology called state channels. Over time it became clear that people weren't yet ready for the kinds of use cases that state channels enabled (i.e., micropayments, agentic payments, streaming and instant payments). However, we built some really cool tech, like Web3Torrent.

So, I pivoted my focus towards building Optimism. Our mission was to scale Ethereum without compromising on security or decentralization. We were one of the defining projects that shaped the "Layer 2" ecosystem according to Vitalik Buterin's vision of a "rollup-centric Ethereum". Alongside Coinbase, we launched Base on the OP Stack.

By 2023, it was clear that stablecoins were the most important outcome of the blockchain industry. Unfortunately, despite all of our work to scale Ethereum, most of the real world usage of these products were using Tether on Tron. I wrote and spoke about this often while working on multiple projects related to stablecoins like World Chain, Stable, and Build Canada: Crypto.

Much of the work I did on stablecoins led to me towards Tempo, which is a return to my original focus on payments-first infrastructure for blockchains. We're building a payments-focused L1 blockchain that uses all of the best ideas from years of scaling research and bringing it to the modern internet payments stack. We're hiring!

For more, see my projects and other writing. I also really enjoy travelling and photography.

I've invested in dozens of startups including Othership, QA Wolf, Daimo, Erebor, Stable, Farcaster, Ambrook, Mercantile, Software Applications Incorporated, Conduit, Splits, Axiom, OpenSea, Agora, Flex, and many more.


Find me on GitHub, X, LinkedIn, Telegram, and Farcaster.

## Writing

- [State Channels and Agentic Payments](https://liamhorne.com/mpp): Liam Horne on the Machine Payments Protocol (MPP), an open standard for machine payments co-authored with Stripe, and how AI agents became the killer app for state channels. (March 2026)
- [Tempo](https://liamhorne.com/tempo): Liam Horne joins Tempo, a payments-first blockchain incubated by Stripe and Paradigm, to build infrastructure purpose-built for stablecoins and fintech adoption. (September 1, 2025)
- [World Chain](https://liamhorne.com/world-chain): The first blockchain that prioritizes anonymous verified human interactions over bots and AI (October 2024)
- [Canada Cannot Afford to Miss Out on Stablecoins](https://liamhorne.com/canada-stablecoins): A memo proposing a clear regulatory framework for stablecoins in Canada to modernize digital payment infrastructure and maintain economic sovereignty. (January 2024)
- [Making Sense of Tether on Tron](https://liamhorne.com/stablecoins): Analysis of stablecoin adoption and Tether's growth on the Tron blockchain (November 2023)
- [Future of OP Labs](https://liamhorne.com/oplabs-update): Liam Horne's thoughts on the future direction of OP Labs (May 31, 2023)
- [OP Labs](https://liamhorne.com/oplabs): Liam Horne on becoming CEO of OP Labs (June 2022)
- [Optimism](https://liamhorne.com/optimism): Liam Horne on joining Optimism to build optimistic rollups (February 1, 2021)
- [Introducing Web3Torrent](https://liamhorne.com/web3torrent): Peer-to-peer micropayments for torrenting. Built on Ethereum using state channels. (June 18, 2020)
- [Counterfactual - Generalized State Channels on Ethereum](https://liamhorne.com/counterfactual): Introducing the Counterfactual framework for building generalized state channels with minimal on-chain operations and maximal privacy. (June 12, 2018)
- [Making Sense of Web 3](https://liamhorne.com/web3): A vision for a new, better internet where users have more control over their identity, data, and the platforms they use every day. (June 6, 2018)
- [Generalized State Channels on Ethereum](https://liamhorne.com/state-channels): Announcing work on generalized state channels for Ethereum to improve scalability, privacy, and usability of blockchain applications. (October 31, 2017)

## Pages

- [Writing](https://liamhorne.com/writing): All essays and blog posts
- [Projects](https://liamhorne.com/projects): Projects: Tempo, World Chain, Optimism, OP Labs, ETHGlobal, and more
- [Photography](https://liamhorne.com/photography): Travel photography
- [Schedule a Meeting](https://liamhorne.com/calendar): How to request a meeting

## Links

- GitHub: https://github.com/snario
- X: https://twitter.com/liamihorne
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liamhorne/
- Telegram: https://t.me/recklessengineer
- Farcaster: https://warpcast.com/liam

Full article text: https://liamhorne.com/llms-full.txt