Liam Horne

Projects

World Chain is the first blockchain that prioritizes anonymous verified human interactions over bots and AI. It is built on top of Optimism, which gives it the ability to prioritize transactions for humans and those using the app in addition to low fees and shared security (read more here). It also focuses primarily on people in markets where stablecoin adoption is growing the fastest.

Optimism is a protocol for scaling the ethereum protocol without compromising on security or decentralization. Combining research from several teams over ~3 years, rollups are a means of doing off-chain computation with periodic on-chain state commitments that can be “double-checked” by any honest verifier at a future date, and “slashed” if a fault proof can be provided to the blockchain. Read why I started working on Optimism here, became CEO of OP Labs here, and transitioned into an advisory role here.

ETHGlobal is Ethereum’s largest developer community. Since 2017, we have welcomed over 100,000 hackers from across the world to our online and in-person hackathons. We’re a worldwide organization, having organized events in Waterloo, Denver, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Bangalore, Singapore, San Francisco, Paris, Berlin, New York, Cape Town, Sydney, Brussels, and several other cities. We’ve supported the launch of hackathon projects that have collectively raised over $250M. Throughout the years we’ve distributed over $10M in prizes to developers in 50+ countries.

L4 was a small team based in Toronto focused on accelerating the adoption of Web 3: a decentralized web that removes middlemen and incentivizes users to contribute. We spent a lot of time researching the ideas surrounding “Layer 2” on Ethereum, contributed in several ways to the Ethereum Foundation, founded ETHGlobal, and invested in companies like OpenSea, Celer, Ramp Network, and others. Although we’re no longer active, our team continues to make significant contributions for the betterment of Ethereum.

Ether Capital was founded to provide public market exposure to the Ethereum ecosystem. We made large investments in projects like Maker, attracted institutional investors, and pushed forward the narrative for blockchain based financial systems to the traditional world of banking finance in Canada. We helped launch the first ever Bitcoin and Ether ETFs in Canada alongside Purpose. In 2024, we converted Ether Capital into a staked Ether ETF.

Terminal was founded to help companies create world-class technical teams through “Remote Operations as a Service”. Starting in Waterloo, we help global companies recruit great teams, provide them end-to-end ops support (e.g., payroll, office space, etc), and offer workspace development, human resources support, and professional learning and development for every member. Terminal originally began as a spinout from the success we had in building engineering teams for Atomic in 2016-17.

PiinPoint is a fast, intuitive, and affordable platform to help businesses find the best locations for expansion. Over the last decade we have powered large retail and real estate organizations like Tim Hortons, Colliers, H&R Block, and Cushman & Wakefield. In 2014 I dropped out of the University of Waterloo to build PiinPoint alongide Jim Robeson and Adam Saunders.

Hack the North is the world’s biggest collegiate hackathon. We bring thousands of students from around the world to Waterloo to collaborate and create something extraordinary in 36 hours. Exceptional people have been guest speakers such as: Vinod Khosla, Justin Trudeau, Sam Altman, Jack Dorsey, and Chamath Palihapitiya (twice).

State Channels is a blockchain application framework that supports zero-fee state transitions on Ethereum with instant finality between finite groups of parties. We introduced the concept of generalized state channels in 2017 at L4. In 2020, we built “Web3Torrent” which added micropayments to torrenting using state channels. Our work is the combined effort of L4, Magmo, and Prototypal.