Emin Gün Sirer

Emin Gün Sirer is a computer scientist, the founder, and CEO of Ava Labs, the company behind the Avalanche Network

Personal Stats

Age:	Unknown
Source of wealth:	Computer Science
Residence	USA
Citizenship	Turkey
Marital status:	Unknown
Education:	Princeton University, University of Washington

Biography of Emin Gün Sirer

Emin Gün Sirer, a Turkish-American computer scientist, is renowned for developing the Avalanche Consensus protocol, which is the foundation of the Avalanche blockchain platform. He currently holds the position of CEO and co-founder at Ava Labs.

Emin Gün Sirer’s Education

Sirer's academic path began at Robert College in Turkey, followed by an undergraduate degree in Computer Science from Princeton University. He then earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, focusing his research on peer-to-peer systems.

Emin Gün Sirer’s Career

Sirer spent over 20 years as a Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University, specializing in operating systems, networking, and distributed systems.

He began his career at Cornell University in 2001 as an assistant professor, later becoming an associate professor in 2007, a position he held until 2021. Before Cornell, Sirer worked at AT&T Bell Labs and NEC, a Japanese IT company.

Among his achievements, Sirer developed the SPIN operating system, which allowed for safe runtime modification of an operating system's implementation and interface through type-safe extension code. He also led the Nexus OS project, developing new methods for verifying and understanding the semantic properties of remote programs.

In 2003, while at Cornell, Sirer introduced Karma, the first-ever distributed peer-to-peer currency system based on a proof-of-work protocol, a concept that predated Bitcoin by six years.

In 2017, Sirer established bloXroute Labs, a platform focused on integrating network neutrality principles into blockchain to facilitate the efficient transmission of financial data. He also co-directed the Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Smart Contracts (IC3) at Cornell University.

Sirer founded Ava Labs in 2019, a company focused on development of alternative blockchain technology for the financial sector. He led the development of the Avalanche Consensus protocol and its native token, AVAX, incubating the project at Cornell University with assistance from Ph.D. candidates Maofan Yin and Kevin Sekniqi.

Avalanche is a Layer 1 platform compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), which is designed to be fast, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly. The project was launched in early 2020 and raised $42 million in a public sale within just 4 hours in July 2020, though it was initially planned for 15 days.

In August 2022, Ava Labs faced allegations from the investigative media organization "Crypto Leaks," accusing the company and Sirer of secretive dealings with Roche Freedmen law firm to undermine competitors. Videos released by CryptoLeaks purportedly showed lawyer Kyle Roche discussing his client relationship with Sirer and Ava Labs, and the receipt of AVAX tokens worth millions. Despite Sirer dismissing these allegations as "conspiracy theory nonsense" and Roche denying any wrongdoing, the incident led to Roche's exit from his law firm, which subsequently rebranded and was dismissed from several cryptocurrency cases.