Bio
Co-Founder of IOTA; Former IOTA Foundation Co-Chair
David Sønstebø is a Norwegian entrepreneur and a co-founder of IOTA, a distributed ledger project designed for machine-to-machine communication and the Internet of Things (IoT). He was instrumental in establishing the IOTA Foundation and serving as Co-Chair of its board. In December 2020, the IOTA Foundation publicly announced its separation from Sønstebø, ending his formal role with the organization. He should not be described as holding any current IOTA Foundation position without independently verified evidence.
IOTA's core innovation was its Tangle — a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) structure that replaced the traditional blockchain with a graph of transactions, each requiring the sender to validate two prior transactions, theoretically enabling feeless and highly scalable transfers suited to IoT micro-payment scenarios.
Co-Founders
IOTA was co-founded by David Sønstebø, Dominik Schiener, Sergey Ivancheglo (Come-from-Beyond), and Serguei Popov in 2015. All four co-founders contributed to the initial design and launch of the IOTA protocol.
What IOTA Does
IOTA is a distributed ledger designed for the data and value transfer needs of the machine economy. Its DAG-based architecture was intended to eliminate transaction fees and enable micro-transactions between IoT devices. The IOTA Foundation — a German non-profit — has continued developing the protocol after 2020, transitioning through multiple architectural generations. The current IOTA Rebased architecture (post-2025) represents a significant departure from the original Tangle design, introducing a Move VM-based smart contract environment and a new consensus mechanism. Sønstebø's contribution was to the original Tangle design and early network establishment; he was not involved in leading post-2020 protocol upgrades.
IOTA Foundation Separation (December 2020)
The IOTA Foundation publicly announced the end of its relationship with David Sønstebø in December 2020. The separation was described by the Foundation as necessary for the organization's future direction. Since then, Dominik Schiener has led the Foundation. Sønstebø's LinkedIn may still display IOTA-related role text that is no longer current; Bitnxt presents his title as historical co-founder only.
Current 2026 Status
As of August 2026, Sønstebø's current professional role could not be independently verified from first-party sources with sufficient confidence to state a specific employer or project. His X account (@DavidSonstebo) represents his current public presence. Any current professional activity is omitted rather than guessed.
Key Contributions
- IOTA Co-Founding: Co-founded IOTA in 2015, introducing the Tangle DAG as an alternative to blockchain for IoT-scale value transfer.
- Feeless Transaction Design: Championed the feeless transaction model as a requirement for viable machine-economy micropayments.
- IOTA Foundation Establishment: Co-established the IOTA Foundation as a non-profit governing body for the protocol.
- IoT Ecosystem Development: Drove early enterprise and academic partnerships exploring IOTA for supply chain, mobility, and smart city use cases.
- DAG-Based DLT Architecture: Contributed to early design of DAG-based distributed ledger alternatives to conventional blockchain structures.
Career Timeline
Co-founded IOTA with Dominik Schiener, Sergey Ivancheglo, and Serguei Popov.
IOTA Foundation established as a German non-profit; Sønstebø served as Co-Chair.
Led IOTA Foundation strategy and ecosystem development; pursued enterprise IoT and smart city partnerships.
IOTA Foundation publicly announced separation from David Sønstebø; ended his formal leadership role.
Sources & Verification
Information last checked: August 2026
Profile at a glance
- Country
- Norway
- Status
- Former
