Steven Goldfeder

Steven Goldfeder is the Co-Founder and CEO of Offchain Labs, the company behind Arbitrum — one of Ethereum's most widely adopted Layer-2 scaling solutions. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from Princeton University, where his doctoral research focused on applied cryptography and blockchain technology under the supervision of Professor Ed Felten.

Goldfeder co-authored the original Arbitrum academic paper in 2018, describing a protocol that uses optimistic rollup technology to scale smart-contract execution on Ethereum while preserving security through on-chain fraud proofs. Together with Ed Felten and Harry Kalodner, he founded Offchain Labs to commercialize the research and build production-grade infrastructure.

Under his leadership, Offchain Labs launched the Arbitrum One mainnet in 2021, which has grown into one of the largest Layer-2 ecosystems by total value locked and developer activity. The company also developed Arbitrum Nova, a chain optimized for ultra-low-cost applications using a data-availability committee model. In 2024, Offchain Labs acquired Prysm, one of Ethereum's leading consensus clients, expanding the company's role across both Layer-1 and Layer-2 infrastructure. Information last checked: August 2026.