Ethan Buchman is the co-founder and former CTO of the Cosmos Network and Tendermint (now known as Ignite and NewTendermint), a high-performance blockchain platform. He is also the CEO of Informal Systems, a company that works on innovative developments to improve the connection of different protocols and people and the Technical Director of Interchain Foundation which is a non-profit organization focused on the expansion and adoption of decentralized networks. He is a software engineer and blockchain entrepreneur with a background in computer science and mathematics. ^[1][2]

Education

Ethan Buchman attended the University of Guelph and graduated in 2013 with a Honor's Bachelor of Science in Physical Science then completed his Master's of Applied Science in Engineering Systems and Computing in 2016. During his time in Guelph, he met Vlad Zamfir, a renowned researcher and supporter in the Ethereum community, where he was taught about the faults of the financial system and how it is corrupt. This is when the two discovered Bitcoin and Ethereum which drew Buchman’s attention to applied science and later used Tendermint as the topic of his master’s thesis. He went into the history of consensus science as well as Tendermint to explain how our civilization “can use this extensive literature and advancements to make blockchain more efficient and environmentally friendly”. ^[3][4][5]

Career

After completing his bachelor's degree, Ethan Buchman began his career in the blockchain space as a core developer in Eris Industries, a company that offers a free platform for users to build applications through blockchain and smart contract technology. He was part of Eris Industries from September 2014 to April 2016; where he left the company to focus on his new job as Chief of Coin Culture, a digital currencies community; and also the company he helped founding in January 2016, Tendermint. In 2017, he joined the Interchain Foundation, as the Vice President and has kept his position since, as well as taking on the additional role of Technical Director in January 2020, being responsible for both positions simultaneously until he dropped the Technical Director title in February 2021. In January 2020, he became the CEO of Informal Systems, working on the development of the Cosmos ecosystem. ^[6][7][9]

Tendermint and Cosmos

Ethan met Jae Kwon, the other co-founder, in early 2015 at a conference called CryptoEconomicon and the two spent much of that year working on Tendermint, a consensus algorithm for blockchains. Ethan completed a Masters Degree on Tendermint during this time and his thesis is considered a significant introduction to blockchains and Proof-of-Stake. In late 2015, he and Jae formed a company around Tendermint called All in Bits Inc. In 2016, they came up with the concept of Cosmos, an "Internet of Blockchains," based on Tendermint, the Application Blockchain Interface, and the InterBlockchain Communication protocol. They then released the Cosmos whitepaper which was well received and the project won an award for Most Innovative Project at the International Blockchain Week in Shanghai. By the end of the year, they had started hiring their first developers. During his last year as CTO, Ethan dedicated his work to the launch of Cosmos Hub which went live in February 2019. ^[8]

Vision

Cosmos

Ethan Buchman envisions Cosmos as a technology that prioritizes interoperability, blockchain sovereignty, and scalability. His goal is to enable communities to be in charge of their own infrastructure and applications, and to focus on social impact applications that have tangible effects on the real world, which would lead to a more sustainable civilization. ^[10]

“Cosmos is about the community computer revolution. It’s about giving communities the ability to be sovereign over their own infrastructure and applications. We’ve seen a lot of blockchain applications being developed using the Cosmos development stack, that we’re now calling the interchain technology stack. Many of these communities orient around a token that represents the values of the community and are distributed in a way that represents these values.”

Buchman also believes that Cosmos’ Inter-blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol offers a high level of security that other cross-chain applications cannot provide and believes that it will bring a new kind of internet, “the internet of blockchains.” ^[11]

"The Cosmos network has the potential to connect any blockchain to any other blockchain, creating a decentralized network of networks, which can allow for seamless, secure and transparent communication between different blockchains." 

"In the long term, we envision that Cosmos will enable a new era of the internet, one that is decentralized, secure, and interoperable."

Blockchain

Buchman has a long-term vision of enhancing the condition of political economies and granting greater representation to those who perceive themselves as marginalized by the current institutional structures. He aspires to facilitate the adoption of community-based currencies and economic models that prioritize local wealth creation instead of channeling all the gains to foreign investors. ^[12]

“Over the long-term, we’re trying to upgrade the state of political economies. To help give more representation to people who feel underrepresented in existing institutional structures. Ultimately, something I’m working towards in the long-term is there being more community-oriented currencies and economic systems that are geared towards building wealth locally rather than everything being extracted to external, foreign investors.”

Buchman stated that he has shifted his focus to creating real-world impact through blockchain technology and is driving the industry towards a more equitable and sustainable future. By developing community-oriented currencies and collaborating with organizations on real-world use cases, he is working towards bridging “the divide between the digital and real worlds in a way that empowers everyone", making blockchain technology more accessible and useful for a wider range of users. ^[12]

"We need to move beyond the hype and focus on creating tangible value for real people"

"It’s no longer about just technology, it’s about real people, real assets, and real economic value"