John Letey is the Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Noble, with prior experience co-founding the blockchain data protocol KYVE. His earlier work includes roles in decentralized exchange development and research focused on applying blockchain and IoT technologies. ^[3]​

Education

Letey graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder with a BS in Mathematics and Computer Science in 2018. ^[1]​

Career

John Letey began his career in 2019 as a Research and Development Intern at Morta, where he developed a prototype demonstrating the potential integration of Internet of Things and blockchain technologies within the construction industry. In 2020, he co-founded The Verto Protocol, a project focused on decentralized exchange systems, and later served as a part-time consultant for th8ta from November 2020 to June 2021.

Letey co-founded KYVE in February 2021, a data validation and storage protocol, where he worked full-time until October 2023. During this period, he also served as a board member for the KYVE Foundation from April to October 2023. He joined Noble in September 2023 as Director of Engineering, later becoming Chief Technology Officer in April 2024 and co-founding the company in September 2024, where he continues to serve in these roles. ^[2]​

Interviews

Stable Stories

In an April 2025 episode of the Eco Foundation’s Stable Stories podcast, Letey and Noble CEO Jelena Djuric discussed their experiences in the stablecoin sector and the development of Noble. They reflected on their early involvement with stablecoins in 2018–2019 and how the market has evolved since then. The discussion outlined Noble’s role as a purpose-built asset issuance chain, recognized for introducing native USDC to the Cosmos ecosystem. Letey and Djuric explained that the platform is designed to streamline asset issuance for developers, drawing a comparison to Shopify’s impact on e-commerce. They also addressed the technical and coordination challenges of developing stablecoin products within the Cosmos framework, particularly regarding integration and cross-chain communication.

The founders shared that Noble’s creation was influenced by the collapse of the Terra stablecoin, which motivated them to propose a dedicated chain for stablecoin issuance. They also introduced the Noble Dollar, a newly launched stablecoin backed by Treasury bills and designed to distribute yield to users. The conversation concluded with insights on liquidity challenges faced by stablecoin issuers, emphasizing the importance of balancing supply and demand across networks. ^[4]​

Cosmos Native USDC

In a November 2023 interview with dYdX, John Letey from Noble and Jonathan Lim from Circle discussed the launch of Cosmos native USDC and its role within the newly deployed dYdX chain. They explained how Circle issues USDC contracts across supported blockchains and introduced the Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP), which enables secure, on-chain transfers of USDC without relying on traditional lock-and-mint bridges. The conversation highlighted how CCTP’s burn-and-mint mechanism improves security and user experience by simplifying cross-chain transfers. Letey outlined Noble’s aim to serve as a general asset issuance chain within Cosmos, facilitating the integration of multiple tokens across ecosystems. Both guests acknowledged the technical challenges of building CCTP on Cosmos and the need for collaboration between issuers and infrastructure providers to advance permissionless asset issuance. ^[5]​