# Michal Swietek

> Michal Swietek is a co-founder of Aleph Zero, heads development at Cardinal Cryptography, and contributes to the Swiss-Polish Blockchain Association.

- Canonical URL: https://iq.wiki/wiki/michal-swietek
- Categories: People in crypto
- Tags: Founder
- Created: 2024-06-12T19:22:38.129Z
- Last updated: 2024-06-12T19:55:30.313Z
- Source: IQ.wiki — the world's largest blockchain and crypto encyclopedia (https://iq.wiki)

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**Michal Swietek** is one of the co-founders of [Aleph Zero](https://iq.wiki/wiki/aleph-zero), a public [blockchain](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blockchain) that uses a custom algorithm leveraging [Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG)](https://iq.wiki/wiki/directed-acyclic-graph-dag) technology to create an efficient and decentralized system. [\[1\]](#cite-id-2kv58djko92)  
  
# Education & Career  
  
Swietek received his BS in Computer Science and a Master’s and Ph.D in Mathematics from Jagiellonian University. After graduation, he worked as a senior data analyst at Jagiellonian University until May 2019. He co-founded [Aleph Zero](https://iq.wiki/wiki/aleph-zero) in April 2018 with [Antoni Zolciak](https://iq.wiki/wiki/antoni-zolciak), [Matthew Niemerg](https://iq.wiki/wiki/matthew-niemerg-phd), and [Adam Gagol](https://iq.wiki/wiki/adam-gagol). He then became a member of the Swiss-Polish [Blockchain](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blockchain) Association and head of development at Cardinal Cryptography, a [blockchain](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blockchain)-first venture studio providing end-to-end solutions. [\[1\]](#cite-id-2kv58djko92)[\[2\]](#cite-id-j4vc4wnb6n)  
  
# Panels  
  
## Aleph Zero  
  
During a Substrate Seminar in November 2021, Swietek presented [Aleph](https://iq.wiki/wiki/aleph-zero), an asynchronous [Byzantine Fault-Tolerant](https://iq.wiki/wiki/byzantine-fault-tolerance) [consensus](https://iq.wiki/wiki/consensus-mechanism) protocol that achieves optimal performance with constant latency and communication complexity. The seminar provided an overview of [Aleph](https://iq.wiki/wiki/aleph-zero), its Rust implementation, and experiences integrating it as a finality gadget in Substrate, replacing GRANDPA. Differences between [Aleph](https://iq.wiki/wiki/aleph-zero) and GRANDPA, as well as performance benchmarks and tradeoffs, were explored. [\[3\]](#cite-id-m4nvdt135e9)