# Nick Thoma

> Nick Thoma is a software engineer and entrepreneur known for co-founding Turtle and serving as its chief technology officer.

- Canonical URL: https://iq.wiki/wiki/nick-thoma
- Categories: People in crypto
- Tags: Solana, Developer, Founder
- Created: 2026-10-31T07:58:58.730Z
- Last updated: 2026-10-31T07:58:58.730Z
- Source: IQ.wiki — the world's largest blockchain and crypto encyclopedia (https://iq.wiki)

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**Nick Thoma** is a software engineer and entrepreneur who became a co-founder and chief technology officer of Turtle.xyz in October 2024. His profile describes Turtle as a [blockchain](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blockchain)-services company and a phantom-liquidity protocol.[\[1\]](#cite-id-s07gjqmar8)​[\[2\]](#cite-id-fh3lq9o7e4)​

## Education

Thoma studied computer engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison from 2013 to 2017 and earned a bachelor’s degree.[\[1\]](#cite-id-s07gjqmar8)​[\[3\]](#cite-id-o3sfoan4sp)​

## Career

Before joining Turtle, Thoma worked as a software engineer at [ParaFi Capital](https://iq.wiki/wiki/parafi-capital) from November 2021 to March 2024 and as a senior software engineer at Brain Corp from February 2018 to November 2021. Earlier, he completed a Pathways internship at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) from January 2016 to August 2017, a software engineering internship at Epic from May to August 2015, and a software engineering internship at Fetch from February to August 2014.[\[1\]](#cite-id-s07gjqmar8)​[\[3\]](#cite-id-o3sfoan4sp)​

Since May 2024, Thoma has owned Thoma Technologies LLC. His profile lists work through the company as a technical adviser to Thala Labs, creator of Ovrlook, and operator of distributed validator clusters for Lido and EtherFi.[\[1\]](#cite-id-s07gjqmar8)​

## Robotics and Research

Thoma’s listed robotics projects include Robartender, a drink-mixing robot operated through a mobile app, begun in April 2015, and Handroid, a humanoid hand operated by a glove, begun in March 2015. He also worked on Bit-zee Bot, a two-wheeled robot with a camera and voice recording and playback, in April 2013, and a four-wheeled, webcam-equipped robot designed to track colored objects from September 2017 to December 2018. From January to August 2017, he worked on NASA’s Valkyrie, a humanoid robot used as a robotics research platform.[\[1\]](#cite-id-s07gjqmar8)​

## Work at Turtle

Thoma described Turtle’s goal as creating an efficient market for liquidity, allowing protocols to build distribution and raise liquidity without relying on traditional approaches.[\[1\]](#cite-id-s07gjqmar8) Thoma said Turtle had secured more than $1 billion in liquidity across campaigns with TacBuild and [Katana](https://iq.wiki/wiki/katana).[\[2\]](#cite-id-fh3lq9o7e4) In July, he described Turtle Accounts as a way to bundle social accounts and wallets under one account; Turtle’s announcement said users could link a wallet, social accounts, or email to access rewards and yield.[\[2\]](#cite-id-fh3lq9o7e4)​

On September 5, 2025, Thoma said Turtle had added support for [Solana](https://iq.wiki/wiki/solana) and [TON](https://iq.wiki/wiki/the-open-network-toncoin) wallets, extending the service beyond [Ethereum Virtual Machine](https://iq.wiki/wiki/ethereum-virtual-machine-evm) ecosystems. He described linking wallets and social accounts to one profile as foundational to planned features.[\[2\]](#cite-id-fh3lq9o7e4)