# Prateek Saxena

> Prateek Saxena is a co-founder of Zilliqa, an assistant professor at the National University of Singapore, and a blockchain scalability researcher.

- Canonical URL: https://iq.wiki/wiki/prateek-saxena
- Categories: People in crypto
- Tags: Developer, Founder
- Created: 2024-04-12T15:09:38.700Z
- Last updated: 2024-04-25T21:20:58.213Z
- Source: IQ.wiki — the world's largest blockchain and crypto encyclopedia (https://iq.wiki)

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**Prateek Saxena** is a co-founder of [Zilliqa](https://iq.wiki/wiki/zilliqa) and an assistant professor at the National University of Singapore. He co-authored a paper on [sharding](https://iq.wiki/wiki/sharding) that was later used as the foundation for the [Zilliqa](https://iq.wiki/wiki/zilliqa) [blockchain](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blockchain). [\[1\]](#cite-id-5y8pitl2rkc)  
  
# Education  
  
Saxena received his Master's in Computer Science from Stony Brook University in 2007. In 2012, he graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a Ph.D in Computer Science. [\[1\]](#cite-id-5y8pitl2rkc)  
  
# Career  
  
After graduation, Saxena became an assistant professor at the National University of Singapore's School of Computing. In 2016, he identified critical shortcomings in existing [blockchain](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blockchain) networks: slow transaction processing, limited scalability, and security compromises. To address this, Saxena and [Loi Luu](https://iq.wiki/wiki/loi-luu) co-authored a paper titled "Elastico," exploring how [sharding](https://iq.wiki/wiki/sharding) from database architecture could enhance [blockchain](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blockchain) scalability. [\[1\]](#cite-id-5y8pitl2rkc)[\[2\]](#cite-id-031264m031v2)  
  
Following the paper's publication, he co-founded Anquan Capital with [Max Kantelia](https://iq.wiki/wiki/max-kantelia) to develop this concept further, while [Luu](https://iq.wiki/wiki/loi-luu) launched [Kyber Network](https://iq.wiki/wiki/kyber-network), a decentralized [cryptocurrency](https://iq.wiki/wiki/cryptocurrency) [exchange](https://iq.wiki/wiki/decentralized-exchange). Despite promising [applications](https://iq.wiki/wiki/decentralized-application) across finance, e-commerce, and manufacturing, Anquan realized the necessity for a scalable [blockchain](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blockchain) platform. Consequently, they decided to create their public blockchain project, [Zilliqa](https://iq.wiki/wiki/zilliqa), which launched on June 1, 2017. [\[2\]](#cite-id-031264m031v2)