Stefan Thomas
Founder CEO at Coil
British Virgin Islands Virgin Islands (British)
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolStefan Thomas is a founder and CEO with 16 years building payment and distributed-systems infrastructure, best known as founder/CEO of Coil and former CTO and early engineer at Ripple where he helped shape the XRP Ledger and Codius. He co-created the Interledger Protocol and now chairs the Interledger Foundation, advancing open payment standards and web monetization. A prolific open-source contributor, Stefan has committed to high-profile projects including rippled (XRP Ledger), bitcoinjs-lib and mongoose, with hands-on work in C++, crypto primitives and test automation. He blends product leadership and developer-level engineering, regularly moving between architecture, protocol design and low-level bug fixes and performance improvements. Earlier in his career he produced the viral "What is Bitcoin?" explainer that reached millions and showcased his ability to make complex tech accessible. Based in the British Virgin Islands/UK, he’s focused on building interoperable, fast, low-cost payments that create a better business model for the web.
16 years of coding experience
13 years of employment as a software developer
BA (Hons.), Business Studies, BA (Hons.), Business Studies at The Open University
English, German, French, Spanish
Stackoverflow
1,311reputation
124kreached
4answers
2questions
jquery-mobile
top-1%
cordova
top-1%
Github Skills (30)
unit-testing10
javascript10
c-language10
buffer10
node-js10
buffering10
cordova10
biginteger10
jquery-mobile10
testing10
bitcoin10
schema-design10
ledger10
bitcoins10
mongodb-database10
Programming languages (13)
Github contributions (5)
XRPLF/rippled
Oct 2012 - Sep 2013
Decentralized cryptocurrency blockchain daemon implementing the XRP Ledger protocol in C++
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer & Test Automation Engineer
Back-end Developer & Test Automation EngineerContributions:196 commits in 10 months
Contributions summary:Stefan primarily contributed to the backend implementation of the XRP Ledger protocol in C++. They focused on bug fixes, such as handling exceptions related to invalid transactions, and refactoring code for improved efficiency. In addition, the user improved the testing suite by adding features and options for better test configuration. Further commits show work on improving the RPC interface with new functions.
cryptographycppxrpldaemonblockchain
bitcoinjs/bitcoinjs-lib
May 2011 - Apr 2014
A javascript Bitcoin library for node.js and browsers.
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:54 commits in 2 years 11 months
Contributions summary:Stefan's contributions primarily involved the enhancement and maintenance of the core Bitcoin library functionalities. They focused on improving the safety and efficiency of number-to-byte array conversions within the BigInteger class, which is crucial for cryptographic operations. Furthermore, the user demonstrated proficiency in debugging and optimizing performance by removing unnecessary debug statements. Additional contributions include splitting code into separate directories, indicating a focus on project structure and maintainability.
browsersnode-jsjavascriptbitcoinjsbitcoinjs-lib
Find and Hire Top DevelopersWe’ve analyzed the programming source code of over 60 million software developers on GitHub and scored them by 50,000 skills. Sign-up on Prog,AI to search for software developers.