Karl Floersch
Chief Technology Officer at OP Labs PBC
New York, New York, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolKarl Floersch is a crypto-focused technology leader and longtime Ethereum researcher turned operational CTO, with 11+ years building scalable blockchain infrastructure and incentive-aligned public goods funding. He helped ship core proof-of-stake and layer-2 primitives—contributing to Casper, pyethereum, and the Optimism rollup—combining smart contract engineering, backend systems, and mechanism design. As an early architect at OP Labs and former Ethereum Foundation researcher, he blends deep protocol research with hands-on delivery of production rollups and validator logic. He’s passionate about cryptoeconomics and open source, and unexpectedly pairs rigorous engineering with meditation practice, reflecting a systems-level view of technology’s social impact.
11 years of coding experience
7 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Science (BS) Computer Science, Bachelor of Science (BS) Computer Science at Stony Brook University, State University of New York
Stackoverflow
327reputation
14kreached
2answers
9questions
Github Skills (24)
autoscaling10
solidity10
python10
optim10
viper10
scaling10
scale10
staking10
rollupjs10
ethereum10
cryptography10
blockchain10
smart-contracts10
opt10
testing9
Programming languages (14)
Github contributions (5)
ethereum/casper
Mar 2017 - Mar 2018
Casper contract, and related software and tests
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:30 commits, 21 PRs, 27 pushes in 1 year
Contributions summary:Karl focused on implementing and refining the core logic of a proof-of-stake protocol, likely for Ethereum. Their commits demonstrate significant work on validator rotation, finalization logic, and dynamic validator sets. The code changes involve modifications to simulator scripts, contract refactoring, and the addition of functions related to voting and rewards, all critical for the Casper protocol's functionality.
ethereumcontractblockchainsoliditycasper
ethereum-optimism/optimism
Oct 2020 - Jan 2022
Optimism is Ethereum, scaled.
Role in this project:Back-end Developer & Smart Contract Engineer
Back-end Developer & Smart Contract EngineerContributions:336 reviews, 115 commits, 141 PRs in 1 year 3 months
Contributions summary:Karl has primarily focused on the development of smart contracts related to the Optimism scaling solution for Ethereum. Their contributions include refactoring and adding tests to the core contract logic, specifically within the `NEW_OVM_CanonicalTransactionChain.sol` file. Furthermore, the user has introduced the implementation of a ring buffer data structure to enhance efficiency and has integrated a queue system into the canonical transaction chain for processing transactions. The user also worked on adding gas burn functionality.
rollupl2-scalingovmethereumblockchain
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.