Stefan Thomas
Founder & CEO at Coil
British Virgin Islands Virgin Islands (British)
Summary
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Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolStefan Thomas is a seasoned founder and technology leader with 16 years building payments, blockchain, and distributed systems—most recently as Founder & CEO of Coil, which pioneers Web Monetization using Interledger. He co-created the Interledger Protocol and chairs the Interledger Foundation, combining deep protocol design with practical product-led monetization for creators. Stefan’s early engineering roots include serving as Ripple’s CTO and notable open-source contributions to high-profile projects like rippled (XRP Ledger), bitcoinjs-lib, and mongoose, where he focused on backend robustness, cryptographic correctness, and test automation. He blends hands-on C++ and JavaScript systems work with strategic board experience across startups and platforms, including Imgur and Omni. Based in the British Virgin Islands, he’s driven by making fast, low-cost, interoperable payments the foundation for a healthier web economy. An uncommon detail: beyond leadership he still contributes bug fixes and core refactors to critical open-source protocol implementations.
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 (27)
unit-testing10
javascript10
c-language10
buffer10
buffering10
cordova10
biginteger10
jquery-mobile10
testing10
bitcoin10
ledger10
schema-design10
bitcoins10
mongodb-database10
cryptography10
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
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