Stephen Pair
CEO at BitPay, Inc.
United States
Summary
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RockstarStephen Pair is a veteran software leader and entrepreneur with over two decades of experience building systems for financial services and telecommunications, currently serving as CEO and co-founder of BitPay. His technical roots stretch back to programming on a TRS-80 and deep work in languages, compilers, operating systems and virtual machines, which inform his pragmatic approach to architecture and product strategy. He helped pioneer blockchain payment infrastructure—contributing core backend components to well-known open-source projects like Bitcore and a JavaScript Bitcoin Core RPC client—and holds patents in streaming analytics. A former IBM senior engineer and manager, he blends hands-on engineering, executive leadership, and market-level thinking about monetary systems and cryptography. Outside of tech he’s an instrument-rated commercial pilot and active in entrepreneurial networks and advisory boards, signaling a broad curiosity and a taste for complex, regulated systems.
13 years of coding experience
8 years of employment as a software developer
Stackoverflow
254reputation
6kreached
5answers
0questions
Github Skills (23)
json-rpc10
json10
javascript10
bitcoin10
bitcoins10
blockchain10
error-handling10
nodejs10
base5810
api-design9
testing9
apidoc9
api9
asynchronous8
async8
Programming languages (5)
Github contributions (5)
bitpay/bitcoind-rpc
Jul 2013 - Jan 2018
A client library to connect to Bitcoin Core RPC in JavaScript.
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:18 commits, 7 PRs, 10 pushes in 4 years 7 months
Contributions summary:Stephen primarily worked on the back-end of the `bitcoind-rpc` library. They implemented core functionalities such as creating an RPC client to interact with Bitcoin Core, and adding features like batched call support and object argument handling. Significant effort was also put into improving error handling and providing better error messages. The user also addressed bug fixes, including camel case issues in API calls, and implemented tests for the new features.
rpcbitcoindclient-libraryjavascriptcryptocurrency
bitpay/bitcore
Jul 2013 - Oct 2015
A full stack for bitcoin and blockchain-based applications
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:74 commits, 2 PRs, 2 pushes in 2 years 3 months
Contributions summary:Stephen primarily focused on developing the `BitcoinAddress` and `RpcClient` classes, essential for interacting with Bitcoin and blockchain functionalities. Their contributions included implementing address encoding/decoding, setting address versions and hashes, and adding batched call support to the RPC client. The commits also involved code refactoring, removal of tab spacing, and minor bug fixes, indicating a focus on improving code quality and functionality.
full-stackcryptocurrencyblockchainbitcoin
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