Nader Al-Naji

Nader Al-Naji is a technology entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of DeSo, a layer-1 decentralized social network designed to scale blockchain applications. After graduating from Princeton University with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering in 2013, he worked as a quantitative software engineer at DE Shaw Group before joining the Google Ads team until 2017. In July 2017, Al-Naji founded Basis, an algorithmic cryptocurrency protocol that raised $133 million in venture funding before shutting down its operations in December 2018. He subsequently launched BitClout in March 2021, a proof-of-work social media application that served as an initial prototype for the broader DeSo ecosystem. His early technical involvement in the cryptocurrency sector includes mining approximately 23 Bitcoins during 2012, and his professional background centers on advancing decentralized social media platforms and algorithmic stablecoins.