Starknet Foundation Appoints Meta Veteran Oliva as First CEO

Starknet Foundation, the nonprofit foundation founded by blockchain scalability company Starknet, appointed former Meta executive Diego Oliva as its first CEO. Oliva will lead the ecosystem’s growth and help with decentralization efforts, according to a press release provided to CoinDesk

Starknet parent StarkWare reached an $8 billion valuation after a $100 million funding round in May 2022 and announced the existence of the foundation in July. The Starknet Foundation officially launched in November with a seven-person board and a supply of 5.01 billion Starknet tokens, or about 50.1% of the initial supply of 10 billion tokens. The tokens are not yet available for public trading.

Oliva served as Meta’s – at the time, Facebook’s – regional director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa until 2015. He later co-founded and led internet-of-things company Glue Home, and he serves on the board of food-delivery company Just Eat.

“STARK Proofs, the cryptography behind Starknet, are delivering the kind of scale for blockchain we didn’t think was possible,” Oliva said. “I want to see them reach the hands of any interested developer in the world.”