Early Days of Ethereum

Aaron Wright is a law professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in New York. He became involved with Ethereum in its earliest days in 2014, helping structure the project's legal foundations.

Cryptocurrency Research Group

In 2014, Aaron joined the Cryptocurrency Research Group alongside Kieren James-Lubin and Vitalik Buterin. As Kieren recalled in Episode 1:

"We agreed to work on a body called the Cryptocurrency Research Group and that was composed of sort of myself, Vitalik, and our friend Aaron Wright. He's since gone on to a number of Web3 projects, but at the time was a practicing attorney, but also a professor at Cardozo Law School."

Aaron came to the early Ethereum office in Times Square and "really leaned in on Ethereum and kind of helped structure everything so that, you know, it would be kind of the most robust, not just technology" — helping ensure the project's legal and organizational foundations were sound.

OpenLaw and Later Work

Aaron went on to co-found OpenLaw, a platform for creating legal agreements that work with Ethereum smart contracts, bridging the gap between traditional legal systems and blockchain technology. He also co-founded Tribute Labs and Flamingo DAO, an NFT-focused decentralized autonomous organization.

He co-authored the book Blockchain and the Law: The Rule of Code (Harvard University Press, 2018) with Primavera De Filippi, one of the foundational texts on the intersection of blockchain technology and legal systems.