Jed McCaleb is the co-founder of the Stellar Development Foundation and Chief Architect of the Stellar Lumens (XLM) project. McCaleb is also the founder of Ripple, where he was also the Chief Technology Officer. McCaleb has wide ranging experience in the development of software and peer-to-peer file sharing networks, having created eDonkey2000, the peer-to-peer file sharing software. 

Most famously, McCaleb created the now defunct Mt. Gox cryptocurrency exchange in 2010, which at one point was the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. McCaleb sold Mt. Gox in 2011, years before it would stop all services and file for bankruptcy.  

Born in the United States of America, McCaleb attended into the University of California, Berkeley, before dropping out and moving to New York City. Besides founding Mt. Gox, Ripple and Stellar, McCaleb also founded Code Collective, which developed a video game called The Far Wilds; and continues to serve as an advisor at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. He has donated $500,000 worth of XRP tokens to the institute, and has also donated to another artificial intelligence focused group, OpenAI.

By his own admission, the Stellar project was created as a result of his belief that the world’s financial infrastructure is broken, with too many people being left without resources. Stellar and Ripple are seen as competitors by investors, though the former is more customer oriented, as opposed to Ripple’s business oriented offerings.