Dr. James Stroud, PhD is an early innovator in the blockchain space, an NFT trailblazer, and Co-Founder of Stealth R&D LLC.
James is one of a handful of very early NFT pioneers, creating many NFT innovations before the name “NFT” was ever invented. These innovations include the first NFT playing cards, the world’s first NFT PFP (profile picture) project, the world’s first functional NFTs, and the world’s first in-wallet pictorial representation of NFTs.
All of these inventions, and many more, were well ahead of their time, requiring the rest of the NFT industry years to catch up.
Recognizing the need for a cryptocurrency that was not only private, but fast and feeless, James launched the Stealth cryptocurrency in 2014. Later, James incorporated quantum proof-of-stake, nicknamed “Junaeth”, into Stealth. Junaeth is a feeless transaction protocol designed for the fastest cryptographically private transactions possible.
Also in 2014, James co-founded CryptoCertify, the world’s first service dedicated to validating and certifying cryptocurrency code. Before the Ethereum token revolution, review by CryptoCertify was a prerequisite for having a verified market on Bittrex.
In 2015, Breakout Gaming hired James to develop a blockchain platform for Breakout’s online casino. For this project, James developed the world’s first true multiple-cryptocurrency (multicurrency) platform called Breakout Chain, where several on-chain assets contributed to incentivizing consensus. Part of the impetus for a multicurrency platform was James’s desire to create full-fledged NFTs.
As a result, Breakout Chain hosted the first set of collectible NFTs, a deck of 52 playing cards. The Deck predated CryptoPunks (the earliest PFP project on Ethereum) by over one year.
From 2016 to 2018, James served as Chief Technical Officer and Chief Coin Officer for Breakout Gaming before co-founding Stealth R&D.
Before the advent of the cryptocurrency industry, James was a biomedical scientist. James has authored 21 peer-reviewed scientific articles in the world’s leading journals, with an average of over 100 citations per article.
James earned a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Colorado at Boulder, then studied the biochemistry of neurodegenerative diseases at UCLA as an NIH Kirschstein postdoctoral fellow.
After his post-doc, James served on the faculty at University of New Mexico’s Department of Chemistry and Center for Biomedical Engineering before starting a career in cryptocurrency development.