Sam Blackshear, Co-founder and CTO of Mysten Labs and the creator of the Transfer programming language, introduced on Thursday that he will likely be leaving Mysten Labs to affix Anthropic, the place he’ll work in defensive safety analysis.
The transfer marks a notable management transition at Mysten Labs, the corporate tied to the Layer 1 blockchain Sui, whereas bringing one of many Transfer ecosystem’s key engineers to AI safety. On Anthropic’s aspect, Blackshear’s transition to defensive safety analysis comes as the corporate expands its AI safety efforts—an more and more crucial area as AI fashions are extra broadly utilized in software program growth and testing.
Sam Blackshear Confirms Transfer to Anthropic
Blackshear confirmed his transition to Anthropic in a quick put up on X, stating that he’ll work on defensive safety analysis. He has not launched additional particulars concerning his official title, workforce, or beginning date for the brand new function.
I’m leaving Mysten Labs and becoming a member of Anthropic to work on defensive safety analysis.
— Sam Blackshear (@b1ackd0g) August 5, 2026
Blackshear is likely one of the most distinguished technical figures related to the Sui ecosystem. Earlier than co-founding Mysten Labs, he labored at Meta on the Diem venture, the place he created Transfer—a programming language designed for digital belongings and sensible contracts.
At Mysten, Blackshear served as Co-founder and CTO, and was one in every of 5 founding members alongside Evan Cheng, Adeniyi Abiodun, Kostas Chalkias, and George Danezis. His transfer to Anthropic is due to this fact not simply a person profession change, but in addition a shift for a key technical determine deeply tied to the Transfer and Sui story from the early days.
Evan Cheng Steps Again Into CTO Position
Shortly after Blackshear’s announcement, Evan Cheng acknowledged he could be “returning to my roots” by main engineering groups and the research-to-engineering-to-product pipeline. Cheng added that, as CTO and CEO, he will likely be nearer to the technical work and straight concerned in operations.
It is a notable element for the Sui group because it helps slender the data hole following the departure of a founding CTO. Cheng is just not solely CEO of Mysten Labs but in addition a veteran engineer who beforehand served as Director of R&D at Meta’s Novi Monetary and earlier labored at Apple, the place he contributed to the LLVM compiler infrastructure.
Cheng moving into the twin function of CTO helps Mysten preserve continuity in technical management, not less than throughout the transition interval. As a substitute of appointing a brand new technical chief from the skin, Mysten presently has Cheng straight overseeing each company operations and technical path.
Mysten’s Founders Sign Continuity
Responses from Mysten’s founding workforce sign a want to take care of stability following Blackshear’s announcement. Adeniyi Abiodun, Co-founder and CPO of Mysten Labs, congratulated Blackshear and expressed happiness for his colleague’s subsequent chapter.
Abiodun additionally famous that he’ll proceed collaborating with Evan Cheng as Cheng steps into the CTO function, whereas referencing Kostas Chalkias and George Danezis throughout the workforce driving the corporate’s subsequent part. For Mysten, this emphasizes that the rest of the founding workforce stays actively concerned within the transition.
Can’t say sufficient good issues about @b1ackd0g. Nice pal, nice colleague, and genuinely completely happy for his subsequent chapter.
Tremendous pumped to accomplice with @EvanWeb3 once more as he steps in as CTO. He, @kostascrypto, @GDanezis and I are already executing hand in hand on what comes subsequent for…
— Adeniyi.sui (@EmanAbio) August 6, 2026
Why the Departure Issues for Sui
Blackshear’s function is especially important for Sui as a result of Transfer is a core factor of the community’s technical structure. Sui mainnet launched on Could 3, 2023; the SUI token is used for fuel charges, staking, and community governance, with a complete provide capped at 10 billion tokens.
In accordance with DeFiLlama, Sui presently holds roughly $408 million in whole worth locked in DeFi, a stablecoin market cap of round $436.4 million, 174,927 energetic addresses, and 13.31 million transactions in 24 hours. CoinGecko recorded SUI buying and selling round $0.68 on the identical day, with a market cap of roughly $2.8 billion and 24-hour quantity of round $167 million.
Given Sui’s present scale, the departure of a technical determine tied to Transfer from the early days is notable information. Nonetheless, Blackshear’s exit doesn’t indicate quick protocol modifications: Transfer has advanced past a single particular person, whereas Sui continues to function with impartial engineering groups, validators, and on-chain purposes. Mysten has not but introduced a timeline for Cheng’s tenure as CTO, nor any modifications to technical priorities resembling Transfer, Walrus, or DeepBook.
Anthropic Deepens Its AI Safety Push
On Anthropic’s aspect, Blackshear becoming a member of defensive safety analysis coincides with the corporate’s enlargement of merchandise and initiatives associated to cybersecurity. On April 30, 2026, Anthropic launched Claude Safety in public beta for Claude Enterprise prospects, enabling code scanning for vulnerabilities and patch suggestions powered by Claude fashions.
The corporate can be rolling out Mission Glasswing, an initiative utilizing frontier AI to safeguard crucial software program. In a Could 22 replace, Anthropic acknowledged that Mission Glasswing and round 50 companions had recognized over 10,000 high- or critical-severity vulnerabilities; by June 2, this system expanded to roughly 150 organizations throughout greater than 15 nations.
Along with his background in Transfer and sensible contract safety, Blackshear brings to Anthropic expertise from an surroundings the place code is usually public, belongings maintain real-world worth, and logic flaws can result in quick loss. This distinction makes the transition from blockchain infrastructure to AI safety notably intriguing, reasonably than a routine personnel change between two tech corporations.
