Open Letter from Luis C. de León

To everyone in the Pocket Ecosystem,

I would like to formally announce that as of September 30th 2022, I’ve transitioned out of the Chief Technology Officer position at Pocket Network Inc. I’m writing this to express my reasoning behind this decision and my gratitude to everyone in the company and the broader Pocket Network community for all this time and love for the project I’ve witnessed throughout the years.

We conceptualized Pocket Network in December 2016, right before the ICO boom of 2017, a time where the possibilities of cryptocurrencies and decentralized systems started to shine in the mainstream discourse at an accelerating pace. Michael, Pabel, Valeria, and myself wanted to jump into the ecosystem and started brainstorming ideas to hack and experiment with when we suddenly realized that one provider was responsible for the majority of the traffic during this very important time in the history of the space. This led us to the single question: what happens to all this innovation and energy if that one provider were to disappear? And the solution to that concern was Pocket Network, a decentralized, permissionless network of nodes that could serve blockchain RPC access to the masses, in a Web2 scalable way, but with Web3 native incentives and architecture.

The first one to grasp and communicate how big Pocket was going to be was Michael, who during a trip to Medellín in 2018 convinced us that Pocket was going to change the world. I still remember laughing and calling him crazy, but he was so determined that he ended up instilling that fire in us. Fast forward to 2020 and dozens of amazing people had joined the project. Several product versions, proofs of concept, development sprints, heartache, and sheer force of will helped us prove to the broader crypto community the value of what we were building. We launched Mainnet (also known as v0) on July 28th 2020, in the heart of a global pandemic. It was the crowning achievement of our hard work – getting to the starting line and finally getting our chance at bat to demonstrate what a world with decentralized infrastructure would look like.

Today, Pocket Network is the biggest decentralized infrastructure network in the world, with more than 26,000 nodes staked in the network as of the time of writing, with a daily average of 1+ billion relays. With thousands of people having joined the community, we have demonstrated a new way of bridging the infrastructure gap between the creativity of dApp developers and the decentralized systems of the future that will power our online lives.

Though I will for the rest of my life be proud of all the time and energy I have invested in helping push Pocket Network to where it is today, there are real consequences to pursuing a vision to the extremes. It comes in the form of emotional and physical health, which have compounded over time, making my day to day life more difficult, and forcing me to take a hard look at my future. These are the main reasons why I’ve taken the difficult decision of transitioning out of my role of being the CTO for Pocket Network Inc, in order to take time off to heal and recharge for whatever is the next chapter in my life.

Having said that, Pocket Network will forever be part of my life. As long as 1 relay courses through the network’s veins, I will be ready to assist in any shape or form. I’m still part of the DAO and will continue to be involved with the community as I regain my strength and eventually will also come back to PNI in another capacity other than CTO.

The team I have delegated my former responsibilities to is the strongest version of PNI we’ve ever been. The vision and mission commitment remain the same as it has been since the beginning, but more scaled up and efficient than it’s ever been, which means that with the collaboration of the community we can be sure to expect a bright future for Pocket Network, which is everything that I want for this project and its wonderful people.

Gratitude and love forever,

Luis