Mysten Labs Co-Founder and CTO Sam Blackshear Joins Anthropic for AI Security Research

Sam Blackshear, co-founder and chief technology officer of Mysten Labs, has announced he is stepping down from his role to join Anthropic, where he will focus on defensive security research.

Blackshear co-founded Mysten Labs in September 2021 alongside four former Meta executives. The company is best known as the creator of the Sui blockchain, a Layer 1 network built using the Move programming language — originally developed at Meta for the company's now-discontinued Diem blockchain project. Move was designed with a resource-oriented model intended to prevent classes of smart contract vulnerabilities that have plagued other blockchain ecosystems, making Blackshear's shift from blockchain security to AI security a natural extension of his expertise. Mysten Labs has since attracted significant venture capital backing, including a funding round led by FTX Ventures prior to that firm's collapse.

Blackshear confirmed that Mysten Labs co-founder and CEO Evan Cheng will assume responsibility for setting the company's technical direction going forward. The leadership transition comes at a time when the Sui mainnet has been live since 2023, with the network continuing to develop its ecosystem of decentralized applications.

"When I reflect on my career, I have been happiest doing hands-on technical work while exploring new problem domains," Blackshear said. "This is an opportunity to do both, and I'm motivated to work on security at a time when the balance of power between attackers and defenders is shifting."

His transition to Anthropic comes amid a broader trend of artificial intelligence being deployed in cybersecurity contexts — both defensively and offensively. AI tools are increasingly used to identify software vulnerabilities, automate phishing campaigns, and accelerate attacks on blockchain infrastructure, raising concerns across the digital asset industry. The convergence is particularly relevant for crypto projects, where billions of dollars have been lost to smart contract exploits and bridge hacks in recent years.

Anthropic, founded in 2021, is an AI safety company known for developing the Claude family of large language models and has positioned itself around responsible AI development. The company has received substantial backing from major technology firms including Amazon and Google, reflecting the intensifying competition among leading AI labs to attract top research talent.

Blackshear stated that he will remain a close advisor to Mysten Labs and the broader Sui ecosystem. He also expressed interest in continuing his involvement with the Move Foundation, the organization overseeing governance and development of the Move programming language.