Russell O'Connor

developmentresearchprotocolsimplicity

Dr. Russell O'Connor is an Infrastructure Tech Developer at Blockstream and the creator of Simplicity, a next-generation smart contract language for Bitcoin. He holds a Ph.D. in Science from Radboud University Nijmegen and a bachelor's degree in Pure Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Waterloo. His work at Blockstream Research has contributed to landmark Bitcoin innovations including Taproot. Simplicity, which he first envisioned around 2012 and detailed in his 2017 paper, was activated on the Liquid Network in July 2025 after years of formal verification and development.