Evan Cheng is another testament to the popular stereotype of Asian men being incredible technicians. Indeed, Evan Cheng transformed his fortunes by using the knowledge and experience he gained in the field. His wealth spike of about $700 million, however, began after he entered the crypto space, leveraging his knowledge to create high-quality crypto technologies.
As a result, Evan Cheng’s net worth is primarily defined by his innovations, programs, and exploits in the cryptocurrency space. Evan Cheng is the CEO and co-founder of Mysten Labs, an innovative crypto-oriented company popular for creating SUI blockchain technology. Mysten Labs, under Cheng’s supervision, is committed to making Web3 secure, reliable, and ready for mass adoption.
Their main project, SUI, is soaring high among its competitors, constantly gaining momentum in terms of TVL, Market Cap, and other key metrics, and, of course, Evan Cheng’s net worth benefits the most from these developments. This article explores Evan Cheng’s life, career, and wealth story. We will revisit his career-defining innovations, particularly the development of the top-tier cryptocurrency SUI. We’ll highlight Evan Cheng’s net worth and how he made so much wealth.
Evan Cheng: Early Life, Education, and Career
Evan Cheng was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, where he spent most of his childhood. Before turning 16, Cheng relocated to South Africa with his father to avoid compulsory military service in Taiwan.
Evan reportedly developed a passion for tech and software development at the age of 10. However, to refine his passion and skill in the field, he needed top-quality schooling, the type of which was found in the United States at the time.
Cheng pursued higher education in the United States, earning deserved degrees and accolades. Specifically, Evan Cheng graduated from Marietta College with a BSc in Computer Science and Math (1992). He furthered his studies at Syracuse University, obtaining a Master of Science in Computer Science (1996). At the end of his studies, Cheng began his professional software engineering career, securing a job at Equator Technologies in 1997.
In 2004, Evan Cheng was a Senior principal engineer at Synfora Inc. before moving to Apple the following year. At Apple, Cheng worked in various positions, starting as a Senior Compiler Engineer.
He also became the Technical Lead for generating LLVM codes and a Senior Manager leading the LLVM backend team during his 10-year stay in the company. In 2015, Evan Cheng worked at Facebook (now Meta) as the Novi Research leader and Director of Engineering for Programming Languages and Runtimes.
Towards the end of 2021, Evan Cheng co-founded Mysten Labs, taking on the CEO role from the company’s inception. Evan also supported the research in crypto, system, PL, verification, and Dev Platform-Move teams.
He was accompanied by a team of experts, most of whom are his colleagues from some of his past ventures, particularly Meta. Mysten Labs, primarily through its flagship project, SUI, soon became a significant source of income for the Taiwanese businessman.
What is Evan Cheng’s Net Worth?
While specific details about Evan Cheng’s net worth are not publicly disclosed, his leadership at Mysten Labs has been financially significant. Given that the company’s market value exceeds $3 billion and considering other potential personal income streams, Evan Cheng’s net worth is estimated to be around $700 million. The Taiwanese crypto and tech expert holds significant shares in the company and a chunk of the $SUI token supply.
Mysten Labs
In September 2021, Evan Cheng co-founded Mysten Labs with former Meta colleagues. Specifically, Mysten Labs is a team of leading experts in distributed systems, programming languages, and cryptography, established by Meta’s Novi Research, senior executives, and lead architects of the Diem blockchain and Move programming language.
The company focuses on building infrastructure for a decentralized Web3 and enabling mass adoption of cryptocurrencies. Mysten Labs owes much of its development to Evan Cheng’s expertise in software engineering and experience gained from holding crucial positions at major tech companies.
Since its inception, the company has experienced significant growth in both financial and cryptographic value, particularly with the introduction of the SUI network.
Cheng leveraged lessons from the ill-fated Diem project by Meta (then Facebook) to create a layer-1 blockchain that’s not only faster and cheaper but fundamentally different from other layer-1s. With those lessons learned, Cheng and his team developed the Move programming language, which enhances coding efficiency and streamlines the process.
Under Evan Cheng’s guidance, Mysten Labs raised $300 million in a Series B funding round in 2022. In the same year, the company’s market valuation climbed over $2 billion, with further growth in subsequent years primarily driven by SUI’s success. In 2023, Mysten Labs reported revenues of over $26.2 million, reflecting its growing influence in the blockchain sector.
SUI Blockchain
As it is the most crucial Mysten Labs innovation and a contributor to Evan Cheng’s net worth, it begs the question: What is SUI? The SUI blockchain is a next-generation Layer 1 cryptocurrency platform designed to deliver high-speed, low-cost, and scalable decentralized application (dApp) infrastructure.
Mysten Labs developed this technology in 2023 as part of their mission to revolutionize the cryptocurrency sector. SUI leverages the Move programming language and a unique DPoS consensus mechanism for enhanced security and parallel transaction processing.
The blockchain is powered by its native token, $SUI, which is used to pay for gas fees, staking operations, and other on-chain activities. Evan Chang’s Mysten Labs designed the SUI token, with approximately 3.16 billion (out of the 10 billion) tokens in circulation.
SUI’s DeFi ecosystem has grown significantly, with a total value locked (TVL) of roughly $1.84 billion. This indicates strong community confidence in the network, as users consistently purchase SUI from supported exchanges to fund various cryptocurrency transactions.
Bottom Line
Evan Cheng is the co-founder and CEO of Mysten Labs. The Taiwanese crypto innovator has generated a substantial net worth from his company’s successes, particularly with the creation of the SUI network. Although there are no official publications, Evan Cheng’s net worth is estimated to be around $700 million, based on multiple reports and an assessment of his company shares and crypto successes.
