Draft:Dieter Shirley

Dieter Shirley is the Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of Dapper Labs, responsible for creating the Flow blockchain and NBA TopShot. He was also the CTO and co-founder of the pioneering and widely acclaimed blockchain game known as CryptoKitties which launched in 2017. Recognized as an early pioneer in the development of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) including as a co-author of ERC-721, Shirley has made significant contributions to the emergence and popularization of NFT technology.

Career
Shirley was instrumental in the development of the ERC-721 NFT standard, initiating its first draft in 2017. This standard later published 2018 as a community effort lead by civic hacker William Entriken became a foundational element of the NFT ecosystem, enabling the creation of unique, indivisible digital assets on the Ethereum blockchain. As CTO of CryptoKitties, a blockchain-based virtual game that allows players to adopt, raise, and trade virtual cats, Shirley played a key role in implementing the first well-known use case of ERC-721 NFTs. CryptoKitties gained widespread attention for its novel use of blockchain technology, marking a significant milestone in the development and adoption of NFTs.

As the CTO of Dapper Labs, Shirley has continued to innovate in the blockchain space, focusing on the development of the Flow blockchain. Flow is designed to address some of the scalability and usability issues associated with earlier blockchain platforms, facilitating the creation of decentralized applications (dApps) and digital assets at a larger scale.