title: Co-Founder / CEO
company: Sonr
start: 2021-03-01
location: New York, USA
profile-heading: Founder building Decentralized Identity | W3C Working Group Member for DIDs, WebAuthn, and WASM | 6000+ Github Contributions 2021-2023
description: |
  - Founded the startup and successfully led executive fundraising efforts, securing $4.7M in capital to build a peer-to-peer identity and asset management system leveraging decentralized identifiers (DIDs), WebAuthn, and IPFS.
  - Directed technical strategy across 7 full-time staff (including a technical writer) and two specialist agencies — a 6-person token-economics team and a 6-engineer mobile team — with all reporting lines direct to CEO, co-developing a React Native mobile chat application powered by the decentralized Matrix protocol.
  - Architected a custom Layer 1 blockchain using the Cosmos SDK, optimizing data serialization and network communication with Protobufs.
  - Operated the Sonr Testnet across 4 geographically distributed validator nodes (San Francisco, New York, Virginia, Asia) with 4+ environments and 4 distinct validator profiles secured via KMS, sustaining 99% operational uptime; ran the initial DevNet on Google Cloud and orchestrated Beam's self-hosted Matrix homeserver with Ansible, alongside Kubernetes, Docker, and Terraform infrastructure.
  - Drove massive open-source community growth, achieving the 4th highest global GitHub contributions (Oct 2021 – Oct 2022) for the platform's MVP, and successfully onboarding over 120 first-time blockchain developers to the Motor SDKs during DevNet.
  - Actively shaped global web standards as a W3C Working Group Member for DIDs, WebAuthn, and WebAssembly (WASM); implemented the DID specification to full spec compliance and built the first W3C-conformant WebAuthn implementation tied to DIDs recorded on a blockchain, enabling passkey-based wallet identity.
  - Pivoted the company to B2B (2026), leading customer discovery for a white-label wallet system positioned as an open-source alternative to Privy, while winding down consumer operations.
scale:
  org: "7 FTE (incl. technical writer) + 6-person tokenomics agency + 6-person app agency, all reporting to CEO"
  infra: "4 testnet nodes (SF/NY/VA/Asia), 4+ environments, 4 validator profiles (KMS), 99% uptime"
skills:
  - Executive Leadership
  - Startup Fundraising
  - Cosmos SDK
  - React Native
  - Kubernetes
  - Docker
  - Google Cloud
  - Terraform
  - Ansible
  - Protocol Buffers
  - Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs)
  - WebAuthn
  - WebAssembly (WASM)
  - IPFS
  - Matrix Protocol
  - Technology Strategy
  - DevOps
  - Linux Administration
projects:
  - ../projects/appchain.yml
  - ../projects/beam-chat.yml
  - ../projects/cryptography-library.yml
  - ../projects/decentralized-airdrop.yml
  - ../projects/ecosystem-devrel.yml
  - ../projects/client-sdk.yml
  - ../projects/token-economics.yml
press:
  - "Fast Company: 'What Web3 can learn from the Mac and the iPhone' (byline Prad Nukala, 2022-11-26)"
evidence:
  - fact: "Authored Fast Company op-ed 'What Web3 can learn from the Mac and the iPhone', published 2022-11-26 under byline Prad Nukala"
    source: https://www.fastcompany.com/90814899/web3-lessons-mac-iphone
    retrieved: 2026-07-03
  - fact: "Medium (@prnk28, 288 followers): 'How We Authenticate Every Twitter User' (Jul 2022), 'Introducing the Venus Upgrade' (Sonr Blog, Apr 2023)"
    source: https://medium.com/@prnk28
    retrieved: 2026-07-03