Sam Blackshear, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Mysten Labs, has announced that he is stepping down from his role to join artificial intelligence company Anthropic.
Blackshear, who co-founded Mysten Labs alongside four former Meta executives in 2021, said he will focus on defensive AI security research as artificial intelligence transforms the cybersecurity landscape.
Following his departure, Mysten Labs CEO and co-founder Evan Cheng will assume responsibility for guiding the company’s technical vision.
Blackshear said the move allows him to return to hands-on engineering while tackling one of technology’s fastest-evolving challenges.
AI Is Changing Cybersecurity
According to Blackshear, artificial intelligence is rapidly altering the balance between attackers and defenders.
He said modern AI systems can now identify software vulnerabilities, automate complex coding tasks and significantly accelerate cybersecurity research.
These same capabilities, however, are also being used by malicious actors to improve phishing campaigns, discover software flaws and attack blockchain infrastructure more efficiently.
Blackshear said this changing landscape motivated his decision to focus on defensive security.
AI Capabilities Reached a Turning Point
Blackshear pointed to a recent experience using Claude, Anthropic’s AI assistant, as a defining moment.
While porting a static analysis tool originally developed during his time at Facebook into Move, the smart contract programming language used by the Sui blockchain, he relied on Claude to convert the code and identify potential vulnerabilities.
According to Blackshear, work that previously required extensive manual effort was completed rapidly by the AI model.
He said the experience demonstrated how dramatically AI capabilities have advanced and convinced him that cybersecurity is entering a fundamentally different era.
Crypto Industry Seeks Advanced AI Tools
The growing role of artificial intelligence has prompted many cryptocurrency companies to seek access to frontier AI models capable of improving security audits and vulnerability detection.
Many of the most advanced systems remain available only to a limited number of organizations, leading some blockchain security experts to argue that legitimate defenders should receive broader access.
Solana Foundation Chief Information Security Officer Michael Coates recently said advanced AI models should be made available to verified security teams because attackers will inevitably gain access to comparable capabilities through other means.
Industry leaders argue that giving defenders access to state-of-the-art AI will become increasingly important as cyber threats continue to evolve.
Leadership Transition at Mysten Labs
Mysten Labs is the developer of the Sui blockchain, one of the major Layer-1 blockchain networks focused on scalability and digital asset applications.
While Blackshear will leave day-to-day leadership, the company indicated that its technical development will continue under Evan Cheng’s direction.
The transition comes during a period of growing investment in both blockchain infrastructure and artificial intelligence, with increasing overlap between the two technologies.
Outlook
Sam Blackshear’s move from Mysten Labs to Anthropic reflects the growing convergence of artificial intelligence and blockchain security. As AI becomes more capable of both identifying vulnerabilities and strengthening software defenses, cybersecurity is emerging as one of the most important areas of innovation within the digital asset industry. The transition also highlights the increasing demand for advanced AI expertise as crypto companies adapt to an evolving threat landscape.
