Felix Xu co-founded ARPA Community in 2018 and has served as its CEO ever since, constructing a decentralized computation community backed by Binance Labs and Arrington Capital, in line with CryptoSlate. The ARPA token trades close to $0.0082, with a market capitalization round $12.5 million and a CoinMarketCap rating of #887.
Earlier than turning to blockchain, Xu spent years as a enterprise investor at Fosun Group, one in every of China’s largest conglomerates. He additionally co-founded the DeFi platform Bella Protocol, holds a associate position on the crypto hedge fund ZX Squared, and has an NFT assortment that has drawn protection from the Wall Avenue Journal and New York Occasions, in line with Cointelegraph.
Who Is Felix Xu?
Felix Xu studied finance and data programs at New York College’s Stern Faculty of Enterprise, a background that formed his early profession in conventional finance earlier than he pivoted into blockchain infrastructure, in line with Cointelegraph. He spent years as a enterprise investor at Fosun Group, one in every of China’s largest conglomerates, serving to steer early-stage blockchain investments.
In accordance with a 2021 firm assertion distributed by way of Yahoo Finance, Xu traces his curiosity in blockchain to 2017, whereas nonetheless at Fosun, when he grew drawn to the arithmetic behind decentralized programs. The next yr he co-founded ARPA Chain, shifting from evaluating blockchain tasks to constructing one himself.
That unique enterprise centered on multi-party computation, or MPC, a cryptographic methodology letting a number of events collectively calculate a outcome with out revealing their inputs. The corporate later rebranded to ARPA Community, and its Threshold BLS Community went stay in mid-2023, in line with CoinMarketCap.
Felix Xu’s Profession and Contributions
Since founding ARPA in 2018, Xu has expanded the challenge effectively previous its unique privacy-computation focus. The Threshold BLS Community launched in mid-2023 now underpins Randcast, ARPA’s verifiable random quantity generator used for gaming, lotteries, and validator process distribution, in line with CoinMarketCap. By Could 2024, Randcast served greater than 15 dapp clients and ran stay on six chains, together with Ethereum, Base, and Optimism, Decrypt reported.
That very same month, ARPA closed a $6 million funding spherical led by Nomura’s Laser Digital and DeFiance Capital, including to an investor base that already included Binance Labs, Arrington Capital, and DWF Labs. Xu mentioned the capital would fund new launches, together with the on-chain sport DEAR and Randcast’s integration as an EigenLayer AVS, Decrypt reported.
Xu’s ventures prolong past ARPA, putting him among the many founders featured on our crypto personalities web page. He co-founded the DeFi platform Bella Protocol in 2020 and later grew to become a associate at ZX Squared, a crypto hedge fund, in line with CryptoSlate. ARPA’s token has since fallen effectively off its November 2021 all-time excessive of $0.2752, in line with CoinMarketCap.
Felix Xu’s Views on Verifiable Randomness and AI
Xu believes reliable AI wants the identical factor his personal product supplies: randomness that no one can secretly management. In a July 2025 visitor op-ed for CryptoSlate, he argued that AI programs making monetary selections want randomness that anybody can examine was not rigged, not simply randomness that appears honest on the floor. As Xu put it: “With out verifiable randomness, we’re constructing our future on digital quicksand.”
He has additionally weighed in on AI coverage. In an earlier CryptoSlate op-ed, he argued that as U.S. AI guidelines loosen, this sort of built-in verification issues extra, not much less. Xu sees it as a backup layer of belief that works alongside regulation, somewhat than a alternative for it.
Felix Xu within the Information
Xu’s most up-to-date notable protection got here when an out of doors monetary publication featured his private views on the rise of altcoin ETFs, together with one tied to SUI, in line with an October 2025 recap on ARPA’s weblog. The recap frames his remarks as a bridge between conventional finance and Web3. Neither this nor his CryptoSlate op-eds concerned any dispute or controversy.
Incessantly Requested Questions
Want a refresher on Felix Xu? Listed below are the questions readers most frequently ask about him.
What’s ZX Squared, and what’s Felix Xu’s position there?
ZX Squared is a crypto hedge fund the place Felix Xu holds a associate position, in line with CryptoSlate. It sits alongside ARPA Community and Bella Protocol as one of many ventures Xu has constructed or joined since leaving conventional finance for blockchain in 2018.
What’s ARPA Community, and what did Felix Xu discovered?
ARPA Community is a decentralized safe computation community Xu co-founded in 2018 as ARPA Chain, targeted on multi-party computation. It later launched the Threshold BLS Community, which now powers Randcast, a verifiable random quantity generator utilized in gaming.
Why did Felix Xu depart conventional finance for blockchain?
Xu has mentioned he grew drawn to blockchain’s arithmetic whereas working as a enterprise investor at Fosun Group in 2017. The next yr he co-founded ARPA Chain, shifting from evaluating blockchain tasks to constructing one himself.
Is Felix Xu nonetheless main ARPA Community in 2026?
Sure. Xu stays ARPA Community’s CEO and continues publishing commentary on verifiable randomness and AI, together with his CryptoSlate op-ed from July 2025.