Daniel Dizon is a blockchain entrepreneur best known for co-founding Swell, one of the earliest non-custodial Ethereum liquid staking protocols. Since launch, Dizon has expanded Swell into liquid restaking and its own Layer 2 restaking network. He is also known for public commentary on the Ethereum Merge and staking centralization. Swell has raised backing from Mark Cuban and Framework Ventures and reports more than $2 billion in total value locked.
Who Is Daniel Dizon?
Daniel Dizon is an Australian blockchain entrepreneur and tech investor based in Sydney. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems from Swinburne University of Technology.
Before entering crypto, Dizon worked as a Web2 entrepreneur and co-founded a startup that later exited. He also worked as a corporate finance advisor and portfolio manager for corporate clients and served as a strategist for public sector agencies, including advisory work for the New South Wales state government in Australia and, separately, for the mayor of London on blockchain and digital assets policy.
Career and Contributions
Dizon’s move into crypto started hands-on. He worked as a solidity engineer at Synthetix and dHedge, two established Ethereum DeFi protocols, writing the smart contracts rather than just advising on them.
That time in the code gave him a close look at where DeFi’s staking and yield products fell short, and it’s what pushed him to build something of his own. In 2021, he co-founded Swell with Lecky Lao to fix a specific gap he’d run into: Ethereum holders who wanted to stake had to lock up their ETH and give up access to it.
Swell launched as a non-custodial Ethereum liquid staking protocol, letting users stake ETH through the swETH token without locking up their assets. Dizon built early growth around a gamified points system called Pearls and an incentive program known as the Voyage, which rewarded early users ahead of a later token generation event. The protocol broke into the top ten Ethereum liquid staking platforms on DefiLlama within weeks of launch.
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Views and Positions
Dizon traces his interest in crypto back to a few core ideas: freedom, control, and open finance. In an August 2023 interview with Brave New Coin, he said those ideas stood out to him because they point toward decentralized systems and a future where people have more say over their own digital assets and money. He argued that thinking could change how people use the internet, not just how they trade.
Dizon has spoken publicly about Ethereum’s staking economics and governance risks. In September 2022, ahead of the Ethereum Merge, he told Stockhead that the market had not fully priced in the Merge’s effects, arguing that rising staking rewards from priority fees and MEV capture, combined with reduced ETH issuance, would create upward pressure on ETH’s price. After the Merge went through, The Defiant reported that he expected ETH to “hold strong against the broader market decline.”
In a November 2023 Cointelegraph interview, Dizon addressed criticism that liquid staking centralizes power on Ethereum. He said node operators linked operationally, politically, or through a shared governance token risk acting as a single entity with outsized influence over the network, citing concerns first raised in Danny Ryan’s research on the risk of liquid staking cartelization.
Daniel Dizon in the News
Swell later expanded into liquid restaking with rswETH, a token integrated with EigenLayer. In October 2025, Dizon announced Swell’s next step: a dedicated Layer 2 network built on a “restaked rollup” framework developed with AltLayer, calling it “the next logical step for the Swell community and DAO,” per The Block.
Swell currently reports more than $2 billion in total value locked, per Crunchbase, and counts Mark Cuban, Framework Ventures, Apollo, Bankless, IOSG, and Maven 11 among its backers. Outside Swell, Dizon is an active angel investor with stakes in Ethena, Prisma, Maverick, Redstone, and Ion, and he has advised early-stage founders through several DeFi startup incubators.
Frequently Asked Questions
Still have questions about Daniel Dizon and Swell? Here are the ones that come up most often.
What is Daniel Dizon’s role at Swell?
Dizon co-founded Swell alongside Lecky Lao and serves as its CEO. He has led the protocol through its expansion from liquid ETH staking into liquid restaking and, as of October 2025, into its own Layer 2 network.
When did Daniel Dizon found Swell?
Dizon co-founded Swell in 2021 alongside Lecky Lao. The protocol raised a $3.75 million seed round in March 2022.
What is Daniel Dizon’s educational background?
Dizon holds a Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems from Swinburne University of Technology in Australia.
Is Swell the same as Swell Network?
Yes, Swell and Swell Network refer to the same protocol. It launched as a liquid ETH staking platform and has since expanded into liquid restaking and a Layer 2 network for restaking.
