Jacob Virgil Bailey Haap (born 17 April 2003) is an American software architect and developer specialising in applied cryptography and blockchain technology.
Jacob Virgil Bailey Haap was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States on 17 April 2003, to Jason Alan Haap and Antoinette Marie Haap. He is of mixed European-American and African-American heritage. He was privately educated at Waldorf, Montessori, and Catholic schools for his primary education.
Haap began learning computer programming at age 11 while enrolled at the Montessori school, initially studying Java to create modifications for the game Minecraft. During the same period, he learned about Bitcoin and blockchain technology when seeking methods to accept donations for his Minecraft server.
From ages 12 to 16, Haap attended Catholic schools, including St. Xavier High School before transitioning to an online school during the COVID-19 pandemic. At age 14, he attended his first student hackathon and subsequently established a Hack Club chapter at his high school. At age 15, he attended a hackathon in Cincinnati where he created his first project on the Ethereum blockchain utilising an ERC-20 token. In March 2019, Haap attended Los Altos Hacks IV in Sunnyvale, California, marking his first time travelling alone; his team won best Android app at the event.
In 2021 Haap enrolled in community college where he took introductory classes in general studies, but he dropped out after moving to San Mateo, California to attend Draper University’s Hero Training programme, where he was the youngest member of his cohort.
As of 2026, Haap is pursuing postgraduate studies in computer science at the University of Liverpool.
In 2021, he founded Anomaly Science, a blockchain technology startup where he served as chief executive officer. The company focused on tokenised approaches to software licensing and developing tools for Web3 applications.
In December 2025, Haap became chief technology officer of Determination Labs, a Berlin-based company developing digital security solutions with human-first design principles for authentication and cryptographic applications.
He is a frequent speaker at Web3 conferences internationally, where his presentations address non-fungible token adoption challenges, user experience in decentralised systems, real-world asset tokenisation, and data ownership. His talks range from critical analyses of blockchain adoption barriers to practical applications in ticketing, loyalty programs, and developer education.
Haap has developed several open-source cryptographic libraries, primarily implemented in Rust, Go, and TypeScript. His notable projects include annihilative keys, a novel construction where a pair of cryptographic keys are derived from separate keying materials and bound through computational proof-of-work and an elliptic curve point relationship, and base73, a binary-to-text encoding scheme using an alphabet of 73 characters.
Haap resides in Berlin, Germany, and holds American citizenship. He is on the autism spectrum.
Haap has a strong interest in travel and commercial aviation, particularly United Airlines and other Star Alliance airlines, along with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft. He tracks his air travel history, having logged over 250 flights.
As of 2026, he has travelled to 38 countries across six continents. In 2024, he completed a circumnavigation by air, returning to Germany from the United States via Tokyo, Seoul, and Singapore, crossing every meridian with a total flight distance exceeding the Tropic of Cancer distance criterion for circumnavigation. At 18 he spent six weeks travelling across Europe from Ireland to Estonia through ten intermediate countries. At 15, he participated in a Northern Tier high adventure programme, undertaking a wilderness canoe expedition through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness from the Ely, Minnesota base camp.
In computing, Haap prefers Linux-based operating systems, and the Rust programming language. He practices bouldering as a recreational activity.
A human who exists, thinks thoughts, and does stuff.