Move creator Sam Blackshear leaves Mysten Labs for Anthropic as crypto talent shifts to AI

Sam Blackshear, the creator of the Move programming language and a key architect behind Sui, said on Aug. 5 that he is leaving Mysten Labs to join Anthropic for defensive AI security research. His departure adds to a broader pattern outlined in the source article: senior crypto builders, protocol stewards and capital allocators are increasingly moving into AI. The piece ties Blackshear’s decision to a moment earlier this year when he described using Claude to migrate a security analysis tool to Move and identify potential vulnerabilities, a task he said would previously have taken a very long time by hand. It also points to exits by figures linked to Ethereum, OpenSea and FTX, along with falling crypto GitHub activity and venture firms widening their mandates toward AI and robotics. Against that backdrop, the article argues that the issue is not only shrinking developer activity, but the loss of people who define security boundaries and guide protocol direction. The Coldcard wallet exploit, which the article says might have been caught quickly with AI-assisted review, is used to frame the question now facing the sector: who is left to guard critical systems as both talent and money rotate elsewhere?