Mysten Labs appointed Kevin Boon as CEO, and Evan Cheng remains as CTO and leads the AI department

Kevin Boon, President of Mysten Labs, has succeeded Evan Cheng as the CEO of this Sui Layer 1 blockchain developer. Cheng will continue to serve as Chief Technology Officer and personally lead the newly established internal AI business unit. In an open letter released on October 16, Cheng stated that Boon has accepted the position and announced the news simultaneously on X. Boon previously served as Chief Legal Officer at Mysten Labs before being promoted to President. Cheng mentioned, "I planned for this day when I appointed him as President."

The new AI department will have independent functions such as engineering and product development to reduce external dependencies, and will focus on trust proxy products and AI-native infrastructure, referencing the model of the on-chain financial business unit established by Mysten this summer. Cheng stated that this transition is intended to free up more time for him to focus on technical leadership while continuing to support the Sui and Walrus ecosystems, "This makes my scope of responsibilities more manageable."

The goal of the AI business is to allow proxies to autonomously execute tasks within user-defined limits, with related products and services anchored to Sui and Walrus. Walrus is Mysten's decentralized storage protocol, which is set to launch its mainnet in March 2025. Cheng specifically mentioned the Verifiable Agent Arbiter developed in collaboration with Google Cloud, which was announced on October 6, aimed at allowing enterprises to prove that their AI agents operate within authorized boundaries. As designed, detailed proxy records are stored in the customer-controlled Google Cloud Storage, with cryptographic proofs stored on Walrus and coordinated on Sui, with initial enterprise deployment plans set to launch ahead of broader availability.