Drew Mailen

About

I started as a volunteer teacher in the Pacific Islands and lived in Yap for two years. After returning to the U.S., I worked as an adjunct professor.

I began blogging about blockchain in 2017 because I thought there should be a better solution than relying on central bankers to intermediate our economy. Within about 18 months of blogging, Amazon Web Services found my work and asked me to consult. Since then, I have worked across crypto, gaming, and AI on narrative, product positioning, launch campaigns, and technical communications.

I am the co-founder of Valiron. I created the original concept and architected the technical direction: trust and reputation infrastructure for autonomous agents using on-chain identity, behavioral evaluation, and machine-native payment rails.

I co-authored the Accumulate white paper and arXiv preprint with the protocol team. The paper has been cited 30x+ and used in five patents.

Focus

AI agents, machine-to-machine trust, x402-style micropayments, MPP, and ERC-8004 identity.