Jonathan Phay is the co-founder and CEO of Echo Protocol, a platform focused on integrating Bitcoin into decentralized finance (DeFi) within the Move ecosystem. He also holds a position as the Head of Partnership and Growth at Elven.

Education

Jonathan Phay completed his Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) in Mechanical Engineering at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, from 2015 to 2019. Prior to that, he studied at St Andrew's Junior College from 2010 to 2012, where he obtained his GCE A Levels. He began his education at Victoria School, attending from 2006 to 2009 and completing his GCE O Levels. ^{[1] [8]}

Career

Jonathan Phay serves as the CEO of Echo Protocol, a project aimed at expanding the utility of Bitcoin in DeFi. In addition to his role at Echo Protocol, he is the Head of Partnership and Growth at Elven. His professional background also includes work experience at ABCDE Capital. He joined X (formerly Twitter) in September 2022.

Echo Protocol

As CEO, Phay leads Echo Protocol, a platform designed to enable Bitcoin holders, including miners and investors, to earn yield on their BTC without needing to sell it. The protocol focuses on integrating Bitcoin into smart contracts and building products on top of this integration, particularly within the Move ecosystem, such as the Aptos network.

The platform's primary product, Echo Lend, offers users a simple and effective way to earn yield on their Bitcoin holdings. By depositing aBTC, users can immediately start participating in the platform’s earning program without being subject to any lockup periods. This flexibility is especially beneficial for Bitcoin holders who want to keep their BTC productive while maintaining full liquidity. The platform’s bridging process has been carefully designed to be both efficient and user-friendly, allowing participants to easily bridge their Bitcoin and take advantage of the potential APT rewards.

Phay indicated that solutions like Echo Protocol could help Bitcoin holders, especially miners whose rewards were reduced by the recent halving, continue to generate sustainable returns without the need to sell their BTC. He also pointed out that Echo is positioning itself as a significant liquidity hub within the Move-based ecosystem, which is expected to benefit from the growing demand for innovative financial solutions in the DeFi space.

Echo Protocol secured pre-seed funding from several investors, including Spartan Group, ABCDE Capital, Arthur Hayes’ Maelstrom, Selini Capital, Web3Port, Auros, Aptos, Movement Labs, Presto Labs, BSquared, and Sats Ventures. This funding supports the protocol's efforts to integrate Bitcoin into DeFi and enhance its role in the Move ecosystem.

The protocol emphasizes security and transparency in its bridging process, utilizing a decentralized re-layer network and Bitcoin’s Hash-Timelock. This system ensures transactions are validated and monitored by a network of validators. ^{[1] [3] [4] [9]}

Controversies

In June 2025, the official X account for Echo Protocol was compromised. Phay notified the public about the hack and advised users not to interact with unexpected posts or links from the compromised account. He also directed users to a temporary official account for updates while the team worked to recover the original account. Within 24 hours, the team, in collaboration with Aptos, successfully regained full control of the compromised X account. Malicious links and false information posted during the breach were removed. Phay stated that no user funds or data were affected by the compromise. ^{[6] [7] [5] [10]}