Leo Yiyang Li is the Co-Founder and CTO of AEON Protocol, where he focuses on the technical development of its crypto payment infrastructure. His background spans software engineering, search relevance, speech recognition, and advertising technology. ^[2]

Education

Li earned his Bachelor of Science in Computer and Systems Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and his Master’s in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Stanford University. ^[3]

Career

Li began his professional experience through software engineering internships at Microsoft and Otter.ai. At Microsoft, he interned with the Bing Relevance team in 2017, working on search relevance, before joining Otter.ai in 2018 as an intern on the platform team, where his work involved speech recognition. In August 2019, Li joined Google as a software engineer in Mountain View, California, working in Ads Quality. He remained at Google for more than five years before leaving in October 2024. That same month, he joined AEON Protocol as Co-Founder and CTO, taking responsibility for the technical side of the company's cryptocurrency payment infrastructure. ^{[2] [3]}

AEON

​AEON is a crypto payment infrastructure project focused on connecting blockchain-based assets with real-world merchant payments, online checkout, and AI-driven transactions. Its AEON Pay product enables users to spend crypto through existing merchant QR codes and local payment networks, while AEON Checkout provides Web2 and Web3 businesses with crypto payment processing and crypto-to-fiat or crypto-to-crypto settlement. The project also includes an AI Payment Framework designed to allow AI agents to execute transactions on users’ behalf using agent identities, cryptographic authorization, payment-intent verification, and auditable transaction records. Its broader infrastructure is designed to support cross-chain settlement, with the AEON token intended for network fees, validator staking, governance, liquidity, and fee-based buybacks. ^[2]