Charlie Lee

Early life Lee was born in Ivory Coast to ethnic Chinese parents. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with bachelor's and master's degrees in computer science in 2000.

Career For a decade in the 2000s, Lee worked for Google. His work for the company included writing code for ChromeOS. In 2011, Lee became interested in Bitcoin. In October 2011, he released Litecoin on Bitcointalk. He had written the blockchain technology based on Bitcoin in his spare time while employed at Google. He released Litecoin to the public after mining only 150 coins.

In December 2017, Lee announced on Reddit that he sold almost all of his Litecoin holdings due to a perceived conflict of interest. He had been criticized for his tweets, which had a possible effect on the price of the coin. Lee sold or donated all of his coins except for a few minted in physical form, which he kept as collectibles.

Lee is currently working full-time with the Litecoin Foundation on fostering Litecoin adoption. In June 2025, it was announced that Lee had joined the advisory board of digital infrastructure and technology company Luxxfolio.