University of Wyoming mourns death of blockchain director Steve Lupien

The University of Wyoming lost one of the people most closely tied to its push into blockchain and digital-asset education when Steve Lupien died July 5 after an extended illness. The university announced his death July 7 and said Lupien served as the Ada Lovelace director of the Center for Blockchain & Digital Innovation and as a lecturer in blockchain, digital assets and cryptocurrency in the College of Business.

Lupien’s work sat at the center of a program UW describes as interdisciplinary, connecting the College of Business, the College of Engineering and Applied Science, the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, the School of Energy Resources and Wyoming community colleges. The university says the center focuses on emerging technologies to foster innovation, economic development and education, a mission that gave Lupien a role far beyond one classroom or one department. His staff listing placed his office in BU 255 in the College of Business.

That reach mattered in Laramie and Albany County because UW is a major employer and the state’s only four-year university with Research Level 1 status. In 2020, Wyoming Public Media noted that only a handful of universities in the country had a center like UW’s and that the university hoped it would help diversify Wyoming’s economy. Lupien became one of the public faces of that effort, helping connect the Laramie campus to the state’s broader technology and workforce goals.

His role also extended into public-facing business and industry work. UW’s 2025 news coverage quoted Lupien on Kraken’s move of its headquarters to Cheyenne, where he said the shift would help Wyomingites by creating good jobs for recent graduates and helping diversify the economy. UW described Kraken as a multibillion-dollar crypto company with more than 2,200 employees and 15 million customers around the globe, a sign of the scale of the private-sector partners orbiting the center’s work.

Lupien was also visible in the annual Wyoming Blockchain Stampede, including the 2025 program, where he appeared in welcome and closing remarks and joined a panel on digital assets in education with state Superintendent Megan Degenfelder and other leaders. The university’s July 7 notice did not name a replacement or outline memorial arrangements, leaving the center without an announced successor as it continues work that links students, faculty, and outside partners in one of UW’s newer areas of instruction and outreach.