insights from a blockchain developer, researcher & investor
exploring emerging opportunities in decentralized finance
Ethena Labs has introduced USDe, a synthetic dollar on the Ethereum blockchain. USDe is designed to be crypto native, stable and censorship resistant. This is a write up of my internal research notes, this is not a sponsored post and I do not hold any exposure to Ethena or USDe at time of writing. Do your…
In this tutorial, we will create an Escrow contract using Solidity and deploy it to an Ethereum testnet. An Escrow contract is a financial agreement where a third party (the arbitrator) holds and regulates payment of the funds required for two parties involved in a given transaction. It helps make transactions more secure as it…
Starknet is a layer 2 zero knowledge rollup which uses a STARK cryptographic proof and Cairo based smart contracts. A few days ago they released the STRK token and in this article I’ll dive in to the tokenomics. Currently at time of writing the token trades at $1.91 and has a $1.39 billion dollar circulating…
An ERC404 token is a digital asset that combines the characteristics of ERC20 fungible tokens and ERC721 non-fungible tokens (aka NFT’s) to enable fractional ownership of an NFT. In essence, ERC404 tokens represent divisible parts of an NFT, allowing multiple individuals to own shares of a single NFT. This approach is designed to enhance the…
Polygon is gearing up to launch its AggLayer v1 mainnet with an event later today at 14:00 UTC Feb 23rd “Aggregation Day 2024”. In this article I’ll look at what aggregated blockchains are and how Polygon’s Agglayer works. What Are Aggregated Blockchains? The idea of aggregated Blockchains is to facilitate developers in bridging different blockchains…
I recently read Gene Kranz’s first hand account of the Gemini and Apollo Nasa missions. He talks about the rigorous simulation testing that flight directors had to partake in prior to a mission. Simulation testing plays a crucial role in ensuring the preparedness of astronauts and flight controllers for spaceflight. This process is managed by…
As an experiment I converted this Vyper token contract to a Javascript/Typescript syntax to see if we could make it easier for web developers to get up to speed with smart contract development. Solidity is the most popular smart contract language and it is already based losely on Javascript but there are plenty of syntax…
Vyper is a pythonesque smart contract language that can be compiled and deployed on Ethereum and other EVM blockchains. 90%+ of blockchain devs use Solidity but there are some big projects such as Curve using Vyper and it’s growing in popularity and tooling compatibility. The best way to get started with Vyper is to head…
You can now use Vyper (a smart contract programming language similar to python) with remix to build and deploy contracts on Ethereum and other EVM blockchains. The first step is installing the Vyper plugin at https://remix.ethereum.org/ where you’ll find a list of plugins using the icon in the bottom left. You’ll then get an extra…
What happens when you ask a blockchain developer to sell you a pen? Etch your words permanently on the Ethereum blockchain where they will outlive you & create an everlasting record of your thoughts, contemplations & predictions. This is your chance to leave an eternal mark and express your presence in the digital age while…
I’ve previously discussed Eigenlayer and how restaking works but let’s look at what this will look like for the majority of users. Liquid Restaking Tokens are the equivalent of stETH for restaking where users can deposit assets to gain exposure to yield from restaking using a simple ERC20 token. This is a write up of…
The crypto market has experienced significant recovery this year, with Bitcoin’s value surging from $16,500 to over $40,000. Growth was shadowed by increased regulatory scrutiny, particularly impacting centralized exchanges. The Bitcoin halving in April 2024 is poised to be a pivotal event, historically triggering market rallies. The potential January approval of Bitcoin spot ETFs could…
In a bold and controversial move in 1971, U.S. President Richard Nixon instigated what is now known as the “Nixon Shock“ Faced with soaring inflation, Nixon implemented drastic measures including wage and price controls, import surcharges, and ending the U.S. dollar’s gold convertibility. This move effectively dismantled the Bretton Woods system, an international monetary framework…
I currently have a subscription to both Midjourney and ChatGPT but find myself using Dall-E more and more often for image generation tasks. I wanted to carry out some tests to decide if I still needed the Midjourney subscription. James On YouTube Watch On YouTube: https://youtu.be/mf1kWjzlsqI |Subscribe Midjourney vs Dall-E | The Differences Interface Dall-E…
Gm, in this tutorial we are going to be deploying a website to IPFS to create a decentralized frontend. To do this I’ll be using Fleek which has a free tier and which suits our needs. James On YouTube Watch On YouTube: https://youtu.be/https://youtu.be/DmpXbmjnpec |Subscribe We will start by getting our site on Github. We can…
I find it surprising and rare when using new technology and it just works and is intuitive. Getting up to speed with Etherspot and account abstraction is one of those rare occasions. In this tutorial I’ll show you how I created a little demo to create a smart wallet, fund it and then send batched…
TradingView’s Pine Script coding language has emerged as the leading tool for traders looking to craft custom indicators and strategies with accuracy and ease. In this Pine Script tutorial I’ll provide a practical gateway into the intricacies of this coding language, tailored with useful examples to get you started. Whether you’re a novice coder or…
This Solidity proxy contract tutorial delves into the concept of upgradeable proxy contracts in Solidity, specifically utilizing OpenZeppelin’s proxy contract template. We’ll start with an understanding of how these contracts work, the compromise of immutable decentralization vs upgradeability and then dive into practical code examples. Upgradeable Proxy Contracts A proxy contract is a design pattern…
These remarks by Sam Altman, former CEO of OpenAI, highlight a fundamental limitation in the current approach to developing Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) through the advancement of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT. “We need another breakthrough. We can still push on large language models quite a lot, and we will do that. We can…
We are going on a journey to seamlessly integrate session keys into a web3 dApp, striking a balance between autonomy and ease of use that your users are yearning for. The goal is to enable users to authenticate with a digital wallet and store a session key on their device. This session key will provide…
This is a write up of my internal research notes, this is not a sponsored post and I do not hold any exposure to ATOM at time of writing. Do your own research, not investment advice. What Is Cosmos Cosmos is a decentralized layer zero network of independent blockchains, designed to enable scalability and interoperability between…
In this tutorial we will be setting up a Rust script to connect to a smart contract on a blockchain network to display on-chain data using the ethers-rs library. James On YouTube Watch On YouTube: https://youtu.be/FA7WFGtyri8 |Subscribe Let’s start by setting up a new Rust project (you’ll need rust installed on your device and I’ll…
Gearbox Protocol introduces a framework for both passive lenders and active borrowers. It empowers traders with leverage that can be used to scale up trades and yield farming strategies on decentralized exchanges such as Unsiswap and Curve. With an emphasis on composable leverage, zero funding rates, and permissionless strategies, Gearbox Protocol is an compelling microcap…
ChatGPT Plus vs Free [Video] James On YouTube Watch On YouTube: https://youtu.be/U3xXd3vV4iU |Subscribe Why Upgrade To ChatGPT Plus? ChatGPT Plus is the paid version of ChatGPT, it currently costs $20/month + VAT and there are 3 main reasons why the average user would want to upgrade to the premium version: On top of this paid…
Asymmetry Finance has emerged as a significant player in the liquid staking wars, offering an aggregated liquid staking token. This article explores the core functionalities of Asymmetry Finance and its core product safETH. This is a write up of my internal research notes, this is not a sponsored post and I do not hold any exposure…
WAGMI is a set of Typescript React hooks for web3 which enables developers to connect to smart contracts on blockchain networks. In this tutorial we will look at how to install and setup a boilerplate in WAGMI and then build a simple read query. WAGMI in 3 Mins [Video] James On YouTube Watch On YouTube:…
Abstract The DeFi sector is facing increased regulatory pressure to de-anonymize certain transactions and user profiles, while simultaneously dealing with flagging user confidence in terms of their individual rights to data privacy. This is providing fertile ground for innovative companies to try to allow end users to be the sovereign of their own identity and…
In this article I’m going to share how to track developer activity for crypto projects for fundamental analysis. James On YouTube Watch On YouTube: https://youtu.be/DTI7ELSA6CA |Subscribe Understanding the Crypto Development Ecosystem Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum as well as the majority of blockchain projects are fundamentally software. They are applications that run on a decentralized…
eBTC is an over-collateralized digital asset pegged to the price of Bitcoin which can be minted using stETH as collateral. This is a write up of my internal research notes, this is not a sponsored post and I do not hold any exposure to eBTC at time of writing. Do your own research, not investment advice.…
MUX is a decentralized trading platform offering slippage free trades and 100x leverage. This is a write up of my internal research notes, this is not a sponsored post and I do not hold any exposure to MUX at time of writing. Do your own research, not investment advice. The first thing that jumps out about…
X formerly known as Twitter includes two features which allows us to create a list of accounts from people that frontrun narratives and successful trades. tl;dr if you just want to see the final list it is here: https://twitter.com/i/lists/1712044491618545903 James On YouTube Watch On YouTube: https://youtu.be/4qYraarbsYs |Subscribe Step 1. Collecting Project Data My main focus…
Real world assets (RWA) are tokenized digital forms of traditional finance assets. A centralized entity will raise capital by selling tokens and investing the proceeds in to an underlying asset or strategy. This has become particularly popular with bonds and treasuries due to recent rises in interest rates. The market leaders in this field by…
Brine Finance is a decentralized orderbook exchange built on Starkware. They recently raised $16.5m at a valuation of $100m in a round led by Pantera Capital. This is a write up of my internal research notes, this is not a sponsored post and I do not hold any exposure to Brine at time of writing. Do…
OpenZeppelin have just released version 5 of their Solidity smart contract libraries and there are some breaking changes that are going to cause errors. The two main ones are the Ownable.sol import which allows devs to create onlyOwner functions and the token hooks on ERC20, ERC721 & ERC1155 contracts. Ownable Constructor If you are getting…
Radix is a layer one blockchain which has recently gone live on mainnet enabling developers to deploy scrypto smart contracts. In this report I’ll explore the novelties of the technology, dive into the scrypto programming language, look at the excellent developer resources, analyze the tokenomics of the native XRD token and draw a conclusion on…
Hyperliquid is a decentralized exchange that specializes in perpetual futures contracts. It’s seen modest growth through a difficult bear market and has a frontend remarkably similar to FTX. Let’s dive in. This is a write up of my internal research notes, this is not a sponsored post and I do not hold any exposure to HyperLiquid…
Uniswap recently announced they are developing an RFQ (request for quote) system that will change the way we swap digital assets. In this article we will look at RFQ in crypto and how it works. How RFQ Works RFQ works when a buyer invites sellers to bid on specific amount of an asset. The buyer…
Hardhat is an extensive framework for developing, testing and deploying solidity smart contracts. In this Hardhat Solidity tutorial you will learn how to set it up, how to create hardhat unit test tricks, working with hardhat scripts and finally some Hardhat tips and tricks for Solidity developers. Hardhat Easy Setup Hardhat is built on NodeJS…
Near BOS is a complete framework designed for creating, testing, deploying and distributing decentralized application frontends. Developers can create Javascript based dApps with the frontend code stored and distributed from a blockchain. It is blockchain agnostic so you can store data on Near and EVM chains. BOS is a collection of components, blockchains & gateways.…
VEGA is a dedicated appChain built for decentralized derivatives such as futures and options contracts. This is a write up of my internal research notes, this is not a sponsored post and I do not hold any exposure to VEGA at time of writing. Do your own research, not investment advice. Vega is a infrastructure layer…
Celestia is one of the most widely used scaling solutions for projects that need high throughput, cheap transactions on a dedicated decentralized public blockchain. The aim is for “developers to deploy their own blockchain as easy as deploying a new smart contract” This is a write up of my internal research notes, this is not…
Smol dApp is like a swiss army knife of useful tools for DeFi. Their main offerings are: The product we are going to look at todays is their flagship MultiSafe wallets. This is a GnosisSafeProxy contract which requires a set number of wallets to sign off on a transaction before it goes through. For example…
ApeX Pro is a non-custodial decentralized orderbook exchange which is part of the ByBit group. This is a write up of my internal research notes, this is not a sponsored post and I do not hold any exposure to ApeX at time of writing. Do your own research, not investment advice. What Is ApeX Pro?…
I started developing solidity with Truffle, then moved to Hardhat, then moved to Foundry, then moved back to Hardhat before eventually settling using both on a regular basis. In this article I’ll talk about the benefits and disadvantages of Hardhat and Foundry so you can make an informed decision about which framework is better for…
I believe that in the future 90%+ of transactional volume will go through enshrined rollups. So let’s take a in-depth look at what this technology is and how it is going to help Ethereum scale to a billion users. What Is An Enshrined Rollup? Enshrined rollups are a scaling solution being proposed by core developers…
Calculating the intrinsic value of Bitcoin, Ethereum and other digital assets is challenging due to its intangible nature. In this analysis I’m going to discuss common methods of calculating intrinsic value and then create a model using a combination of the methods. tl;dr based on the models described below: Methods Of Calculating Intrinsic Value Store…
I first read this book nearly a decade ago when it was called “The Product Launch Formula” but decided to revisit the updated version to go over some principles about launching products online. Here is a write up of my notes from the book which is available on Amazon. tl;dr Launch Takeaways Launch Book Notes…
In this article we are going to look at all the things that need doing when launching a new token to create a token deployment checklist for developers and founders. At the end there is a big list of all the token listing sites that you can submit your new token to. Unit Tests &…