What I Built
Crypto strategy and venture roles require evaluating projects where technical claims have direct business implications. Most whitepapers blend real innovation with overreach—distinguishing between them requires understanding how blockchain systems actually work.
I built a peer-to-peer e-commerce platform on Ethereum: users connect wallets, create storefronts, list products, and transact in ETH, with settlement and order tracking executed via smart contracts. Full-stack build (Solidity + frontend), deployed to testnet.
What I Learned
- •Security assumptions matter in specific places: reentrancy guards, access control patterns, and input validation. Building on the stack made these concrete rather than theoretical.
- •Gas costs and UX friction directly affect adoption. The gap between "technically works" and "users will actually use it" is enormous in Web3.
- •Infrastructure dependencies (node providers, wallet integration) create centralization risks that "decentralized" projects often understate.
- •On-chain incentives shape user behavior: implementing fee mechanisms for spam prevention was an early lesson in how economic design matters as much as code.
How Do I Apply This?
When reading whitepapers or evaluating crypto opportunities, I can follow the technical architecture and ask whether it actually supports the economic claims. Having built on the stack—and coming from a finance background—I'm more useful in diligence because I can engage on both sides of the conversation.