Presstab - About Me and Why I Am a Fit for Engineering Workstream Leader

I would just like to take a moment to introduce myself. I am very interested in the Engineering Workstream Leader role, and believe its a very good match for my experience. This is a little bit of a lengthy background on me, so here is a quick TLDR if you don’t want to go into the full detail. I will also be writing up proposal that I will detail more about what I would like to accomplish if given the chance to be engineering workstream leader. Please feel free to ask any questions, respond here or hit me on Discord!

TLDR:
I’ve been deeply involved in crypto since 2012, building mining rigs, launching and fixing blockchains, and leading development for major projects like PIVX. At PIVX, I transitioned the project to Proof of Stake, implemented private staking, and helped grow it from a $100K market cap to $800M at its peak. After that, I ran my own crypto dev shop, managing an in-person team that built masternode systems, decentralized exchanges, and trading platforms. I eventually burned out from nonstop contract work and shifted to building my own projects, including algorithmic trading bots, NFT games, and defi autocompounders. I’m hoping to bring my experience, leadership, and builder mentality to ShapeShift as the next Engineering Workstream Leader.

Very Skilled With: Blockchain protocol level code, cryptocurrency wallet development, C++, Python, Bitcoin Core, API’s, software team management

Experienced With: React, Solidity, Web3, Node Management, DAO’s

About me - Tom, AKA “presstab”
I’ve been an active participant in crypto since 2012, when as a college student, I went to the bank and wired my life savings ($500) to Mt Gox to purchase BTC. Unfortunately I am a terrible trader, and sold it all for a nice gain, but tiny compared to what it could have been.

In 2013-2014, I built and ran GPU mining rigs. Running rigs is a baby sitting job, which led me to explore Proof of Stake “altcoins”. I loved that concept and contributed however I could to small, community-driven coin projects.

In 2014, I launched a hobby-style cryptocurrency called HyperStake to experiment with economics and coding. HyperStake gained a small but passionate following, with users enjoying the wallet features I developed.

HyperStake’s wallet software really stood out compared to other projects that were simple boring bitcoin clones. This led to people reaching out to me to add features to their community’s wallet, as well as requests to “fix” broken blockchains, launch new coins, and make protocol changes (soft & hard forks).

I had a great little hustle going and was working on tons of different projects, and helping communities out. I also started a small blockchain explorer service for these projects, which had around 20 chains that it supported.

PIVX – Private Instant Verified Transaction
Eventually, I was contracted by a project called “DNET” to transition their protocol from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake. This was a massive project at the time, but I thrive on challenges, so I was excited to take it on, and the $7k bounty offered to me seemed like a fortune. I worked my ass off, and delivered a great protocol transition for DNET.

After successfully switching to PoS, DNET rebranded to PIVX. The PIVX DAO funded a great marketing team, five developers with me as the lead dev, and various contributors that helped PIVX grow from a $100k market cap to around $800m at its peak in 2017. PIVX was pretty consistently in the top 50 market caps for a while, but also got in the top 20 for a period too.

For some reason, one of the things I’m proud of is that PIVX became one of the most cloned repos for launching new coins. At one point, 5-10 popular chains were running code that my team and I developed.

As the “Lead Developer” at PIVX, I handled some fun protocol changes, which I architected and coded most of:
• Integrated private transactions using the now-defunct Zerocoin protocol—an extremely complex task requiring close collaboration with an academic cryptographer.
• Designed and implemented “Private Staking,” ensuring the blockchain remained secure while keeping staker identities private.

PIVX was a huge highlight of my crypto career. I got to travel, speak at meetups, work with an amazing team of devs, and be part of a passionate community. But like all things, my time there came to an end. The 2017 market cycle moved fast, PIVX’s DAO funds were mismanaged, and centralized exchanges started delisting privacy coins.

Starting My Own Coding Shop
After PIVX, I had built up a strong network of crypto contacts looking for development work. With so many contracts lined up, I decided to rent an office and start a coding shop.
The University of Utah was nearby, and since Utah has one of the best video game development programs (top 10 now, top 3 back then), I hired some of their brightest students and taught them the crypto side of things.

At our peak, we had:
• 8 developers
• 2 QA testers
• 1 office manager

Some of the cool things we built:
• The first (and maybe only?) Masternode Proof of Stake system for Crown Coin.
• A private, decentralized exchange (DEX) using Zerocoin. Unfortunately, Zerocoin had cryptographic flaws beyond our control, making the DEX unusable.
• A hybrid PoS/PoW blockchain with private staking, Zerocoin transactions, and Monero-style RingCT transactions.
• An advanced trading platform and portfolio management software.
• An “autocompounder” Web3 project that we sold to a private company.
• “Soft audits” of DeFi farms and vaults for a private company’s investments.

Stepping Back and Personal Projects
After working 80+ hour weeks for almost five years, I burned out. I spun down the team, stopped taking contracts, and focused on creating my own projects.

Worked on a Pokémon-style NFT collection and game with two friends. The concept was cool, but as the NFT market dried up, I found myself doing 90% of the work. I shelved the project but learned a lot.

Lately, I’ve been focused on algorithmic trading bots with advanced strategy and backtesting. It’s a fun project I’m working on with some friends. Unfortunately, I still suck at trading, even if its a bot doing it for me.

I look forward to continuing to dive into the ShapeShift repo’s, and getting to know the ecosystem as well. This community has a very nice vibe that really reminds me of the pre-2017 communities. Anyways, thanks for reading!

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gm @presstab! This is a great write-up, thanks for taking the time to compile it for us.

You’re experience is on-point. I’m keen to hear where you’d like to take ShapeShift/the engineering team once you’ve had a better chance to understand the current state.

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Welcome to the forum, and again, welcome to our community!

Thanks for sharing your journey in crypto and life with everyone, you have been pretty early to the crypto party :smiley:

You seem to have a solid experience in blockchain and web3 development, you’ve managed teams and even a business which are in my opinion perfect for this Leadership role. I’m happy to see you diving into the community/our product and from our short discussions on Discord you seem to understand and align with the spirit of our DAO so I can’t wait to hear your plans as a WS Leader.

If I may, I’d recommend looking into our past governance votes, if you haven’t done so already. They will give you good insights into what FOX holders expect/want for the DAO and how they have shaped our business model and our Workstreams. The most controversial votes (close ones and/or with counter proposals) are milestones worth learning about in my opinion.

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Great read!

to me. number 1 dont hesitate to state your mind (in a constructive manner)

thanks for joining up discord/forum.

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Awesome intro and story. Keen to get to know you more. @profMcC_shapeshiftde should be in touch about setting up some calls.

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Thanks for posting this. Looking forward to interacting more.

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Looking forward to getting to chat with you more and learning about your leadership style and seeing your leadership and ability in action.

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Thank you all for the replies and suggestions. I have had some great conversations, and interviews so far. As I continue to hang around and a get a feel for ShapeShift, I am gathering some ideas and what my goals would be as the Workstream Leader (if I can secure the role of course).

I will definitely post some ideas and updates here to the forums if I get the thumbs up to prepare a proposal after the interview stage.

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