Head of Product at @StarkWareltd | FGU 📈
Joined May 2018
- Tweets 1,659
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Tom Brand retweeted
Had today the best possible interaction with our engineers. I got a request to slightly change a configuration parameter from an ecosystem team.
So I went to our engineers, carefully (stability first!) asking if its possible, and got the answer: "this doesn't bear any risk. We will do it asap".
Testnet is already changed with it, and after some testing we will change mainnet as well
There is this myth on "product pushing for things and engineers say no". I don't feel this the slightest with the team. I'm (also) minding stability and delaying features to guarantee it, and engineering are (also) all hyped from new use cases and usage Starknet sees.
We are in this together, aligned, on the journey to improve Starknet.
Got a feature request or even a request to change some configuration? Experience any issue with Starknet? Reach out! Best case it will happen, worst case you'll get a good explanation on why its complicated, and you will understand Starknet better!
Tom Brand retweeted
Voyager APIs are LIVE TODAY!
Pre-indexed and aggregated Starknet data so you don’t run an indexer.
From $65/month⚡️
🔗 apis.voyager.online
Tom Brand retweeted
Being part of the team that moves Starknet forward is a great honor, but it also means that its your phone that rings when there is any outage.
And as Starknet usage surged, we tackled edge cases that caused the phone to ring quite a few times over 09.10-15.10
And each time it did, some amazing engineers popped up, restored operations promptly, discuseed the situation with applications that showed concerns, and brainstormed on what to do.
All the issues we tackled then are fixed, and Starknet is now more resilient for this kind of usage. But this doesn't mean we can downplay these incidents and move forward silently. Only through trasnperancy and honest feedback the team and I can improve.
So you can read more about this in the community blog (thx @Michal_Wosk for your help!) - community.starknet.io/t/sn-m…. You can also ask me whatever you want.
Tom Brand retweeted
Endgame = [affordable scale + privacy] mod security.
Give me these this, I give you mass adoption
Coincidentally, that’s also what STARKs unlock
Do with this information what you will
Tom Brand retweeted
Brainstorm-to-improve-UX: Ever since migrating to mempool based sequencing with 0.14, I get gentle vibes of unclarity around what transactions are in the mempool and when to resend transactions (assuming no fee escalation is desired).
Specifically, transactions may silently drop out of the mempool when there is congestion without any notification to the sender.
Is this something you suffer from? Any recommendation or reference to a DECENTRALIZED chain that has a nice solution for this issue?
For example, the team could externalize status of transaction in the mempool from one random node but this will not is a future-compatible solution because when there is a decentralization each node may implement its own dropping policy. (And even short-term there could be short differences between expiry on different nodes that can lead to inconsistencies)
Life keep on surprising you
This week I learned that @OhadBarta social plays are next level, wtf
The team updated today the internal integration environment to 0.14.1. Testnet, and then Mainnet, are expected in a few weeks.
0.14.1 is a medium-size step for Starknet, but today I focus on it representing a big mind-shift in Starknet development.
We had big breaking changes in the past, forcing apps to work hard to stay in place. But as Starknet matures, and aims to be the best place to build on, this can't continue.
0.14.1 represents this, and here is why
With the release of S-Two, some hashes that were chosen to fit Stone became relatively expensive. These hashes are used everywhere, from hashing calldata to reads and writes.
0.14.1 didn't say, "let's change all hashes we can to be the cheapest out there and force everyone to adapt".
It says: lets migrate, carefully, only the places builders won't feel and are mostly under the hood. Lets then coordinate with SDKs to ensure developers really aren't feeling a thing (as long as they update their SDK somewhat regularly). Hell, lets prepare in advance list of transactions aimed only to migrate these hashes, as part of the upgrade process, to ensure that any tx that was valid before will be still valid, without anyone needing to lift a finger
I can't guarantee that there will never be another breaking change in Starknet. But I can guarantee that this mindset is here to stay.
Tom Brand retweeted
Lets kick-off the transparent thought sharing with a wonder and a clickbait. The title "STRK burning" seems like a hot topic that people talk on. If you are one of them - did you take into account that current fees paid for transaction sequencing will not go away as they need to cover for execution and proving cost, so significant STRK burning means the network is significantly more expensive?
In other words: would you preffer to pay X% more so X% of STRKs paid as fee (~50-100K a day, now) will be burned? Why?
Transparent part:Partially due to the above wonder, STRK burning is currently not in the November work-plan. I'd love to understand the sentiment around burning before we prioritize things again.
Tom Brand retweeted
starknet adding developers for 2 years straight. arbitrum lost 30% of builders, polygon lost 35%. cairo's 6 month learning curve filters mercenaries chasing grants. developers who commit don't leave. strk at $517m market cap pricing it like the dying l2s when it's the only one growing.
Tom Brand retweeted
yeah lots of giga chads at @StarkWareLtd and @StarknetFndn (and @Starknet )
but the ultimate giga chad is @VolokhIlia
even his pfp is 10/10
Tom Brand retweeted
1/ Wrapped BTC paved the way, but it’s time for the next evolution.
Together with @AlpenLabs, we’re building the most trust-minimized bridge possible between Bitcoin and DeFi.
No honest majorities. No wrappers. Just pure, verifiable BTC on Starknet 🧵
🚨 AVNU x BTCFi
BTCFi just launched to make Starknet the Bitcoin place to be. Here’s what we shipped:
1. Native integration of new BTC liquidity (@Re7Labs + @Splinefinance) for better trading execution
2. All BTC flavors now usable as gas tokens via the Paymaster
3. Curated token list for BTC assets
tldr; If you trade on Starknet, you trade on avnu 👇
Tom Brand retweeted
Story time: Brian Pellegrino and LayerZero.
I first met Brian at a Sequoia Basecamp event a few years ago (we're both portco's). We were walking together on a hike from some random place to a random peak to view a random set of California hills. I don't remeber the exact things we spoke about, but do recall alignment on Crypto.
Fast forward to a small dinner I hosted two years ago at Devcon in Bangkok, which Brian attended. We sat face to face, and Brian's first question was: what are you worried about regarding crypto. We quickly realized we share the same fear: that the end-game of crypto is new-financial-rails-for-tradfi, in which case our work may be in vain, and in any case we don't want to waste our time on that. We're here for true decentralization, so that You Own Your Life.
It's a huge honor and pleasure to work with the Layer Zero team, a team whose success has not dampened their Integrity, nor drive. Thanks @PrimordialAA and team for the collaboration, and looking forward to many great things we'll do separately and together.
This one has been an absolute pleasure to work on. @EliBenSasson has built a great team and I’m super excited to do our part to kickstart the next wave of BTCFi
Tom Brand retweeted
Starknet epic comeback story.
"i'm sorry to be part of the people that doubted the capabilities of you guys but you guys just showed one of the most epic comebacks i've ever seen in crypto"
Received this yesterday. It made me very happy and proud.
Never bet against a team that kept relentlessly building for years, constantly innovating and pushing the limits, reaching unmatched levels of efficiency and performance.
Thank you to all who believed in us during the hard times.
Thank you to those who are able to realise now that they should not have doubted and trusted the plan and vision.
Everything was brewing and growing steadily, we just needed a spark to trigger the Starknet fire. I think BTCFi kickstart is this spark.
It's still only day 1, and the road is still full of challenges and won't be easy, but yeah, I strongly believe that the EPIC COME BACK OF STARKNET has started!
Tom Brand retweeted
📣🚨The Starknet Foundation is very excited to announce the launch of BTCFi Season, a new program to bootstrap BTC activity on Starknet, with a focus on low-cost, BTC-backed loans.
