The following are samples of my technical writing.
For inquiries, please reach out to me at contact@bluesanta.io
What is a Consensus Mechanism?
Click here to view this sample.
For several years of my career, I plumbed the depths of a technology called “blockchain.” This is the technology on which the popular “Bitcoin” product is built.
Most people have now heard of Bitcoin and many have heard of blockchain, but few know what makes them work.
The above linked document is an explanation that I wrote for my employer, the Komodo Platform. The discussion is an extract from a larger document that I also wrote, the Komodo Whitepaper.
An Introduction to Atomic Swaps and AtomicDEX
Click here to view this sample.
My former employer, the Komodo Platform, has a spinoff project called AtomicDEX. This software utilizes our innovative atomic-swap technology to allow users to trade digital currency with essentially no middleman.
For several months I worked with the lead developer of this software to create user-friendly documentation.
The introductory article listed above is but one example of the many articles and technical commentary I provided. This discussion was also included in the full Komodo Whitepaper.
Komodo and the Early Pioneers of Atomic Swaps
Click here to view this sample.
In July of 2019, my employer, the Komodo Platform, sought to raise public awareness of our accomplishments in a specific field of blockchain technology called “atomic swaps.” This is a promising innovation that allows users to trade currency across completely separate digital-currency ecosystems.
Komodo had worked diligently for years to establish leadership in this field, but had not stopped to establish a marketing campaign that described our achievements.
In researching this assignment I wrote a simple javascript script that scraped several website forums in search of comments from atomic-swap thought leaders, including developers from both inside and outside our team.
Then I consolidated my discoveries into the above-linked article, which was shared directly with key contacts within the news industry. We also published my article on the company blog.
As a result of this work, our Chief Technology Officer, Kadan Stadelmann, gained recognition as a thought leader in the blockchain field. After this time he began receiving frequent requests for commentary and quotes from prominent tech-focused news outlets, a trend which has continued to this day.
The UTXO: An Elusive, Yet Fundamental Concept
Click here to view this sample.
When explaining technology to a non-technically trained person, there are often aspects that are particularly challenging. In the field of “blockchain,” where I have spent much of my time, there is a difficult concept called the “UTXO,” or “unspent transaction.”
During my early days at Komodo, I sought to understand and explain this concept to our users through online commentary. The result was the above-linked explanation.
Because of its success, this discussion was eventually included in the final Komodo whitepaper.
A Word on Risks Inherent in zk-SNARK Technology
Click here to view this sample.
In my first several weeks working in the blockchain field, users in our ecosystem were expressing fear about an external technology on which our company relied called “the zk-SNARK parameters.” The concern revolved around the fact that if this technology was created with malicious intent, the creators of the zk-SNARK parameters could secretly print and spend unlimited currency on any blockchain that used this technology.
Developers in our company were spending large amounts of time combating this fear via discussions on forums, chat servers, and social-media sites. Despite the prodigious effort, the fear remained.
In response to this and many other concerns among our users, our marketing team held an “Ask Us Anything” social-media event. I was assigned the task of responding to this fear.
My response finally managed to quell our users’ concerns. Our developers, finding my commentary definitive and accurate, ceased arguing over the concept and instead provided a link to my response whenever the fear arose. Over several weeks, the users’ concerns subsided and eventually disappeared.
This was a key event that led to company recognition of my talents as a corporate storyteller, and switching my efforts from design to writing the company whitepaper.
The Full Komodo Whitepaper
Click here to view this sample.
In late 2017 I was hired by the Komodo Platform, a promising blockchain startup.
Initially, I was hired for my background in design. However, after the first several weeks on the job, my supervisor and I both recognized that the company did not yet have a clear vision and the team was struggling.
We decided that my talents would be better utilized in establishing a company narrative.
Over the next several months I researched blockchain technology, interviewed our developers and administrators, and worked with team leaders. My goal was to create a mission statement and cohesive company narrative.
The resulting ninety-three-page documentation was so effective, Komodo adopted it as our foundational “whitepaper.” For several years it was displayed at the top of our website homepage. Nearly every new team member and contractor read this paper as their first step in working with Komodo.
This unified our company, and our community discovered a stronger awareness of our goals.
AtomicDEX RPC Commands
AtomicDEX RPC Commands
While most of my portfolio work displayed above is of a more narrative nature, this type of work is not indicative of my most common daily activities at Komodo. More often, I was pouring over developer content to communicate advanced technical concepts.
The above-linked article is but one example of the hundreds of pages of technical documentation that I co-produced for programmers using our technology.
I do most of my writing of this type using the notorious text editor, VIM, and I am fond of the UNIX terminal. Whenever possible, I prefer to do my work in the raw text format, and I avoid document editors and integrated development environments (IDE’s) as often as reasonably possible.
View the Raw Format (Without WordPress Parsing Errors)
The documentation was designed to be used as a part of the Vuepress documentation framework. My WordPress blog cannot parse the actual markdown content properly. To view the document in its raw format, please click here and then click the “Raw” button in the upper right corner.