gareth williams

swe → backend & blockchain development. top 20 geoguessr nerd. prev @stripe, @metamask, @vercel.

email github x/twitter
status: building stuff_

what i'm working on

decentralized prediction markets
building a prediction market protocol on ethereum that doesn't suck. using chainlink oracles for settlement and implementing a novel AMM curve that handles edge cases better than polymarket. mostly doing this because i'm tired of trusting centralized platforms with my money. also the game theory is fascinating.
solidity hardhat chainlink react
onchain game experiments
exploring fully onchain games (focg). trying to figure out if we can make something actually fun that lives entirely on the blockchain. current prototype is a simple strategy game where all game logic runs in solidity. it's slow and expensive but the idea of a game that can't be shut down is pretty cool.
solidity foundry typescript
ai contract auditor
training a model to find common vulnerabilities in smart contracts. feeding it thousands of audited contracts and their reports. it's not going to replace human auditors but it's pretty good at flagging reentrancy issues and access control bugs. mostly a learning project to understand how llms can be useful in security.
python langchain openai
rust microservices
rewriting some node services in rust to see if the hype is real. so far: yes, it's faster. also: the compiler is mean but in a helpful way. building a high-throughput websocket server for blockchain events. turns out rust is actually perfect for this kind of stuff.
rust tokio websockets

things i think about

protocol design is basically mechanism design which is basically game theory. i spend way too much time thinking about incentive structures and how to make them robust against adversarial behavior. also convinced that most blockchain problems are actually just distributed systems problems with financial stakes.

the future of crypto isn't defi or nfts or whatever the current narrative is. it's probably something boring like verifiable computation and provable data integrity. zero-knowledge proofs are genuinely revolutionary but everyone's using them for the wrong things.

llms are overhyped in some ways and underhyped in others. they're not going to replace programmers but they're incredible for boilerplate and exploration. i use cursor/copilot constantly and it's made me like 40% faster at the boring parts of coding.

interests & hobbies

geoguessr
top 20 worldwide. can identify most countries from a single street sign. it's a useless skill but i'm unreasonably proud of it. yes i've played for like 2000 hours.
art & design
generative art, brutalist design, experimental interfaces. i think good design is invisible but great design makes you feel something.
lifting
gym 5x a week. powerlifting-adjacent but not competitive. just enjoy the routine and the progress tracking. it's like debugging but for your body.
reading
mostly technical papers, sci-fi, and philosophy. currently working through the ethereum yellow paper again because i hate myself apparently.
gaming
strategy games, roguelikes, anything with interesting systems. more interested in game design than playing these days. thinking about mechanics constantly.
books
rereading snow crash for the 5th time. also into ursula le guin, ted chiang, and anything about systems thinking or complexity theory.