Past couple of weeks

I have been busy and also, a little unwell. I work in crypto and we’re building a DeFi protocol to hedge crypto assets against the volatility. We are in the process of releasing a beta version for the testnet and that’s about that.

Here’s a little about the people I am working with. We are a team of 11 and 8 of them are younger than I am. The two founders, they graduated from college last year and came up with this idea in the Chainlink hackathon, raised some money and here we are. One of the blockchain developers, does it all and he’s still in his final year of college. I have always maintained it to them about how inspiring it is and if only I had the drive they do, when I was younger. I’m not hyping them, this is about me.

Building something that doesn’t exist or even if it does, building something from the ground up is both, fun and exhausting. I’m grateful for what’s happened, the good and the bad. Beginning of this year, I had interview requests from Coinbase and Terraform labs. I didn’t end up in either of the companies, but Coinbase around the same time rescinded offer letters and also laid off 20% of their workforce. On the other hand, Terraform labs just collapsed when their stable coin’s algorithm’s faults were exposed.

The bad part, in the mid-year, I was moonlighting with 2 jobs. I got caught and was removed. I always knew what I was doing is cynical. After I was removed from one of the companies, I heard that they too had lay-offs. Blessing in disguise perhaps or just me alleviating myself. I can definitely count it as a life experience though.

In hindsight, I can see how I am where I am supposed to be. I can see, how although things didn’t work out, they worked out. I am getting paid way less here than what I used to earn but again, this is a life experience too. A small startup, where you have to wear a few more hats than you normally would in any other job. Everyone collectively working towards something rather than just “doing their job”. Exposes me to new things. I like the idea that I am working on, so there’s real conviction. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future but I think it’ll be alright then too.