Crypto tooling

Curious About The Chain

The first thing was small. On November 1st and 2nd, 2017 I wrote apibtc, a JavaScript client for apibtc.com: create a one-time receiving address with a callback URL, verify the POST that comes back with your key and optionally the source IP, check a balance, send to one address or a list of them, page through transaction history, validate an address, and estimate a network fee. All promises.

That kicked off about two years of crypto tooling at the studio. A rebalancer came three weeks later, which tells you which holdings to move to get back to your target weights. Then cryptoportfolio in January 2018, then Cryptu, a mobile app with a server behind it.

November 2017 was a crazy month for crypto, and I wanted to understand it by building with it. I wasn't betting on prices, I wanted to know the stack.

That turned into paid work two years later: a Filecoin block explorer in December 2019, on top of Lotus, the node we were doing Go work on for Protocol Labs.

Cryptu Gets A Number

On April 28th, 2018 I tagged v1.0.0 on both cryptu-mobile and cryptu-server the same day, the app and its backend versioned together.

Cryptu was the portfolio app at the end of a run of crypto tools. It started with apibtc in November 2017, a Bitcoin API client, then rebalance that same month for working out target weights, then cryptoportfolio in January 2018, then cryptu-mobile on January 19th, which was the first one that needed a server. The server was only eight days old at this release. The tag was more about the pieces finally fitting together.

By April 2018 the market was well down from its peak, and this is where I stopped. The only crypto thing after it was a Filecoin block explorer in December 2019, built while we were doing Go work on Lotus for Protocol Labs, and that was for a job. Cryptu was just me being curious.