Why I Joined Alchemy

I am bullish on crypto and web3 for countless reasons, but essentially it comes down to the following: Blockchains represent a fundamental shift in how to facilitate the exchange of value between people.

During my time building crypto payment products at Stripe I discovered that blockchains promise the same kind of global transformation that open Internet protocols enabled for the exchange of information, and the ensuing revolution in every segment of the economy that unfolded over the past couple of decades.

Back in 2017, none of this potential was clear to me.

When CryptoKitties came out, I did what every curious, cat-loving geek would have done, and bought an NFT just to see how it all worked. But the complexity of the user experience quickly dissuaded me from diving further. It was difficult to grasp the possibilities of web3 back then.

Fast-forward to 2020, I took another look and truly fell down the rabbit hole.

The engineer in me fell in love with the distributed system technology, which is pretty fascinating in itself (distributed consensus at high throughput in a trustless environment 😍 But, how??)

It was then that I realized the impact blockchain could have on the world: instant + global + inexpensive transfers of value, the ownership of digital goods, the ability to quickly bootstrap a community around a project, and so much more.

Now in 2023, we’re seeing huge advancements in, and the adoption of, account abstraction and layer 2 EVM chains like Arbitrum, Optimism, and Polygon.

Perhaps most importantly, despite continued macro-market headwinds, developers are building at record pace, offering hope for long-term web3 growth.

So why Alchemy?

Again, many reasons, but here are the two worth mentioning now: impact and culture.

1/ This is where I believe I can have the most impact in amplifying the adoption of crypto.

If you’re reading this, you know we are still early in web3. Right now, most things are difficult. Things break. There’s friction across most of the tech stack, both for developers and for users. But it’s getting better daily, and Alchemy is playing a vital role in making blockchain development easier across the web3 ecosystem.

2/ I’ve been nothing but impressed by the incredibly talented team Joe and Nikil assembled.

The culture and energy of the team resonates strongly with me - and matches the type of startup environments where I was able to uplevel myself as both an engineer and leader.

It’s never wise to make bold predictions in web3, but I’m willing to bet that the future of this space will be defined in large ways by my new colleagues here at Alchemy, and I’m delighted to take part in this journey.

Let’s BUIDL!