ByteTree

• Developed a multi-blockchain analysis engine, capable of recording price and chain state changes every five seconds.

• Designed and developed the ByteTree branding and identity.

• Created the ByteTree terminal and publishing sites.

• Implemented a subscription system using Stripe that worked transparently across all ByteTree sites.

Genesis

I saw the Bitcoin white paper go past in late 2008 and was largely dismissive, expecting it to fail at its first challenge.

Then in 2013, the phone rang: I was asked, “Is Bitcoin real?”

“I’m sure I could hack something up to answer that,” I said.

To begin with, it was a hobby project, and after automating some spreadsheets, I realised that it needed something more substantial to get to the bottom of the economic questions that were coming up. I rolled up my sleeves and set about building some hardware suitable for running several blockchain nodes and writing the software to go with it.

Node.js was starting to mature, and offered a very capable way to build front- and back-end code that was modular and scalable. Over the following months, I used Node and database newcomer MongoDB to build a real-time system that could analyse the contents of each block as it arrived on the chain while looking up the price of Bitcoin and other tokens from exchange APIs across the network. As the capability grew, so did the scale of the questions and the data required to answer them.

Startup

We incorporated the business in 2014, picked up a small amount of investment and started building a small team of researchers and developers to build something better than the competition. At that time, we had the only on-chain system that worked in real-time and was copied broadly across the space.

A hefty refactor later, and I had a system that could recalculate any crypto asset’s state every 5 seconds. Starting with a simple web-based console, I sought the best replacement for the jQuery-based sites I had previously built. I looked at Angular and React but settled on Vue.js as it was the fastest framework to work with, needing less boilerplate than its competitors. I then set about creating numerous deep APIs that allow the flow of data from the blockchain to computation matrices and real-time WebSocket notification and streaming interfaces to allow that data to be consumed and used by the user.

Today, under the ByteTree brand, that system is responsible for watching Bitcoin closely and helping the team delve into its economic and social impact. With the engine ticking away, I moved my focus back to the front end, creating the websites to get our knowledge and research out to a larger audience and adding a subscription system to monetise the various research areas we were engaged in.

Growth

We haven’t seen the growth of other crypto organisations essentially because our data and research don’t play along with the ultra-bullish views of the Bitcoin maximalists, urging caution and care. Though involved in the space widely, I would still describe my perspective as sceptical. Even so, I’ve helped other crypto networks understand their economics and have been involved in their efforts to find crypto’s ‘killer app’, such as NFTs, DeFi and the Web 3.0 mythos.

The current ByteTree website and the Node.js architecture behind it are mainly my own work, with the team working more broadly on DevOps and data augmentation, adding in traditional assets. I would now consider myself an expert in Node, both for creating the back end and using it for front-end tooling, as well as the NoSQL MongoDB and Vue. I’m also well-versed in the next generation of tools that further blur the lines between front and back end — Astro, which now powers this site, chief among them.