Optimist Profile: Atlas
Does this nomination represent an individual or organization: individual
Please link to any contributions that demonstrate you meet the eligibility criteria outlined in the Security Council Charter:
TL;DR, because there are a lot of posts to review in this cycle:
A sufficiently robust security council requires not just technical depth, but also a diverse set of individuals - diverse across skills and affiliations
The current upgrade process is perilously manual and unscalable (see video walkthrough below). We need to upgrade it both for greater security AND to be able to sell governance as a slick feature compared to other chains
Overview
A competent security council requires a strong bench of technical talent. In addition, a robust security council, one that is robust against strategic and regulatory challenges, requires talent that is diversified in terms of jurisdiction, skill and affiliation. Regulatory challenge is easy to understand - we need a range of individuals who cannot be coerced within a single jurisdiction. I explain the need for diversity in skill and affiliation below.
If and when chaotic situations arise, the Superchain is only as safe as the SC’s ability to synthesize conflicting information and communicate effectively with the community. For this reason, ensuring that the SC has a breadth of executive skills may be the second most important selection criteria after technical depth.
In another possible scenario, governance makes an unavoidably contentious decision that creates difficulties for one or more chains in the Superchain. Can the individual members of the SC credibly carry through with the upgrade, even if it alienates their stakeholders (especially true for organization members of the SC)? This underscores the importance of choosing an SC that is credibly neutral as a whole.
In summary, while there are other candidates who have more experience with technical design and implementation than I do (and you should also vote for them), the value propositions I bring are (a) experience in contentious stakeholder management, and (b) independence (no binding affiliation with any single project or protocol). See my previous campaign post [Security Council Nomination: ml_sudo] for my experience in crisis management and managing legal matters.
Technical competency
The Superchain is a paradigm-shifting concept. However, if the Superchain vision succeeds, but our approach to upgrades does not improve, we open ourselves up to increasing risks. The current process scales linearly with the number of chains on the Superchain. When factoring in cross-chain complexity, the risks grow super-linearly.
In the below video walkthrough, I show you the very manual of the current upgrade process. If I’m on the SC, I want to contribute to making upgrade operations more scalable.
Video walkthrough of current upgrade process
Here is the Miro board if you want to poke around.
The SC has the potential to transform from being cost center now, into a product - something that works well and that we can sell. But first, we have to upgrade the upgrade process
⇒ Key management & Signing standards
I developed a strong understanding of secure key management at Anchorage. As one of the first 15 hires, I gained a lot of context on secure key management, the challenges that key holders face, and tradeoffs inherent in different key management models.
I was on the Spartan Council at Synthetix in 2023 & 2024, and have become very familiar with key signing for protocol upgrades in a DAO context.
I have a longstanding interest in cybersecurity and regularly attend hacker conferences like DEFCON.org and Hope.net (panel & workshop). This means my personal op sec is relatively high. For example, I wrote a blog with personal security suggestions for Devcon Bogota in 2022 that was shared across many company Slack channels.
Reputation
I contribute actively to privacy in crypto, motivated by the belief that privacy is fundamental to living freely in an age where tools of surveillance proliferate. I’m a board member of the Electric Coin Company (makers of Zcash), and was a member of Zcash’s first grant organization in 2020. I curated Privacy Is Normal, a 4-hour privacy special at ETHDenver in 2022, with speakers like Roger Dingledine (cofounder), cypherpunks from the 1990s, Frances Haugen (Meta whistleblower), freedom fighters from war-torn zones, and a professional hacker. I helped set up the Universal Privacy Alliance.
I speak and host panels regularly at privacy and decentralization-centric events like TEE.salon (Bangkok, November 2024), Web3Privacy Summit (Bangkok, November 2024), Shielding Summit (Brussels, July 2024), and Zcon (Barcelona, August 2023).
A major reason I wanted to work with Synthetix is their strong bias towards open source and decentralized architecture (e.g. multiple frontends, IPFS hosting).
Geographic diversity
Mexico
Other
Please verify that you have no conflicts of interest:
I have no conflicts of interest
Please verify that you understand you may be removed from this role via the Representative Removal proposal type in the Operating Manual
I understand
Please verify that you understand that election is subject to successful completion of a Foundation screen which may include KYC/AML, sanctions screening, and a requirement to sign a standard contract:
I understand
Please verify that you are able to commit ~5 active hours / month to fulfill the Member Responsibilities. Please note that there is an “on-call” aspect to this role that is not fully encompassed in the active hours estimate:
I am able to commit ~5 active hours per month to Security Council operations