Updated 17 Oct 2026Sources: 277

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Z. (justz) profile picture: a faceless 3D figure in a green bowler hat and yellow visor

Hi, I'm Z.

Cross-functional Web3 & DeFi Operator · Comms × Product

Nearly 10 years in crypto. I started out leading crypto news teams, covering hundreds of projects and landing 1-on-1 interviews with Brendan Eich and Kris Marszalek. Since 2021 I've worked on DeFi products and the communications around them. I've been the voice of protocols with $300M+ combined TVL, with zero community dramas.

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Z. with Brendan Eich, creator of JavaScript, Mozilla co-founder and former CEO, and CEO of Brave, at Brave HQ in San Francisco
1-on-1 with Brendan Eich
Creator of JavaScript · ex-CEO of Mozilla (Firefox) · CEO of Brave
Z. with Kris Marszalek, co-founder and CEO of Crypto.com
1-on-1 with Kris Marszalek
CEO of Crypto.com

What founders said about my work

Stani Stani@StaniKulechov

Buying discounted GHO based on fixed income is exactly the kind of "Front-end DeFi" innovation I've been looking for.

In the background: a fixed income product.

On the app: a straightforward experience to purchase GHO at a price below market value.

All built permissionlessly.

Z. @justz_eth a hyper-tailored landing page with a single module, allowing anyone to obtain discounted GHO

a potential new venue for @aave to onboard new GHO users
on my Discounted GHO product
Stani Stani@StaniKulechov

IPOR Fusion leads now the largest Earn on stocks.

Powered by @coinbase @base and @aave.

Fusion (by IPOR) @ipor_io IPOR Fusion now hosts Base's largest Earn on Stocks program.

Since 24 August, vaults built on IPOR Fusion have grown to over $2.5M in @coinbase Tokenized Stocks, with over 400 wallets en…
on the IPOR Fusion post I produced
Darren Camas | IPOR Fusion Darren Camas | IPOR Fusion@DarrenCamas

Very cool product in general and nice to see 2 @ipor_io pools in the top 8

Just pure sweet USDC yield

With the market trending sideways and new launches trending down only the market will start to look for stable pure returns

Hats off to @justz_eth @EarnbaseFinance

Z. @justz_eth Introducing - a simple tracker of defi products and their pure, raw returns.

No points programs, manually claimable rewards, or hardcoded rates in the mix. Starting with single exposure USDC opportunities on Mainn…
on my Earnbase product

Key metrics

~10 yrs
Years in crypto
$980M+
Swap volume via dApps I designed
$300M+
Combined TVL I've been the voice of
$50M+
Autopilot lifetime TVL inflows
29.5k
Users in a Coinbase campaign I led
230k+
Followers on accounts managed
140k
Views on my top research post
0
Community dramas across all of it

Key achievements

  1. $300M+combined TVL Ran communications for protocols with $300M+ combined TVL, with zero community dramasOfficial voice of Spectra (peak $267M TVL) and IPOR Fusion ($83M+), plus product and comms at Harvest Finance. Spectra · IPOR · Harvest Sources
  2. $980M+swap volume Swap volume through dApps I designed and coordinatedInterfaces I designed and shipped with the dev teams processed $980M+ in swaps. dApp design Sources
  3. $50M+lifetime TVL 0→1 product launch: Harvest AutopilotShaped with IPOR, 100-day lab test, audited, launched; $15M in the first 30 days. Harvest × IPOR Post ↗
  4. 29,582users onchain Led the Coinbase Learn & Earn campaignBudget, legal, funding, content, timelines, comms and a dApp redesign; $300K reward pool. Harvest × Coinbase Post ↗
  5. 27.7%of Aave V4 stock supply Data-led post amplified by Aave's founderPulled IPOR Fusion's onchain stock numbers into a post; Stani Kulechov quote-tweeted it: “IPOR Fusion leads now the largest Earn on stocks”. IPOR Fusion × Aave Post ↗
  6. 1stindustry first End-to-end permissionless UI for interest-rate derivativesDesigned before the AI era: anyone creates a fixed-rate market on any yield-bearing token. Spectra Post ↗
  7. 1stindustry first Fixed-term pools for Coinbase Tokenized StocksFixed-rate markets on AAPLc, GOOGLc, NVDAc and METAc. Spectra × Coinbase Post ↗

Key news timeline

Every key moment, newest first: posts I published or that partners posted about my work. Each title opens the post.

Where it started

Head of News · Crypto media · 2017–2021

The newsroom years

Before DeFi I led crypto news teams: 5 writers and a designer. We covered, explained and fact-checked hundreds of projects, and I personally landed and ran 1-on-1 interviews with Brendan Eich and Kris Marszalek.

$150M+added to BAT’s market cap within 24 hours following my coverage

#1on global Google News for “Bitcoin” for ~24 hours with one of my stories

930+
articles edited and fact-checked
1,150+
news pieces handled
Top 200
cryptocurrencies, each with an overview
Z. with Brendan Eich, creator of JavaScript, co-founder of Mozilla and CEO of Brave, at Brave headquarters in San Francisco
1-on-1 I landedBrendan EichCreator of JavaScript · Mozilla co-founder and former CEO · CEO of BraveBrave HQ, San Francisco
Z. with Kris Marszalek, co-founder and CEO of Crypto.com, in front of the Crypto.com logo
1-on-1 I landedKris MarszalekCo-founder & CEO of Crypto.comCrypto.com office, Hong Kong

Research & early calls

  1. 140k viewsYield-Bearing Stablecoins List Q2 2025Every product's interface scanned by hand and cross-checked with DefiLlama · 723 likes
  2. +387%Called IPOR Fusion's PMF at $16M TVLMay 2025: “See you at $160M, then $1.6B.” Fusion TVL is up 387% since.
  3. AavesomeTokenized stocks as collateral on Aave V4, on a weekendReplies from Stani Kulechov and the official @aave account · 34k views
  4. 19k viewsMapping the curator landscape“The emerging BlackRocks of onchain finance” · 192 bookmarks

Early calls, 2017 → 2026

I read projects the way a builder would: is the product shipping, is anyone using it, can the team keep going. One in-depth top pick a month for the London Letter newsletter in 2017–18; all of them are still live ten years later.

  1. 2017–18Binance (BNB)Wrote that Binance was becoming “the Google of crypto” when BNB traded around $6#4 by market cap, ~$96B · BNB ~$721
  2. 2017–18MakerDAOCovered it early, before DeFi had a nameNow Sky, ~$1.7B market cap
  3. 2017–18Basic Attention TokenIn-depth top pick; Brave’s tokenLive, Brave browser ecosystem
  4. 2017–18Kyber NetworkIn-depth top pickLive as KyberSwap
  5. 2017–18Request NetworkIn-depth top pickLive and trading
  6. 2017–18iExecIn-depth top pickLive and trading
  7. May 2025IPOR FusionPublic call: “IPOR found its PMF… at $16M TVL”$80M+ TVL, +387% since the call

Market data: CoinGecko and DefiLlama, Oct 2026. The original London Letter write-ups are available on request.

What I do

Comms

Official channels, launches, partners and incidents

  • $300M+ TVL, 0 dramasOfficial voice of protocols with $300M+ combined TVL (Spectra peak $267M, IPOR Fusion $83M+), without a single community backlash
  • Counterparty-grade contentAave's founder, Chainlink and Base engaged with and amplified posts I produced
  • Structural transitionsRebrand, permissionless launch and a 1:20 token migration to Base, while Spectra TVL grew ~12× to a $267M peak
  • Crisis commsFirst response and post-mortem after a security incident; users came back within days
  • Institutional voiceExplaining vault mechanics to asset managers, MiCA operators and custodians

Plus 120+ comms pieces, 930+ articles edited, Head of News, founder voice support

Product

Interfaces, launches, campaigns and docs

  • 0→1 launchesHarvest Autopilot with IPOR: $50M+ lifetime TVL inflows, $15M in the first 30 days
  • dApp UX/UIDesigned and redesigned interfaces that handled $980M+ in swaps and a Coinbase traffic spike
  • Docs that explainMost of Spectra's ~40-page docs: PT/YT, tokenomics, app help
  • Side projectsDiscounted GHO and Earnbase, both quote-tweeted by the founders of Aave and IPOR

Plus campaign ops (budget, legal, timelines), Figma prototypes, community tools

Data

Onchain numbers, datasets and dashboards

  • Data partners repostPulled IPOR Fusion's stock numbers (27.7% of Aave V4 stock supply on Base, 55.7% of NVDAc); Aave's founder quote-tweeted the post
  • Hand-built datasetsYield-Bearing Stablecoins List (140k views) and a map of DeFi vault curators, each product checked by hand
  • Data productsEarnbase, a tracker of raw DeFi returns; bntlove dashboards for Bancor volumes, DAO deposits and treasury inflows
  • Live product metricsAutopilot rate, TVL, users and allocation reports; WETH Autopilot +600% TVL in 3 months (Merkl data); a public PMF call at $16M, Fusion TVL up 387% since

Sources: DefiLlama, Portals, protocol subgraphs and app interfaces

Experience

  1. 2026 – nowIPOR FusionHead of CommunicationsOfficial comms. Aave, Chainlink and Base engagement; Tesseract, Anchorage, Base's largest Earn on Stocks program
  2. 2022 – nowSpectra (ex-APWine)Head of CommunicationsOfficial voice for 4+ years; designed the first end-to-end permissionless rates UI; first fixed-term pools for Coinbase stocks; permissionless launch, $SPECTRA migration, MetaVaults, XRP on Flare, Stellar; wrote the docs
  3. 2021 – nowHarvest FinanceProduct & Comms LeadProduct and comms: Autopilot 0→1 ($50M+ lifetime inflows), Coinbase campaign, Harvest 3 and 4, 80+ articles
  4. 2021 – 2022BancorAMM · 150k followersCo-ran the main account; built bntlove, the top community dashboard
  5. 2017 – 2021Crypto mediaHead of NewsLed news teams covering hundreds of projects; interviewed Brendan Eich and Kris Marszalek; a #1 Google News story for “Bitcoin”
  6. SideBuilderSide projectsDiscounted GHO, Earnbase, Discount Finance (500 waitlist sign-ups in 2 weeks)

Worked alongside

Click any name to preview a real work example: the actual post, reply or co-announcement opens in a new tab.

They engaged with my work · their reply, quote or post

Featured in my posts · my post with them