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Episode 16 - 0xflint
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riptide & 0xflint discuss his humble beginnings in crypto making $0.01 on his first contest to becoming an LSR at Certora, how to get what you want out of life, breaking into crypto and why merit trumps all, use cases for premium LLM tools while auditing, alpha drop on solidity trapdoors, why he punishes himself to improve day-in and day-out, why you should add communication and leadership skills to your tech stack, questions from the humble podcast audience, and much, much, more ...
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Transcript
Blockchain Immersion and Connectivity
00:00:07
riptide
Bounty Hunter's life on the blockchain. We are back. Back again. Always on the blockchain because we never log off. Even though... Your host here is from the dial-up modem area era.
00:00:20
riptide
i Now I never log off, even though I used to.
Sponsor Highlights and Offers
00:00:24
riptide
So I wanna start out with our shout out to our sponsor, Recon, getrecon.xyz forward slash Riptide.
00:00:32
riptide
Get yourself five grand off if you're a first time customer for an invariant testing engagement. And I actually met up with Alex, who is one of the co-founders of Recon over at Belgrade in the past couple days.
00:00:47
riptide
And he did a presentation at the Web3 Security Summit. And ah ah fuzzing is really, really cool, guys. If you're not fuzzing, I mean, he's talking about how he flipped, you know, one of these little rounding errors that you get and it's a couple way and you think, oh, it's nothing big. And he flips it into a critical bug ah with with ah building an invariant testing suite.
00:01:09
riptide
So this is this is no joke. It's not a scam. it's It's not, we're never going to find anything. like It's a really great tool to kind of add to the arsenal. So use these guys, check them out, getrecon.xyz forward slash Riptide, and you'll get five grand off your first engagement there. So check them out.
00:01:29
riptide
Next up, we got ImmuneFi. So if you're going to launch your protocol and you want to get your your bounty up there, I have a link on the on the link tree.
00:01:42
riptide
Just click it, because I can't even shout it out. It's so big, just because it's so based. They made it super complex. So click on that, and it will give us some back to the pod. And we got a new sponsor, Rare Skills, which is really cool. So I get a lot of messages from new guys. How do I get started? What do I do?
00:02:00
riptide
Well, dude, Rare Skills, they got it all. So if you want like a structured way to pick up Solidity, ZK, they do Uniswap V3, Rust, and it's like nine week, 10 week course.
00:02:14
riptide
So if you're one of those guys that like, hey, I want to go to school, I want someone to tell me exactly what to do, and you want to learn it from A to Z, check out Rare Skills, go rareskills.com slash Riptide.
00:02:25
riptide
You get 10% off one of the boot camps. And then check out our Discord, Substack, all
Meet Mr. Zero X Flint
00:02:31
riptide
that kind of stuff. So anyway, with all that stuff out of the way, I want to welcome Mr. Zero X Flint.
00:02:37
riptide
Welcome to the podcast.
00:02:38
Flint
Hello, hello. Happy to be here.
00:02:41
riptide
I love the Zero X, man. A lot of people hate on Zero X. I love it. You're also a Zero Xer.
00:02:46
Flint
yeahs Yeah, something when I started, it was like, what? How do people call themselves on Web3? It's like, OXOX. I didn't have a clue at the beginning what that meant, but it's like, OK, I guess I'm going to be OXX as well.
00:03:02
riptide
ah You're part of the crew now. Dude, i when I started, i was so stupid.
00:03:04
Flint
Exactly, yeah.
00:03:06
riptide
I had no idea about like hexadecimal. like I knew the very, i knew I knew about it, but I didn't know any details about it.
00:03:10
Flint
Mm-hmm.
00:03:15
riptide
And so I saw the zero X. I was like, now I'm elite, man. That's it.
00:03:19
Flint
Mm-hmm.
00:03:20
riptide
That's all I needed.
00:03:21
Flint
no
00:03:22
riptide
all right. So Mr. Flint, who's PFP is probably the best one I've ever seen. It's a humble rock. It looks very cute. My daughter loves it. You probably, ah every time I post an episode, she's like, oh, who's this guy?
00:03:34
riptide
It's like, whatever, some cartoon. And she really liked The Rock. So shout out to The Rock.
00:03:40
Flint
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I just wanted to something nice because I so see so many people try to look ultra cool and it's like flashy and it's like cyber and punk. I'm like, nah, man, this is going to be a nice, a nice humble rock, you know?
00:03:54
riptide
i I'm a rock.
00:03:56
Flint
Yes.
00:03:56
riptide
So, Flint, give us a quick background on who you are. why Why the heck do I have this guy on the podcast, a Humble Rock? Give us a quick background.
00:04:06
Flint
Yeah, sure. So I'm a bit of a maverick. I did studies in history, political science, education, ah accounting, management, and law. Then I've been a high school teacher, construction worker, debt collector, lobbyist, car salesman, tech salesman, and a translation business, then an IT business. And then I went into Web3.
00:04:29
Flint
oh where I made my fame as a contest enjoyer. And now I'm working at Sertora as a lead security engineer. So 20 years in 20 seconds.
00:04:39
Flint
There you go.
Flint's Web3 Journey and Challenges
00:04:41
riptide
I thought you were only 21.
00:04:43
Flint
Oh, no. I'm a lot older than that. I can i can remember the dial-up modem time.
00:04:49
riptide
Exactly. The best of times, BBSs. Very cool. So you're multi multifaceted, very skilled man with a lot of experience.
00:04:57
Flint
Yeah.
00:04:59
riptide
And you said, you know what, I'm going to to be a Web3 dominator. And what I'd like to see, man, I went through your Twitter and you have one of your posts, like how you started, you post this great, ah this great from before to after and your first contest you made
00:05:17
Flint
Yeah.
00:05:17
riptide
You made how much? a penny.
00:05:19
Flint
Literally.
00:05:22
Flint
Yeah.
00:05:22
riptide
It doesn't get better than that, man.
00:05:22
Flint
Yeah. Yeah. Because I mean, that's the moment because before that I had like an IT consultancy business and um I was making good money, like 10, 20K a month, ah depending on the clients. And I got one cent. and So I'm like, well, fuck it. I'm all in. So I closed down my business and I said, hey, I'm going to be an auditor.
00:05:42
Flint
And then I made like 5k an entire year, and that kind of sucked.
00:05:46
riptide
ah
00:05:49
riptide
I love it, man. I know you you get like, but it's it's like if you make your first sale selling something online and you and you see, I don't care what it is, you're like, oh my God, this is like magic.
00:05:50
Flint
yeah
00:05:59
riptide
The money just came in.
00:06:00
Flint
yeah it's Yeah, it's real. So it's it's not fake. It's like, I got money. I mean, it's one cent. It's an actual cent. I can't buy anything with it, but it exists. So if it's possible, then I can turn a cent into a million.
00:06:12
riptide
And well so what was your top contest payout in contrast?
00:06:16
Flint
Oh, it was like 10K Chainlink last summer, I think. Yeah. I got a few like 4K, 2K, 1K, like then a bunch, like almost nothing, a few hundreds. But yeah, I think it was the best. It was the biggest one.
00:06:33
riptide
And so you weren't you weren't making that that crazy Obrant ZigTour contest money. So you said, that's it, I'm going to go get rich auditing.
00:06:40
Flint
No, no, no. I mean, no. Yeah, well, no, I mean, if you're something what I'm known for is working as long as I did while being so as as horrible as I ah as I was, because, you know, I started alongside Ziktor and Pashov and all those famous people who made millions and millions. And I was there just there alongside like, hey, I made 50 bucks, ah you know.
00:07:05
Flint
For 200 hours this week, I can buy a coffee. Yippee. So yeah, but you know eventually, ah grinding down the mountain and ended up where I wanted to. so
Career Path and Opportunities at Sertora
00:07:18
riptide
So right now you're an LSR at Sertora and that's exactly where you want to be.
00:07:21
Flint
Yes.
00:07:23
Flint
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, know. I mean, I started this like journey. like you know I read like like everybody, like the C. Michel post, like, hey, I made a million in a year. it's like, what the fuck?
00:07:35
Flint
I want this as well. And then I started Contest. And then I was like, wait, maybe I'm going to be a see Michel. Maybe I'm going to have my own business. Maybe I'm going to work at a business. I'm going to see where it goes. But ah my dream is just to be able to audit all day, every day, and get paid for it. So I'm living the dream.
00:07:54
riptide
see this is a different mindset i think you're crazy i would just shoot myself in the head if i had to audit all day it's it's ultimately it's very boring
00:07:59
Flint
Why?
00:08:04
Flint
I don't agree.
00:08:06
riptide
so true
00:08:06
Flint
it's you know it It might be boring if you're not learning anything anymore. If it's just the the same rote thing, like is there input validation? OK. did they though Do they know math? OK.
00:08:18
Flint
i mean, is it the boring stuff? Yeah. But if it's every time, like there's a new technology, a new completely stuff that you don't know, like how the fuck, how does this work? That's fun. But yeah, you just have to get more challenges, I'd say.
00:08:31
riptide
Are there advantages to being like top dog at Sertoric and you say, hey, underlings, interns, you do this this boring stuff. I'll do the cool stuff. Do you get to do that?
00:08:42
Flint
Yeah, I wish.
00:08:43
riptide
No.
00:08:43
Flint
I wish. but But no, ah basically, if you're the lead, you have to do everything. Or you have to make sure that everything is being done.
00:08:54
Flint
um So it's also a bit of management. But you know if if you're doing good, if you have like a new, exciting, difficult project, then it's like, hey, ah hulu and do who do we want to give it to? Well, let's give it to Flint, or let's give it to somebody else who's good. So i mean it does have its perks, being good.
00:09:11
riptide
but Well, let's let's break into these questions because I got a bunch of questions from the Discord and Twitter that they had for you you and us, I guess.
00:09:16
Flint
Yeah, sure.
00:09:17
riptide
But since we're on this Sertora topic, all right, so I'll fire them off here. So one of the guys asked, ah the promotion and transition to LSR at Sertora, what it's like being an LSR versus ah an SR?
00:09:31
Flint
Yeah, sure. So to give you a big bit of context, Sertura is a startup, which is now kind of turning into a scale up. So they're exploding in size. And they have like simply, they didn't have enough LSRs. So they said, look, cool look who can who can do this?
00:09:47
Flint
now lsr there is like technical part you have to be really good but there's also the business part because you're responsible for the communication with the client for the the client success management that that he's happy that he's feeling uh comfortable that he's feeling taken taken care of um that are just going to be new opportunities so with all my business experience uh and i did really good in the audits that i did there they said look flint do you want to do this because We feel you're really good in communication, and you're crushing the audits. And I said, well, I mean, of course I want to do this.
00:10:19
Flint
So yeah, so there's no official, like, standardized um promotion process. It's just you start, and if you crush it, you know opportunities will come.
00:10:29
riptide
So i'm thinking something that's very strong they're looking for is communication and management. Like you need to be able to organize, lead a group of people.
00:10:36
Flint
Well, they're they're looking for technical. Well, I mean, that's something you need to be if you if you need if you if you lead a project. Because you have a lot of auditors who are extremely good technical, but they can't talk to a bit to to a person.
00:10:49
Flint
um
00:10:49
riptide
Mm-hmm.
00:10:50
Flint
Because, I mean, they'd lived all their life behind the computer screen. And that's excellent. And we want we want those people as well. We need those people as well. But we also need people who ah can talk to a client, see the client is is getting nervous, the client is under the pressure. OK, how can I?
00:11:05
Flint
make sure that he feels appreciated, that he knows that we're taking care of him. um That's also a communication skill. So it's not something they're only looking for, but it's an add-on, which is very much appreciated.
00:11:19
riptide
All right. Next one was how can a beginner break into a role Sertora? What qualities or skills do you look for when hiring an SR? Any tips on how to get hired?
00:11:28
Flint
OK. Sure. Just be senior, basically. Just be, just have the skill level of a senior and we'll give you a contract ASAP. And if you don't have that, yeah, get get good.
00:11:38
riptide
Okay, what if you're a beginner?
00:11:42
riptide
how do you How do you show that you're good? Like how do you, do you do you gotta probably stop in some contests? You gotta show some audits you did? Like what do you do for these guys that say, hey, that's my dream?
00:11:42
Flint
You know, yeah,
00:11:50
Flint
yeah I mean, Basically, you do what I did and what hundreds of other people did. You study in silence, you work on on either bounties or contests, and you show that you have elite skills by winning contests, by making a lot of money ah to the point that we're happy to have you.
00:12:09
Flint
Because I mean, Web3 is kind of unique in a sense, there's no, juniors don't really exist. um you have to You have to be skilled to start at the beginning. So that's something you have to do alone ah and just do the work and get good.
00:12:23
Flint
And then you'll get a contract.
00:12:27
riptide
Yeah. Is there anything like this that you that you can think of where it's this it's totally merit-based? Because what you're saying is totally true. And and it's like that I like what you said, code in silence, study in silence.
00:12:40
riptide
And that's what you do. And if you're good, it rides to the top and everyone will find out. If you're not, that's it.
00:12:45
Flint
Exactly.
00:12:45
riptide
doesn't matter what school you went to.
00:12:47
Flint
Yeah, i mean, I talked to Alex about this like a long time ago and he simple, he put it perfectly in one sentence. um If you're good, no problem. If you're not good, shut the fuck up and get good, basically.
00:12:59
riptide
Bye.
00:13:00
Flint
I mean, i mean that's what I love about Web3. It's a pure meritocracy. So all you need to do is get good. You don't need to talk, blah, blah, blah, put on a shining suit, so you write 15 letters in the resumes and all that bullshit.
00:13:15
Flint
Just show me your skill. If your skill is good, you're going to get contract offers from every top auditor firm. If you're not, well, then shut the fuck up and get good. i mean
00:13:25
riptide
Yeah. And I would say for guys that are kind of introverts, which a lot of these guys are, you need to flex a little bit, like get on Twitter. If you made some, some good accomplishments, you did a great audit, whatever, just put it out there.
00:13:38
riptide
And you may not like the self-promotion, but if no one knows about it, no one can kind of you know, give you these leads because leads will just come on X. I get all kinds of leads that come in just because I'll shit post or whatever, put things out there.
00:13:51
riptide
I'll get DMS. I'll get like, that's how it works, man. That's this world. So make sure you get out there and talk to people online.
00:13:58
Flint
Now you make a very good point because in Web3, because we're all semi-anonymous or anonymous, Your Twitter profile is basically who you are. And the more you share, the more people will get to know you and they the more they'll like you or, well, perhaps dislike you.
00:14:13
Flint
And that will also help you. Because for me, have been posting everything from day one. So after two or three years, people basically know me. So my my CV is my Twitter.
00:14:24
riptide
Yeah.
00:14:27
Flint
So they want to know how I am what do I do?
00:14:28
riptide
yeah
00:14:30
Flint
And they see, okay, if things go south, he's going to keep working. If it's not good, he's going to keep working. Whatever happens, he's going to keep continue. And that's also what people at Sertora or other firms looked at and they said, look, I mean,
00:14:43
Flint
Maybe he's not exactly immediately the top dog in skill, but we know from his personality he'll get there as fast as humanly possible. So that also matters. So yeah, certainly get on Twitter, show what you do, show your personality. If it's good, of course, otherwise work on that.
00:15:00
Flint
Yeah, because you also a few people are like, what the hell? But yeah, it's certainly a strong strong message suggestion.
00:15:07
riptide
Yeah, and you've also shown this kind of, you're always, you're like a ah dog, like a Rottweiler. You just grab in and you're not letting go because you're your Twitter account is like, I'm waking up at four in the morning.
00:15:20
riptide
I'm eating some steak. I'm going to the gym and then I'm staring at code. And you're you're very consistent with it. And it reminds me of, who's guy, Jocko, who I think started off that kind of thing.
00:15:31
Flint
yeah i know him yes i yes yes yes yes yes yes
00:15:33
riptide
And I was like, it's it's a really cool thing to do. it's It's just anything where you can do something and be repetitive about it and be disciplined about it, I think is you can't find a negative about it.
00:15:45
Flint
Now, it's also very much something I would suggest because especially in our field, ah very often you don't really control the outputs. I mean, regardless if it's like ah a repo for a bounty or for an audit or for a contest, you don't know what you're going to find. You don't know how many other people are going to be. You don't know if you're going to be too late or too early or the client is going to disappear.
00:16:08
Flint
You don't have a clue. All you can control is your input, how much you do every single day, and then day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. So you should only focus on that because that is something you can control.
00:16:22
riptide
See, this is this is why we get the older guys on, because they have all this wisdom.
00:16:25
Flint
Mm-hmm.
00:16:27
riptide
You feel that wisdom right there? That was really good. that was You can't get that at 21, man. It just doesn't happen.
00:16:32
Flint
No, you have to you have to fail and suck 50 things ah over 20 years.
00:16:35
riptide
Absolutely.
00:16:36
Flint
Yeah.
00:16:40
Flint
you know
00:16:40
riptide
All right. We're going to keep, keep going through these questions I got from, from the readers.
00:16:42
Flint
Sure.
00:16:44
riptide
Okay. This is from yeah. Chai bike. He says, let him know he's an inspiration to me. So big shout out.
00:16:50
Flint
Ah, well, thank you.
00:16:50
riptide
Okay.
00:16:51
Flint
Thank you.
00:16:51
riptide
I love hearing this.
00:16:52
Flint
I appreciate it.
00:16:53
riptide
right. Next guy is Tino official. He says for doing auto competitions, is it worth it to do formal verification or just stick to manual review?
00:17:03
Flint
ah Specifically for contests, I think manual review is the best. I mean, formal verification is awesome, but it takes a lot of time to set up, a lot of time to debug, and the audit is most likely going to be finished before you get to that point.
00:17:20
riptide
Yeah, yeah, I go with that. Next one, NFT Ant says, how do you guys approach projects with previous audits? Do you take a look at the prior audits to gauge what was already looked at to get some ideas or do you ignore them completely?
00:17:35
Flint
Eh, usually just ignore them unless, well, it depends. If it was an audit where they had lot of bugs, then I'm going to look at the fixed review.
00:17:46
Flint
Because often that's the part where a company or another team, like we did the work, now we're going to review the fixes.
00:17:47
riptide
Mm-hmm.
00:17:53
Flint
Yeah, this is fine. Yeah, this is fine. And it happens quite often that they miss a few of the implications or unforeseen side effects from the fixed review.
00:18:04
Flint
So that's one thing I would look at, but in general, it's not a focus.
00:18:10
riptide
That's a good point. That's a good point. i I can't say I look at audits to get ideas off of it. I do i do kind of like just take a break sometime and look through the audits just to kind of see how the project responded.
00:18:24
riptide
And you know maybe if i if I think, oh, you know that should have been fixed or why they dismissed that. I mean, you can get some auditors have better reports than others and they'll they'll do the follow-ups and they kind of
00:18:24
Flint
Hmm.
00:18:30
Flint
Hmm.
00:18:37
riptide
get good descriptive answers from the client. So sometimes you could learn things, but I don't think I've, I've got ideas from looking at prior audits.
00:18:44
Flint
Yeah, no. um Ideas? No. You got ideas from but from reading reading the code.
00:18:46
riptide
Yeah. Yeah. ah Last question from Xerox pseudonym. I guess you probably already touched on this roadmap path from noob to skilled would be amazing how to land that first role slash internship.
00:19:00
riptide
And I think we talked about this just kind of get good on your own.
00:19:01
Flint
Yeah, I mean, just, i mean, get yeah Get a chronometer, start counting counting hours. Once you get to $2,000, then look up and you'll get an opportunity. you know
00:19:12
riptide
the
00:19:13
Flint
There's no hack or no insights's inside road or the way to to magically make it happen. Just do the do the work or don't.
00:19:19
riptide
Just do it.
00:19:20
Flint
i mean
00:19:20
riptide
That's it.
AI Tools in Web3 Development
00:19:21
riptide
you You retweeted this great quote. I know who was from, but you retweeted It said, the reason you don't have the skills you need is because you're unwilling to suck for as long as it takes to get good.
00:19:32
Flint
Yeah. Alex or Mosey. Yeah.
00:19:33
riptide
what What a great quote.
00:19:34
Flint
Yeah.
00:19:35
riptide
I love that. Isn't that the truth?
00:19:37
Flint
Mm-hmm.
00:19:38
riptide
Just put in the hours. I wish I would have known that when I was younger. i always thought there was some secret that I had to do this and that. No, it was just ah like my father-in-law, he was a a painter and didn't have much education, but he did well in life and he just showed up to work every single day.
00:19:47
Flint
Mm-hmm.
00:19:57
riptide
And just that's how he became successful.
00:19:59
Flint
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
00:20:00
riptide
That's it. It's very simple.
00:20:02
Flint
no Yeah, I can ah make make one remark by another quote of Alex Ormosi. It's, ah one thing is how hard you row. The other thing is what kind of a boat you're in.
00:20:14
Flint
If you're in a speedboat or a rocket, that's going to be a lot easier than youre if you're in an oil tanker.
00:20:20
riptide
Mm-hmm.
00:20:20
Flint
um For example, if you if we both work in different industries, and you're in the construction industry, and I'm in Web3, We can both work as equally as hard, but the opportunities I'm going to get are going to be um orders of magnitude bigger simply because it's a newer in industry.
00:20:36
Flint
So I do think you have to make some conscious decisions and reflect on where you want to go. But in the end, yeah, i mean mastery is just time invested.
00:20:46
riptide
Absolutely. You have plenty of guys that wonder why they're not rich. Oh, work so hard. work Well, I mean, hey, you do, but you're a garbage man. And that's a hard job, but you're you're putting all that output into something where there's a ceiling.
00:20:54
Flint
Yeah, I mean.
00:21:00
Flint
Yeah, there's no leverage.
00:21:00
riptide
Nothing you can do.
00:21:00
Flint
I mean, that's also one of the reasons. I mean, I listed like 15 different jobs I did. And every time i got to a point like, OK, I'm hitting the ceiling. I'm hitting the ceiling and I can't go up.
00:21:11
Flint
The only thing I can do is sit on my ass and watch my hairs fall out. And I will get ah a percentage a year. No, that's not going to happen. um I'm not willing to accept that. So
00:21:21
riptide
Yeah, bail immediately. I agree.
00:21:23
Flint
yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:21:24
riptide
had a question for you. You posted something about using Claude Sonnet 4T, and it was costing you some money.
00:21:30
Flint
Yes.
00:21:31
riptide
I don't know anything about that. Explain why this is better than my 20-a-month Claude.
00:21:37
Flint
um Well, I mean, you have different versions of Cloud or the different LLMs. And Cloud Forward Thinking is currently, for our type of work, I think the best one.
00:21:48
Flint
And it's um quite bit more expensive. So it's like 200 to 400 bucks per month. but buxburg per month So it does add up, but I think it's ah it's you know it's a it's an accelerator. It's a multiplier in speed.
00:22:03
Flint
So it's worth the investment, for I believe.
00:22:05
riptide
Well, give me an example. Like, so I use Claude for writing reports and writing POCs. Would that help in that regard or or use it for something else?
00:22:12
Flint
Okay, I don't. i I don't use it to write reports. I just use it to help it explain functions. For example, I'm in a Solana code base, and there's like one macro which is using, which I don't really,
00:22:27
Flint
quite understand. I just copy it to the to chat window, explain this macro, reference this macro with with all known vulnerability databases, explain to me if there is a possibility for a vulnerability.
00:22:42
Flint
And it's going to give me like an output, which I would have had to use like 30 minutes of Google search in five seconds. And that's a productivity boost, which is quite valuable. So it speeds up learning.
00:22:56
Flint
by a factor of five or 10.
00:22:59
riptide
Do you feel that makes you, it's very easy to lull you into complacency?
00:23:05
riptide
When it says, oh, we got them all, or this is the bugs.
00:23:05
Flint
Not really.
00:23:08
Flint
no, no not not at all, because I don't i don't use it to to find bugs. I'm i'm using it to describe me this function. why is this Why is this here? um So I don't look at it as a way to find bugs.
00:23:24
Flint
What I do sometimes do, like, I have this bug, like, can you verify this? Why is this correct? And then it gives me, like, sometimes reasons why it does it works or not work, half hallucinate, half not.
00:23:36
Flint
But it basically forces you to argue with the LLM. And a discussion, you also have often more viewpoints that come up that you haven't considered before.
00:23:46
riptide
Well, you said that you you say hey like, hey, run this through all known vulnerabilities. So, I mean, wouldn't that be hunting for bugs in a way? You're having it identify bugs. And I'm saying, could that make you complacent?
00:23:57
riptide
Because it didn't find anything, whereas there still could be some there based upon the known vulnerabilities.
00:24:02
Flint
Uh, well, I guess I like that one.
00:24:03
riptide
You know what i mean?
00:24:05
Flint
Well, but, but the issue is I don't know all possible vulnerabilit vulnerabilities and I'm learning as fast as I can, but I don't have time for every line of code to spend 30 minutes on Google. Um, so it's just a way to get the most amount of information I can and the quickest way possible.
00:24:26
riptide
I think it's fantastic. it It is a multiplier in so many different ways.
00:24:29
Flint
Yeah.
00:24:30
riptide
and And it's like each time you could find a different way to use it. um ah no Claude Sonnett 4T. Okay.
00:24:40
riptide
So you think it's worth the price, what you're paying?
00:24:40
Flint
ah Yeah, it's it's worth the price. I mean, if I can increase my speed of learning by 10%, it's worth the price. And I think it's a lot more. so
00:24:52
riptide
Interesting. I'll have to check it out. Definitely.
00:24:55
Flint
yeah And secondly, for writing tests, it's really good. i mean Well, at least for Solidity tests, it's really good. ah For Rust, it still sucks kind of bit to because there's not enough data for that.
00:25:06
Flint
But
Web3 vs Traditional Corporate Roles
00:25:07
Flint
Solilli tests, that's made like make me the test to prove or this is scenario, write it with this function. And that's like, and instead of two hours, it's like 20 minutes to get a working test.
00:25:19
riptide
Yeah, it has saved me. i used to dread writing the report and then writing the tests, and it has saved me so much time just to immediately do that. I love it. Yeah, fantastic.
00:25:32
riptide
I also noticed, is this true or false, you used to work at IBM?
00:25:36
Flint
I did, yes.
00:25:38
riptide
I also did way back in the day. Global services.
00:25:40
Flint
Ah, yes.
00:25:41
riptide
you were in You were in DevOps? Yeah.
00:25:43
Flint
ah I was first ah IBM Sales. I was in cybersecurity sales. Then I did ah i left to to switch to IT. I did a bootcamp for Java.
00:25:56
Flint
And then I got hired back as a DevOps consultant.
00:26:02
riptide
Yes, back in the day.
00:26:03
Flint
Yes. Yeah, that was ah quite an experience. Like, we have 300,000 people. You have 15 managers. We have 15. No manager is actually doing something, aside from good drinking coffee.
00:26:15
Flint
But they're here. And this is your job. If you don't do it, we're still not going to fire you. I was like, what the fuck? Yeah.
00:26:23
riptide
ah Do you look back at those old jobs and just think like, it I mean, it's such a foreign world to me, the corporate workforce that's not around our industry. And just because I had eight managers like you, and I'm like, that's fucking crazy.
00:26:34
Flint
Yeah.
00:26:36
riptide
It is crazy that that kind of organization exists. And some of these are just in in motion. And they have so many contracts and so many contacts and this and that where it's really hard to slow that beast down.
00:26:49
riptide
But to like mentally, I just, people still work there is a thing too. And people are getting hired on there, people out of college. And yet we're in this field that's like, it's like we're completely in the future.
00:27:03
riptide
They don't even know what these things that we're doing are. They're hearing about stable coins, maybe in the Wall Street Journal.
00:27:08
Flint
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:27:09
riptide
And they they're still like, oh, what is that? Oh, how does that, oh, it's probably, you know, and then they they label it with whatever because they don't understand it. But I mean, Even though our industry is from, yeah I'd say 2008, around that time, Bitcoin, and now where we are now, it's like even those Ethereum and Bitcoin and blockchain, everyone's heard of it.
00:27:34
riptide
But the amount of people that even understand it or or work with it, it is so, so tiny.
00:27:41
Flint
Yep. Yeah, but that's, I mean, if you do, if you spend some time in the corporate world, you understand that most people don't want to work. They got a job and they make it their mission to do the absolute minimum in life, as long as they don't get fired.
00:27:52
riptide
Mm-hmm.
00:27:58
Flint
And they're happy to do that. I mean, that's like comfortable misery, as I like to call it. And they don't learn anything because they they're not forced to learn anything. And they don't want to learn anything because it takes effort. And effort is the is the devil.
00:28:11
Flint
So you know those guys will be replaced by by by AI or the robots in a few years. and you know And they reap what they sow.
00:28:21
riptide
And yet they have the salaried handcuffs. I remember the corporate job. You're getting the money and you're just tired. just want to relax at the end of the day. And it really can just weigh you down and lock you in.
00:28:32
riptide
But I what happened?
00:28:32
Flint
Yeah, I mean.
00:28:33
riptide
Go ahead.
00:28:33
Flint
I mean, I don't agree with that.
00:28:33
riptide
Go ahead.
00:28:35
Flint
I mean, yeah, you get a lot of money and it's easy, but those aren't handcuffs. that's you know That's just you being lazy and you allowing yourself to to compromise on your dreams.
00:28:50
Flint
And if that's good for you, I mean, do it, no problem.
00:28:51
riptide
True, true.
00:28:53
Flint
But you're responsible for your own faith. And if you put in somebody else's hands, you don't have the right to complain.
00:29:02
riptide
What happens to all these guys? And you're thinking the timeline is how many years from now where all these positions are eliminated through AI?
00:29:14
Flint
Uh, well, honestly, ah I think it's going to be slower than many of the people in our bubble assume because we're simply used to a world that advances and evolves so much rapidly ah more rapidly.
00:29:28
Flint
I mean, a lot of the people at IBM, they get, I mean, IBM makes money somehow, uh, with all the contracts they have and sure they'll have like chat GTP and whatever the hell.
00:29:40
Flint
but they'll still be around for a very long time, as long as the company is making money. Because it's more it's more friction to so to fire people than to just keep them around. So I think it's going to be like 20 years, honestly, before there's going to be a real tectonic shift.
00:29:56
riptide
Thank you.
00:29:58
Flint
But in the meantime, people who do adapt it will have productivity boosts of like 10 to 100%, they will reap the war rewards.
00:30:07
riptide
Yeah, that's a good point, too. There are people, and especially the younger generation, that that's some are listening to the advice of their parents. And they're saying, oh, I'm going go get that part-time job at McDonald's, this and that. And they're doing the same thing their parents did, which I think is not good advice.
00:30:26
riptide
And the other guys you see on Facebook. doing affiliate marketing or, you know, content creator or Web3 security or just some new industry that their parents had no idea about.
00:30:37
riptide
And they're making crazy money. And there're they're just go-getters. I mean, i think i think even though, hey, I love my parents, we all love our parents, you just have to not listen to their advice. It's it's just not it's not on topic now.
00:30:53
riptide
it's It's not at all.
00:30:54
Flint
Oh, of course. i mean, they gave the advice that worked for them at at their time ah for their world. But that world doesn't exist anymore. ah But yeah, I mean, and in that regard, it's going to be a very interesting situation because there are not so many opportunities for people. I mean, there are a lot of opportunities, but not in the quantity to satisfy everyone.
00:31:19
Flint
So if AI comes, the robots comes, they know What's going to happen? Like 50% unemployment? I don't know.
00:31:27
riptide
which countries do you think this this wave starts it?
00:31:31
Flint
um I think mostly, well Asia. Asia, I think. Asia or the United States. um I mean, the United States, you have, of course, Elon Musk with his all his new inventions.
00:31:43
Flint
You do have a like ah startup culture there. They do have economic innovativeness. Now, if you're like Asia, like Singapore, ah chap like Thailand, South Korea, which are quite advanced, um Europe is kind of dead.
00:31:57
riptide
Yeah.
00:31:59
Flint
And i mean it's like nice like nice to eat, nice to see the buildings. But for the rest, it's just dead. Middle East, all the swimming and money. But I don't know if they're going to swim economically. And Africa, well, it's it's just Africa. So I mean, yeah.
00:32:15
Flint
but and you know
00:32:17
riptide
ah know I'd say, yeah, I'd agree with that. The major cities in Asia to to start with, and then America, because they're always trying to push forward on change, new things.
00:32:28
riptide
And Europe, I mean, i live in Europe now. I'd have to agree. And i and even i mean even with the U.S., this and that, you know people talk on Twitter like things are happening immediately.
00:32:31
Flint
Mm-hmm.
00:32:39
riptide
Yeah. the of the US, the dollar, oh AI is going to take everyone's jobs. I could tell you right now, you're you're really looking at this from then not the right lens because once you've been in plenty of businesses and you've traveled a lot, a lot of businesses are, my God, they're in the stone age.
00:32:54
Flint
Mm-hmm.
00:32:59
riptide
Like they they're not in the 90s.
00:32:59
Flint
Mm-hmm.
00:33:01
riptide
They're not in the noughties. They're not here at all. they're They're way back. And their processes are dated, but the business still runs. You put out LLM tools.
00:33:08
Flint
Yeah.
00:33:10
riptide
It doesn't really matter for them. So there's a lot of this throughout the world. So transitioning everyone, in my mind, i agree with you. it It will take longer than what people think.
00:33:21
Flint
Yeah, because I mean, an established business is led by managers whose only goal is to keep their job. So as long as the competition isn't using AI to crush them, they're not going to take the effort or the
00:33:32
riptide
Mm-hmm.
00:33:35
Flint
the effort that it takes to adapt ah AI. Because they have to fire people, they're going to be unions, they're going to be strikes. they They might lose their jobs because if you don't have a team anymore, why should you need a manager?
00:33:47
Flint
So it's like, yeah, there's going to be a tech elite sector which adopts it and which is going to the moon or Mars or something. But the vast majority is going to stay as slow as possible for as long as possible.
00:34:02
riptide
Yeah, the guy making paper straws at his company making 100 million a year. I guess his marketing spend, that'll be interesting because these guys, the I mean, the older guys, they're not going to say, hey we know how to do a video prompt and create our own ads.
00:34:17
riptide
There will be a middleman who's just, he's he's maximizing, he's that smart young guy. He's taking all that revenue.
00:34:22
Flint
Yep.
00:34:22
riptide
He's making ads and it's costing him ah nothing at all.
00:34:27
Flint
Yeah, exactly. I mean, for that, that yes, services it that they can buy, give me a video of our product and flying dinosaurs or something. Yeah, that's going to happen. and And some some very smart people are going to make a lot of money.
00:34:40
Flint
Same with us.
00:34:40
riptide
yeah Because we were the guys on the front lines testing everything, getting rugged.
00:34:40
Flint
I mean, yes, the app in the bank is going to say the same it 20 years ago. But behind the app, it's going to be blockchain. And they're going to pay a hell of a lot of money to people like us.
00:34:56
Flint
Yep.
00:34:57
riptide
Yes. So let's, all right, let's get back to web three, As, as I prefer crypto. ah So about bounty hunting, you never dipped your toe in.
00:35:08
riptide
Am I right?
00:35:10
Flint
Yeah, you're right. um
00:35:11
riptide
What happened?
00:35:12
Flint
Because my my goal initially was basically to copy Pashov. So it was like, I need to get some some success in contests. I'm going to establish myself on Twitter. And hopefully then I get private clients and then I can get a business rolling.
00:35:26
Flint
Because bounty hunting, I mean, you can go make a lot of money, but you can also go six months without any but without anything. And you don't have anything to share or any any anything to get in motion. So I thought it wasn't a a wise investment of my time.
00:35:42
riptide
Mm-hmm. So, but what happened with the audit company? Instead, you went Sertora.
00:35:48
Flint
Well, i did I did build my audit company, Rock Solid Security. And I was getting like ah some small clients left and right. But ah it's difficult to get clients um if you don't have a marketing budget, if you don't have a really established deep network.
00:36:06
Flint
Now, if Satora, because honestly, I wasn't planning on it.
00:36:06
riptide
Mm-hmm.
00:36:09
Flint
They contacted me. And I was like, what the fuck? They want me? So yeah, because I didn't even consider that because my plan was, look, i um I had restarted my IT consultancy business in Web2, now in cybersecurity. So i was making like a twelve k a month on that. And then I was working just like 40 hours extra ah auditing, getting clients, writing articles. And the idea was, look, I'm going to just work 80 hours a week for an entire year.
00:36:35
Flint
And then I'm going to try to jump again to go full Web3. But then, yeah, so Tara came along. was like, look, we really need money. Sorry, we really need experienced people. Are you interested? I was like, a fuck yes.
00:36:48
Flint
And you know, that's what she wrote.
00:36:50
riptide
Hmm. Yeah, it's that makes sense because you you look down this confusing path of crypto and there's all these different ways to make money and you say, OK, what are my best skill that you could say? Traitor?
00:37:03
riptide
Is that me? yeah Yes.
00:37:05
Flint
Mm-hmm.
00:37:05
riptide
OK, I don't really have control over that process. Some guys great at it. I'm not. All right. Security, auditor, marketing, business like there's so many cool opportunities that could lead you. Honestly,
00:37:19
riptide
Almost all of these positions, even like community moderator to Discord, you could probably get a token drop or something. Like a lot of these could lead you to the gold rush of crypto.
00:37:30
riptide
But, you know, one is going to be much more suited to your skill set than others.
00:37:35
Flint
yeah Yeah, my my um consideration was mostly take the venue that is going to allow me to acquire skills, technical skills in the fastest way.
00:37:47
Flint
Because i can I can do Web 2 and then alongside Web 3.
00:37:47
riptide
Mm-hmm.
00:37:51
Flint
But it still means I have to work 40 hours just to to pay the bills in Web 2. And that's useless time. That's time completely wasted.
00:37:58
riptide
Mm-hmm.
00:37:59
Flint
So if I can make, well, actually a lot more money, purely working 60 hours ah in Web 3, that's a winner. Because in the end, what I love also about our specific craft is there is no end in sight for skill like acquisition.
00:38:16
Flint
And the rewards are directly correlated to your skill. I mean, why does Victor and Obrant Why did we make millions instead of 100k's like we do? Because we're just better. And we can get better if we invest a few thousand dollars more. So the more time I can spend increasing my skills, the more money I will make.
00:38:36
riptide
Rare skills.com forward slash rip done. Okay. Anyway, you know, another, another trait that those two guys have are they, they do not get psyched out.
00:38:47
riptide
I got psyched out from the Pectra competition. I looked at it and I was, I looked at the code and I said, Oh, this just looks too complex. And it psyched me out and I'm not even going to try it.
00:38:57
Flint
Mm-hmm. 13. 13. Mm-hmm.
00:38:58
riptide
It's too complex. I think there were only, I'm going to say less than 15 people on that leaderboard.
00:39:04
Flint
thirteen
00:39:05
riptide
Okay.
00:39:05
Flint
thirteen
00:39:05
riptide
It doesn't mean just those guys competed. Right. But Ziktor, Obra, these guys, they get in there and they're like, Hey, fuck it. Like I met him in Belgrade a couple days ago. Great guy.
00:39:16
riptide
And they just, they're, they're smart as hell and they did not get intimidated at all. Cause when you see a complex code base, it's easy to say, ah, not worth my time. And you go to the next thing.
00:39:27
Flint
Yeah, that's that's so that's a big mistake I also made. Like, I'm going to focus on the small contest, the easy contest. And then ever everybody's doing that.
00:39:34
riptide
Yeah.
00:39:36
Flint
And then you have like the big ones with three people. And they're fuck, they made 200k.
00:39:40
riptide
yeah
00:39:42
Flint
Now, at the same time, you can also say, look, they focus on that because they have the skills. ah So it's a match in heaven for them. But yeah, I mean, for anybody listening, if you have the choice of a bigger complex codebase or a smaller one, take the biggest.
00:39:56
Flint
Bigger, always. Even if you don't get paid, just in skill acquisition, it will be beneficial.
00:40:02
riptide
Yeah, get comfortable being uncomfortable. That's where your biggest gains will will happen in knowledge, earnings, experience, everything.
00:40:06
Flint
Exactly. Yeah.
00:40:12
Flint
Yeah.
00:40:13
riptide
And that applies to life too, right? Wouldn't you say?
00:40:16
Flint
Yeah, exactly. I mean, um if you want to be comfortable, then be satisfied with mediocrity. Because I'm only where I am in life simply because every year I said, well, fuck it. I'm just going to go and and jump in the dark. And hopefully, I'll swim before I drown. And otherwise, we'll respawn, I guess.
00:40:36
Flint
um But that's what life is. So if you want to to reach the heights of the Mount Everest, you need to be a bit bit insane and screw stability. I mean, I have three small children. And I said, fuck it. I have one cent.
00:40:51
Flint
And i'm gonna I'm going all in. And I'll do it again and again um because I want to live a full life and not a half life.
00:40:59
riptide
even though
Future Speculations in Blockchain and AI
00:41:00
riptide
Half-Life was a great game.
00:41:02
Flint
I wouldn't know. I don't have time for games.
00:41:04
riptide
Oh my God, you're not a classic gamer. I agree with you.
00:41:08
Flint
I used to be.
00:41:08
riptide
That's
00:41:08
Flint
I used to be. But now three children and all at work. ah
00:41:11
riptide
impossible, yeah.
00:41:12
Flint
Yeah, it's just not. you know I used to be a StarCraft ah addict, but sir I can't play it anymore because every time I play, I feel how much I suck now. And i was like, OK, I need for like 100 hours of dedicated practice. And OK, I don't. I just have one hour and just one hour of sucking.
00:41:28
Flint
No, I don't like that.
00:41:30
riptide
I can't pick up a game now. I could pick up the last game I played was Doom, Doom Eternal for Xbox. And it was the most, it it was just my heart was beating.
00:41:42
riptide
it's It's in like 4K and like an FPS, a proper FPS. I've always been a Doom fan. It's just something feels good. It's like doing a workout. Like you're killing some people and and maybe I could do like 15 minutes of it, 20 minutes of it.
00:41:52
Flint
Mm-hmm.
00:41:56
riptide
And then I'm like, oh, I feel drained, but i feel ah feel great. I feel great. But I can't do i can't do hours, man. No, I can't do it anymore. It's just I don't have the time and it just doesn't have my attention.
00:42:10
Flint
Yeah, no, it's like a friend of mine who's really deep into RPGs like Baldur's Gate. and I used to do it a long time ago. And he was like, I mean, there's like new Baldur's Gate. Why don't you play this anymore? What play this?
00:42:22
Flint
said, no, no, you know you're you're getting it wrong. I am i am a hardcore gamer. I still am. But the game I'm playing is called Life. And I want to maximize all my stats so I don't have time for the virtual stuff.
00:42:35
riptide
That's right. i can't justify to my kids and say, ah you know, hey, what'd you do today? I'll, yeah, knock down five hours in some RPG. There's no way i could say that with a straight face.
00:42:43
Flint
Yeah, yeah, no, no. No, exactly.
00:42:46
riptide
Impossible.
00:42:47
Flint
It's like, your no, it's like, you know, I can say I worked 15 hours. I'm sorry, honey, because i have to but I have to pay the bills and stuff like that. But, you know, ah yeah, no, I spent two hours on League of Legends screaming at other people, calling them retards.
00:43:00
Flint
No, that's not, that's not, yeah.
00:43:01
riptide
But as as the as the father, you can't win no matter what because you work too much. Your kids say, oh, you work all the time, and they have no clue why you're working. And then you're you're not working enough, and your wife is trying to buy something.
00:43:10
Flint
Hm.
00:43:13
riptide
She can't. Oh, fuck. Well, you're screwed no matter what.
00:43:16
Flint
Ah, well, that's, i mean, um my but my my wife says to stay at home, because look, I pay the bills, you you cook, and and that's the arrangement.
00:43:28
Flint
And then you can you play a lot with the children. So everybody knows that, and everybody is appreciated of that.
00:43:32
riptide
it
00:43:33
Flint
So, you know, it works.
00:43:36
riptide
That's all you need. That is all you need. I wanted to introduce the Alpha Drop. Are you familiar with this, sir?
00:43:45
Flint
ah remind me again ah okay
00:43:48
riptide
This is where you drop your most valuable alpha on the podcast. And this this could be this could be within coding. This could be, you know, some life alpha, whatever. Would you like to go first or should I?
00:44:02
Flint
no sure ill i'll go first so apply at sartora we need people basically but my advice is uh there are
00:44:04
riptide
Okay.
00:44:14
Flint
a thousand opportunities to change your life in Web3, to make millions of millions of dollars, do whatever you want in the world. And all it requires is a dedication to work hard.
00:44:27
Flint
So close whatever else you're doing and start working and all your dreams will come true. Or don't, and they won't.
00:44:36
riptide
Very simple and straight to the point. And throw in Saitama workout. 100 pushups what or some deadlifts.
00:44:47
riptide
Make sure you get the workouts in. All right.
00:44:49
Flint
Yeah, that's true.
00:44:50
riptide
Alpha drop from mine. This is going to be ah ah one of my favorite solidity tips. for the new guys and for the OGs. So Solidity is so great. I love Solidity.
00:45:02
riptide
But you wanna refresh your memory on all the trap doors of Solidity. You don't need to go to a guide or some guy put this together, this and that. It's all been there. It's all in the same place.
00:45:16
riptide
You just go to the Solidity docs, go read through it, and the red warning boxes are the best. You'll refresh your memories. Oh, that is some strange behavior that I totally forgot about.
00:45:28
riptide
If you're looking for a good bug idea, go to the red warning boxes and just say, huh, I wonder if the devs thought of that. I tell you, it'll pay off.
00:45:38
Flint
On that note, do you think Solidity is still going to be the main programming language? Because I see a lot more Rust or Rust-based languages coming up.
00:45:49
Flint
And just in the pipeline at Sartora as well, it's so much not Rust. seems like it's a bit diminishing.
00:45:59
riptide
I would like to see an updated chart. I think it's still the dominant language out there. what I mean, what is second? Is it Viper that's second?
00:46:08
Flint
No, Viper is dead. I mean, there's like like one protocol the entire world who's using Viper.
00:46:11
riptide
How dare you say that? How dare you say Vipers?
00:46:15
Flint
yeah like i mean, it's it's a beautiful language, but nobody uses it
00:46:15
riptide
The Viper guys are going to attack you. Oh, you're a fan in the flames. Holy shit.
00:46:24
Flint
Well, I mean, it's true, right? It's like one big program. No, where was it?
00:46:28
riptide
You come on here rus rust maxing all over the place.
00:46:29
Flint
ah
00:46:31
riptide
So obvious. Paradigm controls you.
00:46:33
Flint
ah
00:46:34
riptide
All right.
00:46:35
Flint
No, no, no. it's ah I'm thinking about it. It's like the one DeFi protocol on EVM, which is using Viper, and that's it, I think. I can't even think of another one.
00:46:42
riptide
To be honest, yeah, I'm thinking Curve is the number one that comes to mind.
00:46:46
Flint
Yeah, that was the one. Yes.
00:46:48
riptide
Yearn, Curve Mafia, they love their Viper, and they're also doing work behind the scenes developing it.
00:46:48
Flint
And that's the only one.
00:46:51
Flint
Yeah.
00:46:54
riptide
Who else? A couple of products, some VE lockers. couple other protocols. Honestly, there's not that many. I think you're right.
00:47:03
Flint
Yeah, it's it's base i mean sorry to say, i mean Patrick also loves it. But its just from utilization, it's basically dead. and i mean if i Vitalik posted like a few threads a few weeks ago to change the EVM also to Rust-based.
00:47:20
Flint
So if that goes through, it's going to be Rust, Rust, or Rust, I think.
00:47:24
riptide
Oh, man. Well, I need to learn Rust. I don't know Rust. Shit. I don't know. I don't know if Solidity is going to be the dominant language going forward. I think it's all too soon. I know we'll say, hey, well, back in the day it was.
00:47:38
riptide
Will that continue? um Man, ah that's hard to tell. You think it's going to be um more leaning towards Rust going forward?
00:47:46
Flint
Well, I think Solidity is going to stay around as ah as an important language. But if you look at them and Solana, ah MOVE, Cairo, the ZK LMs, so many of them are Rust or variant of Rust.
00:48:03
Flint
It's also just from a business opportunity because I mean, 99% of all solid security auditors are experienced in, in solidity, but not in rust.
00:48:14
Flint
So there's a lot more work. The, the level of security and of protocols is a lot lower, a lot more, mean, obvious bugs that we don't see any anymore in solidity are present.
00:48:26
Flint
So I think there's, there's a lot of opportunity, um, there.
00:48:30
riptide
You say there's more bugs, low level bugs in Rust than Solidity.
00:48:32
Flint
Yes.
00:48:35
Flint
Yes.
00:48:37
riptide
So,
00:48:37
Flint
Yeah, because I'm i' ah not arguing that Rust is a safe language. but For example, um there security practices. You have the open Zeppelin libraries.
00:48:50
Flint
You have ah experience accumulated over years by Solidity developers, ah for specifically for smart contracts, which means that the level of security has slowly increased.
00:49:02
Flint
um But for Solana or for Move, they're basically starting from zero. So but it's this it's often like Rust developers, Web2 Rust developers who start developing in Web3, but they don't really have any ah affinity or so or or experience with the security blockchain ah related stuff.
00:49:22
Flint
So we have more basic bugs, which in Solidity wouldn't never happen because everybody knows you just shouldn't do XYZ.
00:49:29
riptide
Like overflow.
00:49:31
Flint
Yeah, for example, overflow or basic
00:49:31
riptide
Mm-hmm.
00:49:33
Flint
basic business logic, or for example, testing. Testing in Solana, for example, is a lot harder to write. Fuzzing is nearly nonexisting. um So it's just code bases which are a lot more vulnerable.
00:49:49
riptide
and I've never looked Solana. What are some challenges when you have a Solana project coming in that you have to audit compared to Solidity?
00:49:57
Flint
Well, This size is like twice or three times because I mean, Rust is just a very verbose language. um ah Aside from that, well, architecturally, it's very different. They have the account models. Everything is basically an account. You have like accounts with data and accounts with money, and it's all accounts talking to accounts. So that's that that's a bit of adjusting.
00:50:21
Flint
um But for the rest, I mean, once you get past those initial hurdles, it's basically the same stuff. like business logic, input validation, um are yeah the basic stuff you you get in the solidity. is So if you're experienced enough, it's quite easy to look past the the language and just look at the errors.
00:50:44
riptide
And again, my Solana knowledge is is a noob level. So there's nothing verified though, right? So if I don't have the code base and I go on the Solana Explorer, I can't see the code. Is that correct?
00:50:59
Flint
ah No, I do think you can. there are There are ways to get to code, I think. But I'm not going to be sure about that because umm i mean um' I've been working on Solana now for four months, but I'm also not yet an expert in this.
00:51:16
riptide
Is it less transparent than say going on ether scan and looking at the source of a contract?
00:51:16
Flint
it's like
00:51:20
Flint
Yeah, it's a lot it's a lot less transparent. There a lot less tools and the tools are a lot more primitive than they are in Solidity because Solidity is more mature, the EVM, I mean.
00:51:23
riptide
Okay.
00:51:31
riptide
Do you feel that's that going well for that ecosystem, this kind of security by obscurity method?
00:51:37
Flint
Well, it's it's simply a process of learning. Like in the first few years of Solidity, we had also bugs, which by now would have looked like impossible because it was so stupid.
00:51:49
Flint
um
00:51:50
riptide
yeah
00:51:50
Flint
Solana is starting from zero, so they have their own learning difficulties. And i think, I mean, the the ecosystem is growing well and they'll learn bug by bug and protocol by protocol. So, you know, it takes time.
00:52:04
riptide
Do you think overall, like, do you think Solana has kind of had its day because it branded as a gambler's shitcoin casino? And then I wonder if, do you think you think this continues? They morph into a new narrative and Rust continues to dominate and more people flock to Solana. And if you do, like, why do you think they'll go there versus, say, Ethereum?
00:52:31
Flint
Well, I think there were a lot of opportunities on Solon Network and they also do have like some very big DeFi protocols like JITO, Camino, Marinade, um who do the standard DeFi lending staking AMMs.
00:52:45
Flint
It's just like PAMPFUN is like is famous in the crypto world, but it's also like a very small world with a lot lot of echoing. And it's also the question when the big money institutional money comes in, where are they going?
00:53:01
Flint
ah Solana and Rust have their advantages because you can have Rust developers who quite quickly learn the language and the peculiarities of Solana and can start building.
00:53:12
Flint
The TPS is an advantage. um So, no, I think it has sufficient momentum to to continue. Yeah.
00:53:21
riptide
What about demand for these other languages? You mentioned Move and Cairo. And I hear this from other auditors where they're seeing it. But you know as an end user and you know someone who browses the blockchain, i don't I don't know of these projects. I don't see them. I don't hear much about them. And when I do hear about them, it's kind of negative or overhyped metrics.
00:53:45
riptide
What do you think?
00:53:45
Flint
ah So the difference between Move, ah Move is simply like a variant of Rust, which is um from the bottom up designed to be a smart contract language. So it's more secure.
00:53:58
Flint
um i haven't worked with Move myself personally, but I, for example, Aave just launched their own version of Aave on the Move blockchain.
00:54:09
Flint
So its yeah it's it's going well ah for the moment, but I don't know the the overall viability or perspectives of MOVE.
00:54:20
Flint
Cairo, that's basically ZK proofs. That's the Rust version, which is enabled in a is made so people can work with ZK proofs without actually having to understand the ZK map.
00:54:34
Flint
um
00:54:34
riptide
ah
00:54:35
Flint
So the more ZK is is used, which should explode in the next few years, the more there are going to be Cairo projects because i mean the the amount of people who actually understand ZK math is extremely low. So I think that does have a big future.
00:54:52
riptide
Do you think the projects that jumped into ZK jumped too early? Like ah like from an end user perspective, you look at it and you're like, well, ZK, okay, most users don't care.
00:55:04
riptide
Like, let's let's look at Polygon's ZK EVM.
00:55:07
Flint
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:55:07
riptide
No one uses it and they failed to basically attract protocols there and stuff like that. They have some minor usage, but in the end people are like, well, okay, is it degenable? Am I going to go on there and earn some yield? Like why it has to be incentive marketing behind it, whatever.
00:55:22
riptide
But in the end ZK, yeah, privacy. Great. Sounds cool. But mostly the end users like, um, doesn't matter. um I'm making money.
00:55:34
riptide
What do you think?
00:55:34
Flint
Yeah, but I don't think the use cases for specific individual individual users. I think it's more like a bet on the big institutional money, because at some point the actual financial sector, all the banks are going to come and they want secure private um ways to transfer the money.
00:55:54
Flint
They don't want to to have like an EVM where everybody can see that Trump sent this much with this person or Elon did this to that person.
00:55:54
riptide
Yeah.
00:56:01
Flint
They want pure privacy. And ZK is an excellent way to to do this. So I think for many of those, it's just like a bet. Let's get it on. Hopefully, we match the time that we have our product, our money isn't gone, and the banks are coming.
00:56:17
Flint
If that's a match, they're going to make billions. If it isn't, then i'm going to make zero. So yeah, but I mean, it's like the survivor's story.
00:56:21
riptide
yeah
00:56:25
Flint
if If he survives this and gets the billions, he's a genius. If he doesn't, then he's a retard. so you know ah
00:56:33
riptide
That's a good point.
00:56:33
Flint
They're courageous for to try.
00:56:35
riptide
I think we'll look back and we'll say, yeah, you could, you would just send a trans transaction. Everyone could see your entire transaction history. And that was, you were cool with it. Well, yeah. ah You know, ah but you know, yeah, who cares? Yeah.
00:56:48
riptide
Even though the ENS said my full name and address too. Yeah. Whatever.
00:56:52
Flint
yeah Yeah, exactly. i and That's so like the frontier we're in. them mean ah Just talking about the the the governments who are trying, no doubt, to steal our money in a few years, all crypto money.
00:57:04
Flint
i'd i'd I'd prefer it to be private, like money? I don't have money. and what Where's my money? i
00:57:10
riptide
Yeah.
00:57:10
Flint
So there is a big future for that. But you know that's often with the new technologies to just make a bet. And if they win, they win big. And otherwise, they're going to go to on the pile of history, like $1,000 that tried and failed.
00:57:23
riptide
That's true. All right. I want to wrap up, but I want to hear. Give me give me Flint's glimpse into the future. What does it look like?
00:57:33
Flint
Ah, that's a very interesting question. I do. When you look like five years, 10 years, 15 years, when you and i have now the different forces of like blockchain AI and perhaps like genetic manipulation to reach immortality.
00:57:50
Flint
And I think we're slowly going to like a carbon black cyberpunk world. um The moment the financial flows to go to the blockchain where national governments cannot control them.
00:58:03
Flint
half of the Western hemisphere will collapse. So I think it's going to be very chaotic and very interesting in five to 10 years. And I hope everyone is listening will have the the means to be mobile and protect themselves.
00:58:19
riptide
Very interesting. And just to add on that, I would say get your ass a house in the country, in Europe, where it's still in the Stone Age. And hopefully it won't affect you.
00:58:29
Flint
Yeah, no, I i wouldn i wouldn't say, no. I'd say go to Asia, go to like the Middle East, go to, I don't know, New fucking Zealand. Europe is 99% the communist dictatorship. And that's something ah not going to go well.
00:58:47
riptide
All right, lay low. That's all I could say.
00:58:49
Flint
Exactly.
00:58:50
riptide
All right, gentlemen, thank you for coming on Mr. Flint. And we will see you all next time on the blockchain.
00:58:54
Flint
was a pleasure.
00:58:57
Flint
Yes.