I recently left GridPlus after 3 years, where I served as tech lead building hardware cryptocurrency wallets that now secure assets for some of the world’s largest crypto custodians. I wanted to take a moment to reflect on what was truly an exceptional journey.
The Technical Deep End
Working at GridPlus meant diving headfirst into some of the most challenging and rewarding technical problems I’ve encountered. My days were filled with hardware hacking, electronics prototyping, and porting cryptography libraries to embedded firmware. I developed Java applets for chip-and-pin cards, designed anti-tamper circuitry capable of detecting intrusion and destroying sensitive keys, and helped build the first secure display featuring a dedicated embedded GPU entirely enclosed within the device’s anti-tamper zone. This work spanned embedded graphics driver development, distributed networking, and extensive blockchain wallet development at both firmware and application levels.
One of my favorite challenges was developing firmware that could interpret contract data and render it clearly for user approval – a critical security feature that helps users understand exactly what they’re signing.
The Evolution of Our Vision
GridPlus started with an ambitious vision: building an automated agent to perform blockchain transactions on behalf of users. The original use case was compelling – servicing our retail electricity provider business in Texas, where we aimed to enable peer-to-peer electricity trading directly on the blockchain. The GridPlus Lattice would remain always-online, automatically signing transactions and negotiating energy deals behind the scenes for our customers
To make this vision a reality, we needed to solve a fundamental problem: how to build an always-online wallet that was still secure. We built a state-of-the-art hardware wallet with configurable signing policies, spending limits, and anti-tamper circuitry designed to minimize the risk of both remote and physical attacks. The result was a wallet far more sophisticated than anything else on the market.
Unfortunately, regulatory challenges prevented us from realizing our dream of peer-to-peer electricity dealings. On the bright side, however, our hardware wallet had gained considerable traction in its own right. We pivoted fully into that space and successfully shipped a world-class hardware wallet that continues to secure cryptocurrency for some of the largest crypto custodians today.
Reflections and Looking Forward
GridPlus was truly one of a kind. My time there came with all the challenges and pivots you’d expect from a startup, but ultimately we found product-market fit and shipped something I’m genuinely proud of.
I have high hopes for GridPlus’s continued success, and I’m grateful for the experience and the talented team I had the privilege of working with. I’m excited to bring these lessons forward to my next role, working in Tesla’s Autopilot-Hardware group.