Hello
My name is Will Barthell. I am a software engineer and trader - I mainly enjoy building things. I am fascinated by all things AI and crypto.
Below are a few of my projects and some of my sporadic thoughts.
Projects
Crypto Trading Bot
Running since 2024
- Python
- Hyperliquid L1
- Perps
- DEX
$45M+ USD Volume through Bot
Built an automated crypto trading bot on Hyperliquid's native perps DEX, leveraging its Layer-1 architecture for low-latency execution and real-time strategy deployment. The system is designed to support a range of algorithmic strategies, focusing on dynamically adaptive models that respond to liquidity shifts. Extensive backtesting to optimize for consistency and drawdown control to make back losses from erratic manual 50x leverage BTC perps.
P.S. use my referral code here
Fatality
2024
- Hyperliquid L1
- Base L2
- Full Stack
- Smart Contracts
- Firebase
- Docker
- CI/CD
- dApp
Fatality is a blockchain-based gaming platform built with a Next.js frontend and Node.js backend that enables players to participate in cryptocurrency-powered battles. The system features a dual token economy with both on-chain and off-chain tokens, allowing users to connect their Web3 wallets via RainbowKit, authenticate using SIWE (Sign In With Ethereum), and wager tokens on character battles. The frontend utilizes TypeScript, Chakra UI, and Redux for state management, while the backend leverages Firebase/Google Cloud infrastructure including Firestore, Cloud Functions, and Cloud Tasks to orchestrate the game flow. Games progress through multiple timed rounds where players can add tokens to support characters, with automatic winner calculations and payouts distributed from the pooled pot. Additional features include a referral system with token rewards, leaderboards tracking user performance, and comprehensive game history. The application is containerized with Docker, deployed via Google Cloud Build, and supports multiple environments with a CI/CD pipeline. This full-stack solution integrates traditional gaming experiences with blockchain technology, creating an engaging platform where users can chat during games, track their balances, and participate in a tokenized gaming ecosystem.
Seed Phrase Scambler
2024
- Private Key Sharding
- Full Stack
- Cryptography
This encryption system functions as a decentralized approach to securing seed phrases by effectively sharding the necessary components required for decryption. Instead of storing a single point of failure, the encryption process depends on a combination of user-specific inputs — including a prime number, a chosen index, and a Fisher-Yates–shuffled remapping — along with a securely stored hashed decryption ruleset.
Each of these elements is essential, but none of them alone is sufficient to reconstruct the original seed phrase.
Example Flow:
The encrypted seed (ciphertext) is stored locally or wherever the user chooses.
The decryption ruleset is stored in a secure remote database, protected and hashed.
The user's original inputs (prime number and integer) are known only to them and never stored.
This fragmentation ensures that even if one component is compromised — such as the encrypted seed — the attacker still lacks the cryptographic logic and original seed structure to reconstruct the phrase. In practice, this mirrors the principles of Shamir's Secret Sharing or M-of-N key splitting, where multiple pieces must be recombined to access the original secret. However, the main difference is that this system uniquely does this with algorithmic components and logic rather than raw seed phrase slices.
$BLISS
2024
- Solana
- SPL-Token
- dApp
- Full Stack
- MongoDB
- Tokenomics
- Smart Contracts
Fully functional Solana dApp with functioning Windows desktop clone (mini games + file explorer), Phantom wallet connection, coin flip game.
Note: I deleted the database so Leaderboard and ticket system are not functional.
why i like ai and crypto
When I first got into crypto, it wasn't about hype - my eyes were slowly opened to a system that challenged the quiet control banks and governments have always held over our dollars. It felt backward that in a supposedly modern world, entire populations could be locked out of financial systems or have their access throttled by bureaucracy.
Crypto offered an alternative - it suggested that control could be refactored into protocol. That sovereignty could be encoded rather than granted. Here was a system where your autonomy wasn't contingent on geography, status, or gatekeepers.
I was fascinated with that core principle - individual sovereignty through technology. It wasn't just about financial freedom. It made me rethink what it means to trust a system, and who gets to define the rules we all live by. It was the first time I felt like the system itself was designed to get out of the way.
I began building on Ethereum and Solana. Documentation, particularly in the Solana ecosystem, was often fragmented and outdated. Debugging was hell. I'd be absorbed in some weird edge case, digging through barely-maintained GitHub repos for answers. And somewhere in that mess, I started experimenting with AI for the first time. I wanted help debugging, optimizing, filling in the gaps that the docs forgot. The more I used it, the more I realized this wasn't just a tool. It was a different way of thinking. Instead of combing forums or piecing together a web of unformed tutorials, I was now interfacing with a system that could reason through problems alongside me. And even when it was wrong, which it often was, it still pushed my thinking forward.
AI wasn't bound by the same heuristics I was. It didn't fatigue, didn't rely on intuition, didn't shortcut through vague memories of a similar bug from six months ago. And then, I started to notice how often my reasoning was shaped by habit. AI confronted me - it created friction in the places where I was too comfortable.
Over time, my view of AI changed. It stopped being just a tool and became an integral part of my thinking process, reshaping and improving how I plan, design, and build. Not a replacement (at least not yet lol), but a companion. One that forced clarity where I preferred ambiguity, and asked for structure where I leaned on instinct. This wasn't about outsourcing thought; rather, it demanded more of it. In the same way that writing clarifies thought, prompting and refining AI output forces a confrontation with the fuzziness of your intent, the contradictions in your reasoning, and the gaps in your knowledge. It compels precision, not passivity.
And that's where crypto and AI, seemingly divergent in ethos and architecture, began to intersect in my mind. Crypto is about immutability. AI is about malleability. Crypto decentralizes trust. AI decentralizes knowledge. Beneath the contrasts lies a shared disruptive force. Both are, in their own ways, undermining the traditional custodians of authority, be they banks, governments, or even our own internal biases.