Dez Calimese
I build and audit production-grade DeFi infrastructure across EVM and Solana — from ERC-4626 vaults and Hyperliquid perps to multi-chain AI agents secured with threshold cryptography. 5 years taking products from zero to one under ambiguity.
About
I'm a blockchain engineer with 5 years of experience and founding roles at early-stage companies. My work spans ERC-4626 vault architectures, multi-chain AI agent systems, perpetual futures platforms on Hyperliquid, and cross-chain transaction infrastructure built on threshold cryptography.
As a Founding Engineer at Omo Protocol, I led smart contract development, frontend engineering, and AI agent integrations — work that helped secure over $1M in pre-seed funding. I recently completed the Rektoff × Solana Foundation Rust Security Bootcamp, adding formal Solana/Anchor audit methodology to a background in smart-contract security and full-stack development.
What drives me is taking products from zero to one under ambiguity — and the moment a complex solution clicks into place. Outside of engineering I analyze DeFi markets, make music, and explore audioreactive and 3D art.
Projects
Neko DeFi
DeFi protocol interface featuring token swaps, perpetual trading, vault deposits, and portfolio tracking. Modern dark UI with real-time on-chain data.
Tessera
Solo-built multimodal AI agent that ingests URLs, screenshots, YouTube, and live market feeds, extracts entities with Gemini 3.1 Pro, and renders an interactive force-directed knowledge graph. Local-first via IndexedDB with Supabase backup. Built at the Cerebral Valley × Vercel × DeepMind hackathon, NYC.
Bricks Exchange MVP
Decentralized exchange UI for swapping USDC for BRX, staking tokens, and managing balances on-chain.
Minting Melodies
NFT marketplace for artists to sell downloadable song collections as digital collectibles, with automated royalty splits.
RSVP dApp
Decentralized event management app for creating and RSVPing to events fully on-chain.
Security Research
MetaLend Security Audit
2026Rektoff × Solana Foundation Bootcamp — Capstone
Audited a Solana lending protocol and surfaced high-severity vulnerabilities across oracle integrity, borrow, withdraw, and liquidation instructions. Delivered findings with working Anchor proof-of-concepts confirming exploitability.
- Oracle integrity manipulation
- Borrow / withdraw accounting flaws
- Liquidation instruction abuse
Skills
Smart Contracts & Security
- Solidity
- Foundry
- Slither
- Echidna
- Mythril
- Anchor
- Fuzzing / Invariants
- MEV Protection
- Threat Modeling
- Gas Optimization
Languages
- TypeScript
- Rust
- Python
- Solidity
- Move
- Cairo
- SQL
Multi-Chain Infrastructure
- Lit Protocol
- Threshold Crypto
- Cross-Chain Messaging
- ERC-4626 Vaults
- Hyperliquid
- Morpho
- Uniswap
- Subgraphs
- Tenderly
Frontend & Tooling
- Next.js
- React
- React Native
- Wagmi
- Viem
- Tailwind
- Docker
- AWS
- CI/CD
Experience
Founding Engineer
Omo Protocol
Architected ERC-4626 standardized vaults in Solidity + Foundry and a spot/perpetuals trading platform on Hyperliquid. Built a multi-chain AI agent stack (ElizaOS Lit plugin, Coinbase MPC wallets, Nucleus SDK). Tenderly virtual testnets lifted testing efficiency 50% — work that helped secure $1M+ in pre-seed.
Lead Blockchain Developer
Bricks Exchange
Principal engineer over a four-person frontend team. Onboarded and mentored three junior devs through code review and pairing, cutting delivery timelines 25%. Shipped production dApps with Next.js, Wagmi, Viem, and TypeScript.
Chief Technology Officer
Minting Melodies
Owned end-to-end blockchain delivery for an NFT music platform. Automated 80% of royalty distribution via smart contracts and stood up test-automation pipelines for reliable releases.
Rust Security Bootcamp
Rektoff × Solana Foundation
Completed an intensive Solana/Anchor audit program, adding formal audit methodology to a foundation in smart-contract security and full-stack engineering. Capstone: the MetaLend security audit.
Open Source
Lit Protocol Plugin
elizaOS/eliza
Multi-chain transactions plugin leveraging Lit Protocol's Programmable Key Pairs (PKPs) and threshold cryptography — enabling secure, decentralized key management for AI agents across EVM and Solana. Built for Omo's agent stack and merged into the open-source ElizaOS framework.
Contact
Reach out directly at dezcalimese@gmail.com or use the form below.