Dez Calimese
“

Agents, protocols, and the infrastructure between them.

Applied AI and blockchain engineer in New York City. Five years taking products from zero to one: multi-chain AI agents secured with threshold cryptography, ERC-4626 vaults, and security-reviewed DeFi integrations across EVM and Solana.

Dez Calimese

  • Agent-driven products
  • MCP & AI integrations
  • Smart contracts & vaults
  • Security audits
  • DeFi protocols — EVM & Solana

About

Five years on founding teams, building AI agents, DeFi infrastructure, and the security work that keeps them safe.

Now

Co-founder of Quincy Labs, an AI and blockchain research collective and studio. I build MCP integrations over an 8-year research base and lead engineering on Emergency Passport, an AI-native app surfacing critical patient context during sickle cell crises.

Before

Founding Engineer at Omo Protocol, leading smart contracts, frontend, and AI agent integrations. This work helped secure over $1M in pre-seed. Before that, Lead Frontend Developer at Bricks Exchange, a real estate tokenization market.

Security

Completed the Rektoff × Solana Foundation Rust Security Bootcamp, adding formal Solana/Anchor audit methodology to a background in smart-contract security. My capstone audit of a Solana lending protocol found multiple high-severity bugs, each with a working exploit.

Otherwise

Outside of engineering I analyze DeFi markets, make music, and explore audioreactive and 3D art.

Work (07)

  1. Quincy Labs screenshot

    Visit ↗

    Quincy Labs

    Research lab site for an AI infrastructure company building agent-native systems across memory, inference, GPU/edge workloads, blockchain settlement, and healthcare intelligence.

    Next.js / TypeScript / Tailwind

  2. Visit ↗

    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.

    Next.js / Gemini 3.1 Pro / Sigma.js / Supabase / WebGL

  3. Neko DeFi screenshot

    Neko DeFi

    DeFi protocol interface featuring token swaps, perpetual trading, vault deposits, and portfolio tracking. Modern dark UI with real-time on-chain data.

    React / Next.js / TypeScript / Web3

  4. Bricks Exchange MVP screenshot

    Bricks Exchange MVP

    Decentralized exchange UI for swapping USDC for BRX, staking tokens, and managing balances on-chain.

    Next.js / Wagmi / Viem / Tailwind

  5. Bricks Real Estate screenshot

    Visit ↗

    Bricks Real Estate

    Fractional real estate trading platform letting users buy and sell shares of properties on-chain with full wallet integration.

    React / Next.js / Wagmi / Viem

  6. RSVP dApp screenshot

    RSVP dApp

    Decentralized event management app for creating and RSVPing to events fully on-chain.

    React / Next.js / Wagmi / Ethers

  7. Minting Melodies screenshot

    Minting Melodies

    NFT marketplace for artists to sell downloadable song collections as digital collectibles, with automated royalty splits.

    React / Next.js / Redux / Thirdweb

Security Research

2026 — Rektoff × Solana Foundation Bootcamp — Capstone

MetaLend Security Audit

Audited a Solana lending protocol and surfaced multiple high-severity vulnerabilities, each delivered with a working Anchor proof-of-concept confirming exploitability.

Solana / Anchor / Rust / DeFi Security / PoC

Full report available on request.

Toolkit

AI Tools

  • Claude Code
  • Codex
  • Cursor
  • Muse
  • Grok

Agents & Protocols

  • MCP
  • LangChain
  • ElizaOS
  • Hermes Agent
  • OpenClaw

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

  1. 2018 — Present

    Quincy Labs

    Founder

    Co-founded an AI and blockchain research collective and studio building agent-driven products across DeFi, cryptography, and applied AI. Built MCP integrations surfacing insights from a 500+ channel, 8-year research base to power agentic workflows, and maintain deployment infrastructure across the collective (Docker, AWS, CI/CD). Contributing engineering and leading UI/UX on Emergency Passport (Red Cell Systems), an AI-native app surfacing critical patient context during sickle cell crises.

  2. 2023 — 2025

    Omo Protocol

    Founding Engineer

    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.

  3. 2022 — 2024

    Bricks Exchange

    Lead Frontend Developer

    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.

  4. 2022 — 2023

    Minting Melodies

    Chief Technology Officer

    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.

  5. 2026Education

    Rektoff × Solana Foundation

    Rust Security Bootcamp

    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.

    Previously

    RareSkills Advanced Solidity 2025–26 · Encode Club Expert Solidity 2023 · Encode Club Solidity 2023 · Ackee Winter School of Solana 2023 · Encode Club Algorand Camp 2022–23 · Encode Club Cairo Camp 2022 · StarkNet Basecamp 2022 · Consensys Academy Ethereum Development 2021–22 · Secureum Smart Contract Auditing 2021 · Nucamp Python, SQL & DevOps 2021

Open Source

Contributions (01)

  1. elizaOS/eliza — PR #2703 — Merged

    Lit Protocol Plugin

    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.

    TypeScript / Lit Protocol / EVM / Solana / Threshold Crypto

    View pull request ↗

Let's buildsomething

Write directly

dezcalimese@gmail.com

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