I use data analytics to guide the Pinto experiment and have fun doing it.

The year was 2022. Someone close introduced me to a “decentralized credit-based stablecoin protocol on Ethereum.” At the time, I did not know what any of these words meant, but the person described the Beanstalk project to me with great passion and excitement, having a strong confidence in the fundamentals of its economic model. Plus, I saw the field was offering a 50x return, so I was enticed to participate.

Initially I saw crypto as a speculation casino, and I didn’t know anything about DeFi or smart contracts. As I began learning more, I found the vision behind decentralized technologies to be very aligned with my personal values; financial privacy and control are very important to me. I don’t want others to be aware of my financial activities, nor am I comfortable having a centralized custodian managing or holding my wealth and potentially restricting my access to it. Today, cryptocurrencies are most broadly used for speculation rather than real economic activity, but over time I came to believe this to be more a reflection on the nascence of the technology than an indication I should write them off altogether. Much remains to be built before blockchain technology can be truly revolutionary in a financial context.

As my familiarity with the specifics of Beanstalk grew, so did my curiosity. The emphasis on the experimental nature of the protocol was compelling; the complexity of the ecosystem surrounding the Bean token introduced game-like elements which influenced the price of the token through factors beyond supply and demand. Individual participants could profit by actively contributing to the stability of the system. There was a clearly communicated sense of uncertainty as to whether the project would succeed or fail, and yet a clear vision as to the real and powerful consequences if it were to succeed. A leviathan-free currency similar to Bitcoin but without the same price volatility would enable a whole new set of economic activity that could not be censored.

Ultimately, the experiment was violently disrupted in the April exploit. I was a mere bystander throughout the Replant process as the Beanstalk Farms contributors scrambled to get the protocol back online. By this point I had gotten more familiar with the project and my interest in it had grown; because the code was open sourced and my background is in software development, I began digging into the code for fun. Knowing nothing about developing on the EVM, I enjoyed learning more about a tech stack that was unfamiliar to me while simultaneously deepening my understanding of the protocol.

My natural attention to detail enabled me to identify a couple unnoticed bugs in the protocol's operation, so I reported them via Immunefi. It was clear I had a lot of value I could add to the project, and had a deep personal interest and stake in its success, so I expressed a desire to join the team shortly after having reported these bugs. Some time passed, and eventually the Beanstalk 2024 budget passed and I was offered the opportunity to join as the data expert.

Since then, the experiment has evolved to Pinto, and I continue to enjoy my role in the lab, providing as many data insights as I can to help the community understand the protocol and assure it runs as intended. Participation in and improvement of the system is far easier with more information available, as the market can then properly react to current conditions. The data is all onchain across many thousands of transactions, but it’s not possible to make sense of what is happening in real time by simply looking through a blockchain explorer; robust monitoring systems are required to ingest data sensibly and evaluate their impacts across Pinto's numerous features.

As both the Beanstalk and Pinto protocols have operated over time, there have been cases where unexpected outputs have been encountered, such as rounding errors or incorrect stalk assignments, that have been missed in audits but were caught by my data analytics. In an ideal world, these errors would never occur, but they have, and being able to identify them in the natural course of my work has saved thousands in unpaid bug bounties.

Everything I do to improve the security, efficacy or correctness of the system is uniquely satisfying, and I take a lot of pride in the contributions I have made here. My strengths are brought out when working on this project, and I'm grateful to use them in contributing toward a vision of financial freedom.

Today, there remains much uncertainty as to what the future holds for decentralized currencies. But it’s clear to me that a decisive winner will emerge in the coming years and decades, and a decentralized economy will exist. Will the dominant currency be Pinto? I don’t know, but I’m committed to continue using my skills to give our experiment the best chance of success.

I can't think of a better one to run.

-Pinto Pirate (fka Soil King)

March 2025