Nicki Sanders is a highly experienced blockchain technology expert and the CTO of Realio. In addition, she is currently the Vice Chair for the Utah Blockchain Coalition.

Sanders has a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Utah and has an extensive background in software engineering. Prior to joining Nerd United, she held other leadership positions in the blockchain industry, including as the head of blockchain engineering at TaxBit and as a technology leader at tZERO. While at tZERO, she helped develop and architect a smart contract standard for digital securities, for which she has been awarded several patents.

She has spoken at many tech and web3 events, including:

* Permissionless
* Miami Web3
* Women Impact Tech
* Silicon Slopes Summit
* Cryptopia
* UVU Bitcoin Summit

Nicki is the co-host of a podcast, Imagining the Metaverse, linked here:

https://linktr.ee/imaginingthemetaverse?fbclid=PAAaYu_8AB5-_ezq6j6afKww_1TvkPhQx21tu838yRpc8azo-hDsLW9Cdo-MA

I genuinely love studying how crypto scammers operate.

Not because it’s fun, because the tactics evolve. Ok, it's also a little fun.

This week I was approached about a “fractional CTO” role for a decentralized gaming + DeFi platform. Remote. Long-term. Sounded legit, but also made my spidey-sense tingle.

They sent over an MVP repo and asked me to:
“Review the implementation and propose one meaningful improvement.”

This in itself is already a red flag. But here’s the interesting part.

Buried in the backend was a block of code that:
• Base64-decoded an environment variable
 • Fetched JSON from a remote URL
 • Extracted a field
 • Executed it via Function.constructor(...)

In plain English:
It downloaded and executed arbitrary JavaScript from the internet at runtime. That is remote code execution.

If I had casually cloned and run it on my primary machine, it could have:
 • Exfiltrated SSH keys
 • Grabbed tokens from env vars
 • Installed additional payloads
 • Scraped browser sessions

And the repo looked completely normal at first glance.

Lesson:
If a “job opportunity” asks you to run an unvetted repo locally before a real interview, treat it as hostile until proven otherwise.

⭐ Use a VM.
⭐ Inspect install scripts.
⭐ Search for postinstall hooks.
⭐ Look for base64 blobs and dynamic Function calls.

Stay paranoid. Stay curious.

Nicki Sanders

Nicki Sanders is a highly experienced blockchain technology expert currently working as a Director of Engineering at Nerd United, focused on web3 innovation. In addition, she is currently the Vice Chair for the Utah Blockchain Coalition.

Sanders has a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Utah and has an extensive background in software engineering. Prior to joining Nerd United, she held other leadership positions in the blockchain industry, including as the head of blockchain engineering at TaxBit and as a technology leader at tZERO. While at tZERO, she helped develop and architect a smart contract standard for digital securities, for which she has been awarded several patents.

She has spoken at many tech and web3 events, including:

* Permissionless
* Miami Web3
* Women Impact Tech
* Silicon Slopes Summit
* Cryptopia
* UVU Bitcoin Summit

Nicki is the co-host of a podcast, Imagining the Metaverse, linked here:

https://linktr.ee/imaginingthemetaverse?fbclid=PAAaYu_8AB5-_ezq6j6afKww_1TvkPhQx21tu838yRpc8azo-hDsLW9Cdo-MA

Blockchain & Crypto Tech/Strategy Leader and Consultant | Engineering Leadership at Anchorage Digital

You guys are lucky I have kids cuz if I didn’t have to spend every free moment cleaning up and doing laundry I’d be unstoppable

“Is this AI code?”

No, this is artisan software.

Single-origin engineer. Small batch commits. 

Slightly overpriced.

Crypto isn’t about number go up.

It’s about number go everywhere.

Open rails. Open access. Open markets.

X user zachXBT dropped a bomb about insider trading at a crypto company this morning. Read here to dig into what actually's being alleged.

If you're not on crypto twitter, some big news dropped this morning. Here's what's going on in simple terms. ZachXBT alleges that multiple Axiom emplo

Open article: ZachXBT exposes alleged insider trading at Axiom Exchange by Nicki Sanders • 3 min read

ZachXBT exposes alleged insider trading at Axiom Exchange

A lot of technical tasks are getting outsourced to AI.

⭐️Boilerplate code
⭐️Data normalization
⭐️Debugging obvious errors
⭐️Documentation
⭐️Software Architecture

That doesn’t make engineers obsolete. It shifts where the value is.

The durable skills are still very human:
⭐️Knowing what problem is actually worth solving
⭐️Making good tradeoffs under uncertainty
⭐️Communicating complex ideas clearly
⭐️Building trust with users and teammates
⭐️Making connections and bringing the right people together

AI is great at generating solutions, but it can’t build real relationships or communities around them.

For most of the world, “financial services” means:
• Can’t open a bank account
• Can’t access credit
• Can’t invest

Crypto flips that default to yes.

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