about — alina schanz

i am alina schanz. i live in berlin and work across blockchain research, data and technical projects.

most of what interests me happens below the market layer: protocols, transactions, repositories, infrastructure, privacy systems, identity, and the people building them.

i spend a lot of time reading things that were not written for normal people to read: block explorers, specifications, source code, governance discussions and very long github threads.

sometimes that becomes a note. sometimes a script. sometimes it turns into a project with somebody else.

how i work

i start close to the source: the chain for an onchain question, the repository and the docs for a protocol, old commits and discussions for anything historical.

if i publish a number, i know where it came from, and where it makes sense i publish the script behind it too. if i write about how something works, i check the implementation before i repeat somebody else's explanation.

i use llms every day, for reading unfamiliar code, writing small tools, moving through large repositories and testing ideas faster. they save time and they do not replace the source.

the things worth keeping end up in notes. the methods page says how each number is produced.

what i am interested in

blockchain identity is one of the recurring subjects.

wallets are easy to observe. people are not. i am interested in the space between the two: how wallets, accounts, names and public profiles connect, how those connections change, and how much confidence the available evidence actually supports.

privacy is another one. especially systems where privacy changes the architecture itself rather than appearing as a feature on top.

i also keep coming back to provenance: where information came from, who changed it, what disappeared, and whether you can reconstruct the path later.

smaller open-source networks tend to hold my attention longer than projects built around a familiar formula. i like systems with strange architecture, long repositories and developers who have clearly spent too much time thinking about one specific problem.

lately i have also been interested in what happens when digital infrastructure is treated as an object in its own right.

a blockchain has a visual identity, but underneath that it has years of code, state, transactions, contributors, forks, failed ideas and decisions. that layer is usually more interesting to me than the branding around it.

the systems i am working on right now are on the front page, with a longer note on darkfi on the now page.

principles

show the source. if a number matters, you should be able to see where it came from.
no paid coverage. nobody pays for a favorable note, post or conclusion. commercial relationships, if any, are disclosed.
no trading around published research. i do not use something i am about to publish as a short-term trading signal.
keep corrections visible. if i get something wrong, i correct it without pretending the earlier version never existed.
interest is not endorsement. i can spend weeks on a system without believing its token should be worth anything.
tools do not carry responsibility. i use llms, explorers, dashboards and scripts constantly. the final claim is still mine.

notes

notes are for questions that survived long enough to become worth publishing.

some are data-driven. some are about infrastructure or protocol design. occasionally they are just an attempt to understand why a system was built the way it was.

i try to keep evidence and interpretation separate enough that you can disagree with the second without having to discard the first.

where reproduction is practical, the method is public.

timeline

2015 · jan x account registered.
2021 started spending an unreasonable amount of time in block explorers.
2026 · aug started publishing onchain research regularly in english.
2026 · sep this site went live, along with the first public notes and scripts.

the dates are here for context, not authority.

if you want to know whether something i published is right, the useful part is still the source.

corrections

mistakes stay visible here.

2026 · sep 8 the front page said "on x since 2015." true, but not useful enough to deserve prominent placement. moved it to the timeline.

what i read

mostly primary sources.

for ethereum: specifications, ethresear.ch, ethereum foundation material, repositories and developer discussions.

for smaller projects: usually the repository first, documentation second, community discussions after that.

block explorers tell me what happened.

github often tells me why.

dune and defillama are useful when somebody has already done the data work properly.

on x, i tend to follow people who leave enough evidence behind that i can check what they are saying.

what i use

etherscan, blockscout, mempool.space and solscan when i need an explorer.
public rpc endpoints, dune, defillama and project-specific datasets for data.
python, git, a terminal and small scripts for most of my own work.
github, protocol documentation and several llms for research.
coingecko when a price actually matters.

my public code is on github.

this site

plain html and css, no framework, no analytics. how it is built, served and typeset, and where the bull comes from, is on the colophon page.

contact

hello@alinaschanz.life
alinaschanz@proton.me

research, blockchain infrastructure, privacy, identity, obscure open-source systems and unusual technical projects are all reasonable reasons to write.

i read everything. i answer most of it.

for encrypted mail, my pgp key is on the verify page.