The Oven - Articles

Deep dives on AI, DeFi, and decentralized infrastructure by Berke.

  • Titan: Building a DeFi Super App - A technical deep dive into Titan - a complete DeFi protocol featuring token swaps, concentrated liquidity, liquid staking with sTITAN, overcollateralized lending with tUSD, and snapshot-based on-chain governance.
  • Forgetless: Smart Context Optimization for LLMs - Every LLM has a context limit. When your documents, conversations, and knowledge exceed that limit, you're forced to make difficult choices about what to include. Forgetless makes those choices intelligently, achieving up to 14.5x compression while preserving what matters most.
  • DEX Aggregation in VoidDex: Building an Optimal Route Finder - How VoidDex's backend finds the best swap routes across multiple DEXes, covering the quote service architecture, route optimization strategies, and fee calculation system.
  • VoidDex Router: Designing a Multi-DEX Swap Router with Split Routing - Deep dive into VoidDex's smart contract architecture, covering the router design, DEX adapter system, and split routing for optimal execution.
  • Privacy Architecture in VoidDex: Integrating Railgun's zkSNARK System - How VoidDex implements private token swaps using Railgun's zero-knowledge proof system, covering the shield/unshield flow, client-side proof generation, and the Waku P2P broadcaster network.
  • Building VoidDex: A Technical Deep Dive into Privacy-Preserving DEX Aggregation - Every swap you make on a decentralized exchange is public. VoidDex is my attempt at building a DEX aggregator that maintains the benefits of decentralized trading while adding a cryptographic privacy layer using zkSNARK proofs.
  • Broadcasters & The RAILGUN Ecosystem: Gasless Private Transactions - We've covered how RAILGUN provides privacy through shielding, how zero-knowledge proofs make it possible, and how PPOI maintains compliance. But there's a practical problem we haven't addressed: how do you submit a private transaction to the blockchain without revealing who you are?
  • Private Proofs of Innocence: Compliance Without Compromising Privacy - Privacy protocols face a fundamental tension. On one hand, users deserve financial privacy. On the other hand, bad actors would love to use privacy tools to hide illicit funds. RAILGUN's answer is Private Proofs of Innocence, or PPOI.
  • Zero-Knowledge Proofs Explained: The Cryptography Behind RAILGUN - We've covered what RAILGUN does and how to use it. Now let's explore the magic underneath: zero-knowledge proofs. This is the cryptographic foundation that makes private transactions possible without requiring trust in any central party.
  • Shield & Unshield: How RAILGUN Protects Your Tokens - In the first article, we covered why on-chain privacy matters and how RAILGUN brings it to DeFi. Now let's get practical. How do you actually make your tokens private? What happens under the hood when you shield and unshield?
  • What is RAILGUN? The Privacy Layer DeFi Has Been Waiting For - If you've spent any time in DeFi, you know the feeling. Every swap you make, every token you hold, every wallet you interact with, it's all out there. Public. Permanent. RAILGUN is a smart contract system that brings zero-knowledge privacy directly to EVM chains.
  • The Future of Privacy: 2026 and Beyond - We're at a pivotal moment in blockchain history. After years of research, failed experiments, and regulatory battles, privacy is finally becoming real. This isn't another hype cycle. The numbers, the institutional adoption, the technology maturity - everything is aligning for privacy to become blockchain's default, not its exception.
  • Real-World Privacy Applications - We've covered the technology, the roadmap, and the tools. Now it's time for the question that matters most: What can you actually DO with blockchain privacy? The answer might surprise you - privacy isn't just for hiding transactions. It's unlocking entirely new categories of applications.
  • Kohaku: Ethereum's Privacy-First Wallet Revolution - When Vitalik Buterin took the stage at Devconnect in Buenos Aires in November 2025, he didn't mince words about Ethereum's state. Kohaku is Ethereum's answer - a privacy-first wallet framework designed to make zero-knowledge proofs accessible to everyday users.
  • Ethereum 2025-2026 Privacy Roadmap: The Dawn of Private Infrastructure - For years, privacy on Ethereum was an afterthought, something left to third-party protocols and layer-2 solutions. That changed in September 2025. The Ethereum Foundation made privacy an official part of the roadmap through the Privacy Stewards of Ethereum (PSE) initiative.
  • zkSNARK vs zkSTARK: Ethereum's Two Privacy Champions - In our previous article, we explored how zero-knowledge proofs are solving blockchain's privacy paradox. But not all ZK-proofs are created equal. Two technologies are competing to become the standard for Ethereum's privacy future: zkSNARKs and zkSTARKs.
  • Blockchain's Privacy Paradox and the Solution: Zero-Knowledge Proofs - For the past 10 years, blockchain has operated with radical transparency - every transaction is publicly recorded, which leaves users vulnerable to phishing attacks. While transparency is blockchain's greatest strength for trust and verification, it's also becoming its Achilles heel for mainstream adoption.
  • Advanced Memory Systems for AI Agents: Engineering for Persistence and Contextual Intelligence - Advanced memory systems are a critical component that enables truly intelligent agent behavior. Drawing from experience implementing production-grade AI agents, this article shares technical patterns for designing memory architectures that dramatically enhance agent capabilities.
  • Orchestrating Multi-Agent Systems: Technical Patterns for Complex Problem Solving - The true power of AI agents emerges when they work together in orchestrated systems. While individual agents offer impressive capabilities, their potential multiplies exponentially when organized into coordinated multi-agent architectures. This article explores the technical patterns that enable effective collaboration between specialized AI agents.
  • The Technical Architecture of Modern AI Agents - This is the first in my technical series on AI agent architecture. Having built numerous production-grade AI agent systems, I'm sharing insights from my implementation experience. I'll take you behind the scenes into the technical foundations that make these systems work.
  • Understanding AI Agents: Architecture, Implementation, and Future Directions - As an AI agent engineer who has worked extensively with frameworks like LangChain, ElizaOS and built custom framework for Lunark AI, I've seen firsthand how AI agents are transforming the way we think about software. In this article, I'll explain what AI agents are, how they work under the hood, and where I see this technology heading.
  • Understanding Paymasters: Building Gas Abstraction on zkSync - As a blockchain developer who has built multiple Paymasters and implemented zkSync's native account abstraction, I've seen firsthand how these technologies are revolutionizing blockchain UX. In this post, I'll dive deep into Paymasters, their implementation on zkSync, and why they're a game-changer for Web3 adoption.
  • Multi-Chain DEX Aggregation: How Lunark Finds the Best Swap Rates - A technical walkthrough of Lunark's DEX aggregation system, covering quote fetching across Uniswap, SushiSwap, Curve, PancakeSwap, and TraderJoe, fee tier optimization, and the challenges of building a multi-protocol swap system.
  • Real-Time Streaming with Socket.IO: Building Responsive Web3 Chat - How Lunark implements real-time message streaming using Socket.IO, including the challenges of React state batching, room-based broadcasting, and coordinating blockchain transactions with chat responses.
  • Building Lunark: AI Agent Architecture for Blockchain Operations - A deep dive into how Lunark uses the Astreus framework to create an AI agent that can execute blockchain operations through natural language. Covers the tool system, agent caching, context injection, and the challenges of building autonomous blockchain agents.
  • zkTLS: Bridging Web2 Privacy with Web3 Verification - I've built several dApps and AI agents using Zero-Knowledge Transport Layer Security (zkTLS) and wanted to share why this technology is so transformative. zkTLS represents a significant advancement in blockchain security architecture, combining zero-knowledge cryptography with enhanced TLS protocols.