Challenge
CakeDefi needed to move fast into the emerging Bitcoin Ordinals space. The Ordinals protocol was only months old, tooling barely existed, and the team needed a working marketplace to validate the opportunity before committing significant engineering resources.
Approach
I built the entire first prototype as a sole developer: a fully decentralised, browser-based marketplace that operated entirely on-chain without reliance on traditional databases or intermediaries. The architecture leveraged the SADO Protocol (which I co-authored simultaneously) for trustless peer-to-peer trading using PSBTs stored on IPFS.
- Fully decentralised and permission-less — no central server required
- 3-step instant purchasing and 6-step bidding mechanisms via SADO
- Deep UTXO expertise: Schnorr signatures, Taproot, Ordinals, Inscriptions
- Built alongside the SADO Protocol SDK, creating both the standard and its first consumer
Outcome
The prototype proved the market. Ordzaar grew rapidly beyond what one developer could maintain, becoming CakeDefi's fifth business vertical before eventually spinning out as an independent startup. The project validated both the marketplace concept and the SADO Protocol's viability as open trading infrastructure.