Tom Wade is the creator of flaunch.gg and a Solidity Engineer at Flayer Labs. In this inaugural edition of Atrium Academy's Developer Journey series, he shares his journey into web3, his experience with the Uniswap ecosystem, and the groundbreaking work he's doing with Uniswap V4 hooks.

Background: how did you get into web3 and into the Uniswap ecosystem?

After leaving education, I moved straight to working at client-facing digital agencies. I always enjoyed emerging technologies, but the majority of clients always wanted the same bread-and-butter WordPress build. There was very little room for innovation.

I had kept up with the blockchain from a distance, and in 2020 I started contributing to NFTX and joined my first EthGlobal hackathon. I was thoroughly pilled.

In 2021 I was fortunate enough to be able to start with Flayer Labs full-time as a Solidity Engineer and have been there since. My web3 career has been focused on NFT-Fi and DeFi since its inception, so exploring and utilising emerging tech to advance to Uniswap V4 was a no-brainer.

Why do you want to build on v4?

My background before entering the web3 space was heavily client focused, developing on the WordPress platform. One of the few charms of WordPress is that it was built on top of a hook-based system allowing developers to extend upon solid, stable core logic to implement their own functionality

When I saw that Uniswap was moving to a singleton model that also used this hook approach it instantly piqued my interest. The inherent gas saving logic is immediately obvious, but with Uniswap V4 allowing for hooks to modify the transaction flow before and after transactions it really opens Pandora’s Box for engineers.

The reason I refer to it as Pandora’s Box is that even though it can bring incredible pool logic that will greatly benefit LPs and EOAs, there is also the possibility of hooks acting maliciously to negatively impact the user’s funds.

Why did you join UHI? How was the experience being a dev in UHI?

UHI came to light at the perfect time. I had been working on a project that heavily depended on Uniswap V4, but with ever-updating dependencies in the V4 core and periphery contracts, it was getting difficult to correctly learn approaches. My experience with Uniswap and DeFi at the time also pretty much just stretched to having a basic grasp of k = x * y. 

Having expert guidance of the course leaders during both live streams and office hours, as well as fast async responses, was invaluable (explicit shoutout to Bhaumik!). Alongside the evolving codebase, the course guides were already knowledgeable of changes and without a doubt saved countless hours.

Tell us about your project: What inspired it? What was it like presenting at Demo Day & winning a prize? What did the project lead to after UHI?

Working on a small project that had fees managed externally of Uniswap. I wanted all fees to be sent as ETH, as recipients would likely just dump the token and subsequently tank the position price.

During the course I validated the idea and was able to prototype it. I continued to formalise it and it turned into the Internal Swap Pool.

Demo Day was a rush, verbalising the issue and showing off the logic. I didn't expect it to be so well received and was taken aback when I received an email saying that I had won a prize.

The hook is now incorporated into two projects that I know of, and has even been audited. I am extremely excited to see it used alongside the Uniswap V4 release.

What are you exploring next?

I am still in my role at Flayer Labs, actively working on developing flaunch.gg and preparing it to launch on Base when Uniswap V4 (eventually) drops. After finishing the UHI program, my confidence in, and approach to, DeFi contract development has skyrocketed, and I have continued to keep abreast of V4 as a focus.

The Internal Swap Pool hook that I developed during the UHI program has taken pride of place in the protocol and has continued to evolve during development.

In the coming weeks I will also be releasing a fortnightly Uniswap V4 newsletter, revolving around hook development, industry news, and sponsored investment and job opportunities. I’ll be spamming it on my socials soon!

What impact do you hope your work will have?

It’s a strange thought; I’ve also just built for the joy of building. They say that “build it and they will come” but the second step was never important to me. I always just wanted to build things that make the user say: “Oh wow... that’s kinda cool.”

To me, allowing all pool fees in ETH and minimising pool impact? That’s kinda cool. I really hope that more hooks continue to implement the hook, and if anyone is interested: I’m always around to help!

How do you hope to see DeFi & the blockchain space evolve over the next few years?

My main hope for DeFi, as well as the blockchain in general, in the coming year is that the separation of chains is obfuscated and interoperability is completely under-the-hood for the end user. This will allow protocols to promote mass adoption and have access to liquidity without explicit off-chain keepers and staggered transactions.