Austin Patkos is a self-taught developer who got his start in crypto in 2018 and has been building ever since. After working on everything from NFT-gated content to a decentralized lending prototype, he joined Resolv, a project focused on making stolen crypto recoverable through a community-driven dispute process. Today, Austin is working on a cross-border payments product that uses stablecoins behind the scenes while stripping away the technical complexity for everyday users. In this spotlight, he shares what he’s learned about usability, why Utah has become his home base for building, and what has him excited about where crypto is headed next.
UBC: Tell us about your project, Resolv.
Austin Patkos: Yeah, so I’ll give you a little background on myself, because I’m kind of bouncing around. I have different projects I’ve worked on.
I started in the blockchain space probably about 2018, just passively trading. At the time, my good friend, who’s now in Utah too, was like, “You’ve got to check out Ethereum.” I was like, yeah, yeah, whatever. And eventually I looked into all of it. That was my first instance interacting with blockchain and crypto as a whole.
At the same time, I was teaching myself development. I’m a self-taught developer. I was just doing some basic stuff. I was actually working as a personal trainer at the time, and I was always thinking, how can I make something more? How can I expand my presence and reach out to more people? I wanted to make an app — a fitness app.
I remember back in high school I kind of had this image of a dorky software developer. I thought, I don’t want to be that guy. But now here I am, a software developer. I went back and learned how to code. From there you make the front end of the app, you make these pet projects, and I was always curious about what could come of that. So, okay, you have an app — what about a backend database? What about longer high scores? What about users sending data back and forth? From there I got into cloud development and security too.
One of the concepts you hear about a lot in security is the CIA triad — confidentiality, availability, and integrity. Confidentiality is keeping data secret. Availability is making sure services and data are available. Integrity is making sure the data is what you expect it to be. If you can master all three of those, your infrastructure is pretty solid.
Around 2020 someone hit me up about an NFT project. I knew a little bit about blockchain, and I realized that blockchain solves two of those three pretty well — availability and integrity. Every block is based on the block before it, so there’s an entire record. Availability is strong too. If you’re building on Ethereum or Bitcoin, the odds of those networks going offline are pretty low. So I thought, that’s really cool from a security and backend standpoint. Why don’t we start building apps on top of this?
I worked with some artists on NFT projects. We did gated versions of websites and comic books based on NFT ownership. I thought that was cool, but I wanted to do something more. I started getting into decentralized finance and built a fictional decentralized loan marketplace — kind of a prototype idea. If you needed a loan of 10,000 USDC, lenders could bid against each other based on your reputation on the platform. Someone might say, I’ll give it to you for six months at 8%. Someone else might say 7.5% or 7.4%. The borrower could pick their loan based on that.
As I was building that and realizing the size of the project, another team scooped me up for Resolv. Resolv was a really cool project. If your crypto ever got stolen, we could get it back to you. We wrapped the asset in a recoverable wrapped token. If there was fraud or a hack, we’d send it to a decentralized board of jurors, and they’d vote on whether it was a hack. If it was, the asset would be returned. We exited that around November of last year. At the same time, another team approached me about a cross-border payment system. Stablecoins are becoming huge because the U.S. and banks are starting to wake up and accept this stuff.
What we’re doing now is extracting all the technical bits. People ask about crypto all the time. The technical explanation is probably going to bore you. I realized people don’t want to know how to use crypto — they just want to use it. So we’re abstracting away public keys, private keys, all that, and making it feel like Venmo. If you need to send money overseas — maybe to missionaries or friends who don’t have access to traditional banks — they can receive that crypto and use it easily.
UBC: What kind of challenges have you faced in building out this interface?
Austin Patkos: Yeah, it’s funny. I work with the team and they’re saints. Coming from a technical background, sometimes people email me at 2 a.m. like, “Oh my God, they stole my money.” And I’m like, no, it says incorrect email — you put the incorrect email.
One thing we focus on is tracking user data and local data to see where users drop off. Then we build a cleaner interface using A/B testing. One example: we liked using the word “permissionless.” Other people didn’t like that word. They thought permissionless meant you could send money without their permission. So wording matters a lot. One of our team members has a psychology background, and that helps.
Another big challenge is finding good on-ramps and off-ramps. Users need to convert USD to crypto and back. We don’t want to be the payment processor — we just want to connect users together. On-ramps are getting better, but there are still a lot of steps.
UBC: Are you seeing growth in users even in a market downturn?
Austin Patkos: Yeah, it’s funny. We’re about 10,000 a month in new users. I’ve actually been very surprised by the people I’ve seen come through this app. I still consider it a little bit scrappy — there are still some bugs I’m patching up. But 10,000 new users a month is great. I’m very happy to watch it grow.
UBC: What are your thoughts on recent legislation in the blockchain and crypto space?
Austin Patkos: I think the current administration is a lot more friendly. You see a lot of crypto bills trying to be pushed through. People are waking up. Back in 2018 and 2020 there were so many scams and slimy behavior, even among people in the blockchain space. It made me upset sometimes. We’re all trying to push this technology forward — why are you ripping people off?
Five or eight years ago, if you said you were in crypto, people would kind of run away. I want to make it a more safe system and a more usable system. UX is one of the biggest problems. So I think legislation shows people are interacting with the idea that this is powerful and useful technology. It’s not just NFTs and fly-by-night stuff. I’m excited to see what happens.
UBC: Why build in Utah?
Austin Patkos: Utah is my favorite state. I used to be a powerlifter and traveled all around the country. Utah was always my favorite place. It’s beautiful. The people are amazing. I really found my home here as a person. Professionally, I think Utah is very forward-thinking. I think the infrastructure reflects that. I’m from Pennsylvania — much older infrastructure. In Utah, people want to be on the forefront of technology. They don’t want to be left behind. Seeing the unclaimed property bill move through — that was really cool. Utah is the place to be.
UBC: How are the talent pools here in Utah?
Austin Patkos: We like to keep a really lean team. At Resolv we hired outside. But now we’re very lean — four of us total. One in Utah, one in Wyoming, one in Missouri. I go to a lot of networking meetups. There’s a lot of really talented people here. Utah is a great hub.
UBC: Is there anything else on your radar?
Austin Patkos: There’s another project — very early stage. You know those CAPTCHA ads that pop up? “Put the fire hydrant here.” We’re working on turning that into advertising space. The advertiser would be verifiable on the blockchain. The person hosting the ad would get a kickback. The person viewing it would generate proof that it’s an actual human — verifiable on the blockchain. It’s very early on, but it’s fascinating technology. Blockchain doesn’t just have to be in DeFi. It can really be anywhere.