Hello Arbitrum community!
I’m Jake Nyquist, Head of Protocol at Caldera, and I’m excited to announce my candidacy for the Arbitrum Security Council. With over two years of hands-on daily experience with the Arbitrum Nitro stack and a deep technical understanding of rollup technology, I can bring valuable expertise to help secure and advance the Arbitrum ecosystem.
Professional Background
Current: Head of Protocol at Caldera - I lead the engineering team responsible for deploying and managing our rollups. Caldera is the largest Rollup-as-a-Service provider in the ecosystem, operating 20 mainnet and 70+ testnet Arbitrum Nitro chains - more than any other entity.
Previous: CEO of Hook Protocol - Built and operated one of the first Arbitrum Orbit chains, an app-specific L3 for NFT and Memecoin Perps. This early adoption gave me deep exposure to Arbitrum’s technology stack and ecosystem challenges.
Relevant Experience and Qualifications
- Technical Knowledge: Daily hands-on work with Arbitrum Nitro for more than 2 years, giving me knowledge of the technology stack, its capabilities, and potential vulnerabilities. I have authored, validated, and architected integrations with the Nitro stack and extensions like Espresso Fast Confirmations, and routinely perform upgrades to chains running on the Nitro Codebase. I’m familiar with the upgrade mechanism as well as constructing, proposing, and validating multisig transactions to perform smart contract upgrades on Nitro contracts. I also support and have experience with OP and ZKSync stacks, which provides additional perspectives.
- Multisig Experience: Currently serve on multiple multisigs for various Arbitrum Orbit chains, providing me with practical experience in the exact type of role required for the Security Council.
- Smart Contract Experience: Wrote, managed audit, and launched two protocols in Solidity which each secured millions of dollars in TVL without security incidents.
- Security Experience: I’ve developed internal security procedures at two crypto companies, managed reports with whitehats, and triaged incidents that could impact capital onchain.
- Operational Expertise: Leading a team responsible for the successful deployment and ongoing management of numerous rollup chains, ensuring their security, performance, and reliability.
- Ecosystem Pioneer: As an early adopter and implementer of Arbitrum Orbit technology, I have firsthand experience with the evolution of the ecosystem and a forward-looking perspective on its development.
Why I Would Be Effective on the Security Council
My combination of technical depth and operational experience uniquely positions me to serve effectively on the Security Council:
- Technical Assessment: My daily work with Arbitrum technology allows me to quickly understand and evaluate technical proposals and their security implications.
- Operational Readiness: Experience managing live rollup environments has prepared me to respond effectively during critical situations where time-sensitive decisions are required. I am already familiar with and participate in multiple on-call rotations and incident response groups specific to rollups. I routinely respond to incidents even at odd hours and when traveling, and publish incident reports for internal and external audiences.
- Protocol Perspective: I have experience building and operating DEXs, Bridges, and Rollups on top of Arbitrum One, so I am able to think through how actions may adversely impact these other types of protocols.
- Ecosystem Perspective: Working at Caldera, I interact with numerous projects building on Arbitrum, giving me a broad understanding of the ecosystem’s priorities.
Disclosure of Conflict(s) of Interest
- I work with both the Arbitrum Foundation and Offchain Labs as a part of the regular course of business at Caldera. This means that conflict of interest situations could potentially arise in the future. In any such cases, I will divulge any COIs.
- I work with many production Nitro L3s that depend on the security of Arbitrum Mainnet to operate. Generally speaking, this creates a greater incentive to secure Arbitrum chains; however, a conflict of interest could arise in certain incidents.
Commitment to the Arbitrum Community
I am deeply committed to the growth and security of the Arbitrum ecosystem. If elected to the Security Council, I pledge to:
- Maintain 24/7 availability for emergency response
- Uphold operational security best practices, including dedicated hardware wallet usage
- Participate fully in all security drills and flag day events
- Document all actions transparently and thoroughly
- Apply my technical expertise to evaluate proposals and vulnerabilities
- Think critically and independently when assessing decisions
- Prioritize the long-term health and security of the entire ecosystem
I am based in New York, NY. There are no other Security Council members employed by Caldera.
My experience operating the largest fleet of Arbitrum Nitro chains gives me a unique perspective that would complement the existing council and strengthen its ability to safeguard the Arbitrum ecosystem.
Thank you for considering my candidacy.