Daniel Gruesso
Passionate about building better tools and infrastructure. Focused on creating products that empower developers to build the future.
Latest from my Blog
OpenClaw: How a Self-Hosted AI Assistant Transformed My Daily Workflow
I am running OpenClaw on a Mac Mini at home and interacting with it through WhatsApp. It has become the most useful tool I own. Here is my setup, how I use it daily, and why self-hosted AI assistants are the future of personal productivity.
Read full postAbout
Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm passionate about designing products that empower builders and improve coordination at scale. At Ava Labs, I lead product strategy for the Avalanche Primary Network and L1 infrastructure, focusing on protocol performance and developer composability. Before that, I led privacy infrastructure at COTI, developer products at Chainlink, and helped teams build reliable, decentralized apps with better tools and standards. I care deeply about creating systems that are both technically robust and accessible, especially when they help grow ecosystems and serve the public good.
Prior to my web3 life, I was a Product Manager at GitLab, where I focused on the infrastructure features of GitLab and helped scale the product team.
I'm especially interested in how decentralized systems can simplify coordination and scale access to public goods. My work centers on creating technically robust, user-friendly tools that help developers build with confidence in web3 and beyond. Also pasta and wine.
My Work
Ava Labs
Leading product strategy for the Avalanche Primary Network and L1 infrastructure, focusing on protocol performance and developer composability. Collaborating with core engineering to spec and ship network upgrades that directly improve throughput and finality. Transitioned the data engineering team into Product, utilizing on-chain data to model impact and prioritize features.
COTI
Led the shift from a payments-focused L1 to a privacy-focused Ethereum L2, bringing advanced cryptography on-chain through Garbled Circuits. Enabled computation on encrypted data, opening new possibilities for secure and private data processing.
Chainlink
Led product development for developer tools and infrastructure at Chainlink. Worked closely with the protocol team to build features that improved developer experience and performance.
GitLab
Early member of the product team. Focused on the infrastructure features of GitLab and helped scale the product team at what is now the world's largest all-remote company.
Projects
Avalanche Granite Upgrade
A major Avalanche network upgrade introducing P-Chain epoched views for more reliable Interchain Messaging, secp256r1 curve support for biometric authentication, and dynamic minimum block times for sub-second transaction finality.
COTI V2 Network
A next-generation Layer 2 network built on Ethereum that prioritizes privacy and scalability for digital payments. It utilizes Garbled Circuits, a cryptographic technique that keeps transaction data private even while it's being processed.
COTI MetaMask Snap
The COTI MetaMask Snap allows users to onboard their COTI accounts, add/decrypt on-chain tokens and NFTs, and interact with COTI dApps.
Hardhat Chainlink Plugin
Seamlessly interact with Chainlink services in your Hardhat-based projects. Provides atomic methods to interact with smart contracts related to all Chainlink services.
Auto DevOps
Turns your code into production-ready applications without the usual configuration overhead. The entire DevOps lifecycle is pre-configured using industry best practices.
Connect
I'm always interested in connecting with fellow web2/web3 builders, entrepreneurs, and anyone passionate about building great products. Feel free to reach out!