Boats on Fire, Oars Bent — A War Story from the Web3 Frontlines

We tried to move fast with a blockchain platform we didn’t fully understand.
We shipped features without clear specs, offloaded critical logic to the frontend, and waited on unreliable webhooks.
But the real disaster?

An unsecured GraphQL backend accepted any client request—no verification.
Bad data in, bad data out. We trusted the frontend to tell the truth in a trustless system.
And it burned us.

Once upon a sprint, someone said:

"Let’s use this platform—it handles all the blockchain stuff."

Cool. We’re off to the races.

We wrote code.
We prototyped UIs.
We asked product for clarity.
Got none.
Didn’t matter, Kept building.

Meanwhile, we’re told to move faster.

“Other startups are shipping quicker.”
“Web3 isn’t the problem. Just use the platform.”

Ho ho ho.

One does not simply use blockchain.

• Authentication? Wallet connects that break on mobile.

• Payments? “Tracked” in the frontend, verified by webhook (maybe).

• UX? Built on assumptions copied from outdated docs.

• Design? Figma says one thing. The protocol says another.

And all of it?
Glued together by a GraphQL server that didn’t validate shit.

“Did the user pay?”

According to their browser, yes.
According to reality? Who knows.
But we saved it anyway.

No signature checks.
No auth guards.
Just wide-open mutations accepting any fantasy the client spun.

This is what happens when you bring Web2 engineering habits into a Web3 protocol world.
The chain will expose you.

And so, we rowed.

• Up the Rubicon.

• Boats on fire.

• Oars bent.

• Toward the mountain where product meets protocol.

• Where engineering climbs alone.

• Where only a few come back unscathed.

We rowed.
And we survived.

Takeaway:

Web3 doesn’t forgive sloppy Web2 security.
If your backend isn’t hardened, the chain won’t protect you—it’ll betray you faster.

Bring a fucking map next time.