$ whoami
Denver Mtange
Protocol engineer & technical writer focused on open-source protocol infrastructure, Rust developer tooling, and technical writing for the Bitcoin ecosystem.
I contribute to protocol specifications, build censorship-resistant developer tooling, and write technical deep-dives. No product marketing — just specs, code, and writing.
Three areas of work
Everything I build sits in one of these three lanes. Each links to the underlying repositories, specs, or publications.
Authoring protocol specifications and contributing to the Pontmore protocol core repository.
View specificationsBuilding Rust workspace tooling for descriptor parsing, validation, and censorship resistance.
View toolingTechnical deep-dives on protocol design, service discovery, and escrow architecture for DEV Community and Open Bitcoin Africa.
Read articlesStandalone Escrows — Extension to PIP-01
Extension to PIP-01 introducing standalone escrows to the Pontmore protocol — covering escrow creation, funding status observation, release mechanisms, and structured error handling as a self-contained escrow lifecycle layered on top of PIP-01.
$ git log --oneline -1 origin/main3c46a24 merge: extend PIP-01 with standalone escrows (#12)$ git diff --stat HEAD~1docs/pip-01-escrows.md | 248 ++++++++++++++++++++++1 file changed, 248 insertions(+)
descriptor-POC
A Rust workspace implementing output descriptor parsing and validation rules, structured as composable crates with a proof-of-concept CLI and mock service for end-to-end testing.
$ cargo build --workspaceCompiling descriptor v0.1.0Compiling client v0.1.0Compiling poc-cli v0.1.0Compiling mock-service v0.1.0Finished dev [unoptimized] target(s)
Technical deep-dives
Published with DEV Community and Open Bitcoin Africa on protocol design, service discovery, and escrow architecture.
Building Pontmore: From Protocol Spec to Working Standalone Escrow POC
Tracing the path from PIP-01 (discovery-only) through PR #12 (standalone service interface) to PR #17 (simplification) — including the working Lightning escrow POC, its NIP-98 auth architecture, a 50-test integration suite, and what building against an evolving spec teaches you about protocol design.
Designing Standalone Escrows in Pontmore PIP-01
Expanding PIP-01 from discovery-only into a standalone service interface — the `service` block, schema_url vs. event bloat, NIP-98 authentication, split_decision release vocabularies, escrow state machines, deadlock prevention, and the security trade-offs across the lightning_hold_invoice, custodial_escrow, and cashu_escrow subtypes.
Introducing Pontmore: a Nostr-native protocol for agent discovery, escrow, and swaps
Advertising Pontmore escrow service capabilities directly on Nostr — extending PIP-01 with an optional `service` block (PR #12) so standalone, non-swap applications can discover, parse, and invoke a published escrow service via HTTPS endpoints, NIP-98 authentication, and declared release-decision formats without out-of-band coordination.