I'm Daniel Smith. I build blockchain infrastructure, AI agents, and public interest technology.

Daniel Smith is a Senior DevOps Engineer at Validation Cloud, where he builds and secures institutional blockchain infrastructure — Node API, staking, and AI tooling — for enterprises managing billions in digital assets. Based in San Gabriel, CA.

His blockchain work began at IBM, where he developed the transaction state machine for Sand Dollar, the world's first nationally deployed retail central bank digital currency. Issued by the Central Bank of The Bahamas and live since October 2020, Sand Dollar is the reference case every central bank in the world now studies when designing retail CBDC programs. Before IBM, he built blockchain onboarding infrastructure at Granite Solutions Group and full-stack web tooling at USC's Laboratory of Neuroimaging.

Outside his role at Validation Cloud, Daniel builds open-source infrastructure at the intersection of cryptographic audit trails, AI agents, and government accountability.

ClawQL is a production TypeScript MCP server and agentic gateway that gives AI agents structured, auditable, token-efficient access to APIs, documents, and enterprise knowledge. Its security architecture — 32 modules covering Merkle-chained WORM audit logs, Arweave immutable anchoring, supply chain signing, and kernel-level agent sandboxing — is documented at docs.clawql.com/security/best-practices.

Challenge the Footage is a free public interest tool that generates legal documents for challenging surveillance camera evidence in court. It addresses a structural authentication gap: no major surveillance camera vendor publicly documents cryptographic chain of custody for footage. The tool generates motions in limine under FRE 901, Daubert challenges under FRE 702 citing the industry's documented ~10% misidentification error rate, Fourth Amendment suppression motions using the Institute for Justice's database of officer abuse cases, and Section 1983 civil damages demand letters. Public defenders get free unlimited access.

The Witness app records police encounters on iOS and Android, transcribes in real time using on-device Whisper, and uploads transcript, audio, and video in priority order so evidence reaches safety even on a weak signal. Everything is cryptographically signed and Arweave-anchored for independent verification.

The clawql-government specification extends the same Merkle-chaining and Arweave anchoring infrastructure to government program outcome accountability — addressing the structural gap California and other states face in measuring whether bond-funded programs deliver the outcomes voters were promised.

Daniel holds the view that the same engineering discipline that makes financial systems trustworthy — immutable audit trails, cryptographic chain of custody, independent verification — should be applied to government programs, law enforcement evidence, and public records. He is based in San Gabriel, California.