Ori Newman has been immersed in cryptocurrency since 2013, drawn early on by the potential of decentralized technologies to reshape digital infrastructure. His work has consistently reflected a commitment to scalability, security, and decentralization—principles that continue to guide his contributions to Kaspa.

With a strong academic background in computer science and mathematics (including bachelor's degree in both), Ori combines theoretical depth with practical engineering skill. His fluency in Rust programming led to a role at DAGlabs, a company focused on solving blockchain scalability challenges through Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG)-based architectures. He honed the expertise that now powers his work on Kaspa’s innovative design there.

As a core contributor to Kaspa, Ori plays a central role in pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in decentralized networks. His blend of technical rigor and forward-thinking vision has made him one of the most respected voices in the blockchain space.

KASmedia is honored to share this interview with Ori to explore his insights and contributions to Kaspa. You can follow his work on X.com (@OriNewman), Medium.com (someone234), and GitHub.com someone235.

Someone Coding Stuffs

What motivated your transition from full-stack development to specializing in cryptocurrency and blockchain?

I was always more into backend development when I worked in full-stack development. I always cared more about the inner logic of systems rather than their looks. Around 2017–2018, I was craving more technical challenges, and at the same time, I was obsessed with everything related to Bitcoin and crypto. As a result, I started looking for a job in the crypto industry, and eventually got a job at DAGLabs (the company that developed Kaspa before its launch), which turned out to be a life-changing move.

Could you share insights into the tools and frameworks you prefer for building scalable systems?

I enjoyed working with Rust. The combination of type safety, memory safety and performance oriented design makes this language the holy grail for crypto: in crypto each bug in consensus cannot be easily solved with a simple patch like you would fix a bug in a centralized system, but requires coordinating the fix with all nodes and miners, so Rust’s safety helped us prevent such bugs. On the other hand, since in crypto many independent nodes run your software, you usually can’t scale by just adding more hardware, so it’s essential to write very efficient code, and especially in Kaspa, where we try to take crypto’s scalability to its limits.

How has your perspective on software development changed over the years?

In the early stages of my career, I worked at some jobs with very low coding standards, which encouraged me to adopt a very strict view on coding standards. After some years, I understood that being too strict about coding standards (in code review, etc.) can be counterproductive, and you find yourself spending more time with your colleague about the best name to name some variable than actually progressing on the project. So now I tend to be more flexible, although I still have my standards.

Good ol’ Crypto Questions

What is your crypto-economic philosophy? How do you think crypto best functions as an economic or financial force? 

Libertarian views heavily influenced my interest in Bitcoin. I believe creating tools that let people trade and organize independently of the state is a necessary step toward a freer world, using a bottom-up approach. We can’t expect the monetary system to just fall apart by itself: the people who operate it have no incentive to do it, and even if they had, such a change would create a huge shock in the system that would probably create worse institutions in its turn. Instead, we need to create an alternative to the current financial system that will grow at its own pace until one day it will (hopefully) be mature enough to replace it. 

What trends in blockchain (or DAG) or software development excite you the most right now?

I'm very excited about the latest advancements in zero-knowledge proofs. When I started working in the crypto space, many things that seemed impossible have become feasible. This field brings unprecedented advancements to crypto's scalability.

Do you think Bitcoin Layer 2s will one day be able to compete with Kaspa? If not, why?

I'm not a prophet, so I can't say nothing will outcompete Kaspa, but current Bitcoin layer two solutions suffer from overcomplexity, centralization, and liquidity problems. In Ethereum, there are some interesting L2 solutions, such as zk-rollups, but they depend upon centralized sequencers. We are currently working on using their good properties and relying on Kaspa as a decentralized sequencer. 

What is the biggest threat to crypto overall? 

Maybe I'm paranoid, but I'm still afraid of a crypto ban or some regulation that will make it virtually impossible to use.This is why it's essential to encourage crypto adoption as soon as possible, so banning it will be impractical.

This is also why we need as much decentralization as we can get, to prevent a state actor from taking control of big portions of the ecosystem. I think people tend to forget that, and this is why centralized projects like Solana thrive. This is where Kaspa shines, since Proof-of-Work is the only known way to keep a cryptocurrency decentralized and permissionless, and Kaspa is the only cryptocurrency that scales PoW. Although PoW is not perfect, we still need to understand how we handle problems like mining centralization (But I still think Kaspa is in a better place than others regarding those problems).

Kaspa and Ori’s Involvement 

When you first encountered Kaspa, what was unique or special about it? Did you realize from the start that it had the potential to become such a significant project?

I started working on Kaspa in 2018, just after the 2017 crypto bubble, where many coins made empty promises of technological advancements and made a huge market cap. So it felt great to join a team of professional developers and researchers who needed to root any claim with proof, leaving no unsolved edge cases. Working with such a team gave me a lot of inspiration.

Your Medium articles do an excellent job of explaining Kaspa's key aspects in a way accessible to non-technical audiences. However, it seems that there's been a pause in your personal content updates. Do you plan to continue sharing Kaspa-related insights in the future, especially as the project evolves? 

I feel very guilty for not creating more Kaspa content, but I plan to change that in the near future and create new content.

What future developments are you most excited about for the Kaspa ecosystem? 

In the short term, I'm thrilled about Crescendo, a result of two years of work that pushes PoW to new limits. It opens the door to everyday use of Kaspa — something no decentralized coin could achieve before due to scalability limits. I'm also excited about bringing smart contracts to Kaspa, which could ease adoption by enabling stable tokens. And of course, DAGKnight is a key part of Kaspa's future—an important research breakthrough that dynamically scales confirmation times as global internet speeds improve.

If you could describe Kaspa's journey in one sentence, what would it be?

Just for Fun