Ethereum · Smart contracts · February 2022

Yakuza Inc.

I built and launched the contract, allowlist, sale controls, metadata, and payout path behind a seven-figure, 3,223-token Ethereum sell-out.

321.4 ETHprimary proceeds

3,223tokens minted

56 secfinal public window

Project file

PeriodFebruary 2022

Product: A 3,223-token ERC-721 release with an allowlist, public sale, metadata controls, airdrops, and split payouts.
Delivery scope: Contract architecture, gas optimisation, allowlist mechanics, operator controls, deployment, and live mint operations.
Public evidence: 6public sources3on-chain records

Project constraints

01Concentrated launch demand
02Buyer-paid gas on the hot path
03Immutable supply, sale, and payout rules

The challenge

Keep the paid mint path small enough to survive concentrated demand without weakening allowlist, supply, or payout guarantees.

A high-demand Ethereum mint compresses months of work into a few irreversible minutes. One costly opcode, broken proof, sale flag, or reserve calculation can waste buyers’ gas and stop the launch. I designed the contract and release together: keep the paid path small, give the team clear controls, and expose public state as demand arrived.

Architecture and decisions

Minimal public mint path

The public function performed the essential price and supply checks before minting a single token. Keeping the hot path narrow reduced bytecode work and made gas behavior easier to predict under load.

Isolated allowlist verification

Merkle proof verification and per-address mint tracking lived in the presale flow, so public buyers did not keep paying for allowlist logic once the open sale began.

Explicit release controls

Separate presale and public-sale switches, owner-controlled metadata, airdrop support, and PaymentSplitter payouts made the launch operable without changing the deployed contract.

Gas-aware compilation

The verified Solidity 0.8.7 build used the optimizer at 1,000 runs. Even the supply boundary was chosen with minter gas cost in mind and documented in the contract.

My role

01
Owned the ERC-721 contract and launch pipeline end to end, including deployment, allowlist, public sale, metadata, airdrops, and payout mechanics.
02
Reduced work on the paid path to the checks the sale actually needed, while keeping Merkle verification inside the allowlist flow.
03
Built and tested the operator sequence for moving from presale to public sale without redeploying or improvising contract state.
04
Stayed on the live release through sell-out, verifying the contract and mint flow against on-chain state as the final blocks filled.

What changed

A seven-figure, 3,223-token mint that sold out in under two hours; the final 596 public mints landed in 56 seconds.

The result was a smooth seven-figure release with no emergency rewrite or replacement contract. All 3,223 tokens sold in under two hours, producing 321.4 ETH in primary proceeds. When public sale opened, the closing 596 mints cleared across two Ethereum blocks in 56 seconds; the collection later passed 1,000 ETH in marketplace volume.

The contract completed a 3,223-token sell-out and released 321.4 ETH in primary proceeds.
The final 596 public mints landed in just 56 seconds, across the closing two Ethereum blocks.
The collection later passed 1,000 ETH in marketplace volume, with the verified contract and launch record still publicly inspectable.

“Gotta give a quick shout out to David for being one of the first academy students from start to finish to enter the Million Dollar Mint Club, breaking over 250 ETH minted in just the presale! He played a major role on the dev side and community building and management. The mint has gone super smooth.”