DEV Community: Prudhviraj

Arbitrum Stylus, Layer 2s, and My HackQuest Journey

Prudhviraj — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 13:29:21 +0000

Introduction
Arbitrum has emerged as one of the most important scaling ecosystems for Ethereum, combining optimistic rollups, AnyTrust chains, and customizable Orbit chains under a single Nitro technology stack. Within this ecosystem, Arbitrum Stylus represents a major leap in how developers can build smart contracts by introducing a WebAssembly-based execution environment alongside the EVM.

This post shares a personal learning journey through HackQuest India Co-Learning Camp 19 - Arbitrum Edition, highlights the core ideas behind Stylus and Arbitrum’s Layer 2 solutions, and presents a mini-project concept called Contract Sentinel that emerged from this experience.

HackQuest and the Co-Learning Camp Experience

HackQuest is a Web3 developer education platform that combines structured learning tracks, co-learning camps, hackathons, and community events to onboard developers into Web3. The platform has hosted numerous global hackathons, co-learning cohorts, and events, offering a “learn by building” environment rather than a purely theoretical curriculum.

The Co-Learning Camp 19 - Arbitrum Edition followed this philosophy closely. After selection emails, participants were onboarded via Townhall 1, where the team explained the camp structure, group-based learning, Web3 career pathways, and how to get the most out of the cohort. The first homework focused on completing the Web3 Basics module from the Arbitrum learning track to ensure that everyone shared a common baseline before diving into more advanced topics.

Subsequent Townhalls layered on more depth, while the Mission Page tracked tasks and submissions, gamifying progress and making it easier to identify active builders. Regular reminder emails before Townhall 3 and the final Townhall 4 reinforced a sense of accountability and community presence.

A crucial graduation requirement was completing the full Arbitrum course and claiming the Arbitrum Builder Certificate, which serves as proof of completion and a key credential within the HackQuest and Arbitrum ecosystems.

Arbitrum’s Layer 2 Ecosystem: One, Nova, and Orbit

To understand where Stylus fits, it helps to first map the broader Arbitrum ecosystem. At a high level, Arbitrum offers three main solutions: Arbitrum One, Arbitrum Nova, and Orbit chains, all powered by the Nitro technology stack.

Arbitrum One is an optimistic rollup Layer 2 that posts all transaction data to Ethereum mainnet, inheriting Ethereum’s security and trust model. It is well-suited for DeFi, infrastructure, and applications that prioritize security and decentralization, with moderate fees relative to Ethereum.

Arbitrum Nova is an AnyTrust chain optimized for ultra-low fees and high throughput, using a Data Availability Committee (DAC) to store data off-chain while still settling on Ethereum. It targets gaming, social, and cost-sensitive applications where sub-cent fees and high TPS are critical.

Arbitrum Orbit chains are customizable L2 or L3 chains built using Nitro, allowing teams to launch app-specific or ecosystem-specific chains with configurable parameters, including settlement layer, gas token, and security trade-offs.

Nova can achieve sub-cent transaction fees and throughput on the order of 100-200 TPS, compared to roughly 20-40 TPS on Arbitrum One, highlighting the practical trade-off between cost and Ethereum-equivalent security. Orbit chains, meanwhile, give builders the option to tune this trade-off space, even extending beyond Ethereum to other Layer 1s in some configurations.

What Is Arbitrum Stylus?

Arbitrum Stylus is an upgrade to the Nitro stack that introduces a WebAssembly (WASM)-based virtual machine running alongside the Ethereum Virtual Machine, creating what Arbitrum calls a MultiVM environment. Instead of replacing the EVM, Stylus is designed to be additive an "EVM+" approach that preserves compatibility with existing Solidity contracts while expanding the execution model.

Stylus enables developers to write smart contracts in languages such as Rust, C, and C++, compile them to WASM, and deploy them alongside Solidity contracts. These contracts can interoperate, meaning a single application can combine EVM contracts and WASM contracts, with each side able to call into the other.

This design addresses two long-standing issues in blockchain development:

Accessibility: Many developers are more comfortable with Rust, C, or C++ than with Solidity. By allowing these languages on-chain, Stylus dramatically expands the potential developer pool.

Execution efficiency: WASM offers superior computational performance, memory efficiency, and gas optimization compared to the EVM, especially for compute-heavy operations such as cryptography, aggregations, and complex simulations.

In micro-benchmarks, WASM execution can be an order of magnitude or more faster for certain operations, enabling new classes of on-chain applications that were previously impractical due to gas costs or latency constraints.

Stylus in the Nitro and Orbit Context
Stylus is tightly integrated with Arbitrum Nitro, which already replaced the earlier Arbitrum Virtual Machine with a WASM-based low-level instruction set running a Geth-derived execution environment. Nitro compiles the Go implementation of Geth into WASM and executes it within its own environment, while ArbOS manages gas accounting, data compression, and L2-specific logic.

Within this architecture, Stylus adds a co-equal WASM VM that sits alongside the EVM, rather than simply using WASM as an internal implementation detail. This means Orbit chains can adopt Stylus to support both Solidity and WASM contracts, making them attractive to teams that want high performance without abandoning EVM compatibility.

For Orbit builders, Stylus offers several advantages:

Ability to target multiple programming languages.

Lower transaction costs for computation-intensive workloads.

More efficient memory access and cheaper on-chain storage for certain patterns.

A broader library ecosystem, thanks to Rust and C/C++ tooling.

Why Stylus Initially Feels Hard and How Q&A Helped

From a learner’s perspective, Stylus can feel challenging at first. The idea of MultiVM execution, WASM compilation, and interoperability between Solidity and Rust-based contracts is conceptually denser than traditional EVM-only development.

During HackQuest’s co-learning camp, this complexity was mitigated through live Q&A sessions led by mentors such as Itachi Uchiha, who walked through how Stylus fits into the Nitro stack and how to reason about EVM and WASM contracts coexisting in one application. These sessions provided the missing context that documentation alone cannot always offer concrete examples, repeated clarification, and space to ask beginner-level questions without friction.

Over time, the mental model shifted from “Stylus is a new, separate thing I have to learn” to “Stylus is an extra engine running alongside the EVM that I can gradually adopt where it makes sense.” That reframing made experimentation feel far more approachable.

Mini-Project Concept: Contract Sentinel on Arbitrum Stylus
As part of this learning journey, a mini-project concept called Contract Sentinel emerged. Contract Sentinel is envisioned as a Stylus-powered monitoring and analytics layer for critical smart contracts deployed on Arbitrum L2s or Orbit chains.

The core idea is simple:

Identify high-value or high-risk contracts (e.g., DeFi protocols, treasury multisigs, or governance contracts).
Use Stylus-based WASM contracts to ingest, aggregate, and analyze state changes and event streams associated with these contracts.
Trigger on-chain alerts or off-chain notifications when anomalous patterns, threshold breaches, or suspicious activities are detected.

Stylus is a natural fit for this design because monitoring and anomaly detection often involve computationally heavy operations, statistical checks, sliding-window analytics, or cryptographic verifications that are expensive and slow in a pure EVM environment. By leveraging WASM’s performance and cheaper memory model, Contract Sentinel can run richer logic on-chain without prohibitive gas costs.

From a builder’s perspective, this project also sits at the intersection of multiple Arbitrum layers:

It could monitor contracts on Arbitrum One where security is paramount.

It could support high-event-volume applications on Arbitrum Nova, where inexpensive monitoring of gaming/social activity is useful.

It could be deployed as infrastructure on an Orbit chain, tailored to the specific risk model and throughput of a given ecosystem.

Even as a conceptual or prototype-level project, Contract Sentinel demonstrates how Stylus enables new patterns: using Rust’s ecosystem for complex analytics logic while still interoperating with Solidity-based protocols.

HackQuest as a Launchpad for Builders

Beyond individual technologies, the most valuable aspect of the HackQuest camp is how it integrates learning, building, and community. The platform provides structured tracks with on-chain certificates, co-learning camps with live support, and consistent access to hackathons and accelerators.

For participants, this structure compresses the path from consuming content to shipping experiments. Townhalls provide direction and clarity; mission pages enforce accountability; hackathons and events such as OG APAC create real deadlines and external validation opportunities.

In this environment, the Arbitrum Stylus learning journey becomes more than a one-off course. It is the foundation for ongoing participation in the Arbitrum and broader Web3 ecosystems through future hackathons, Orbit chain launches, and collaborations with fellow camp alumni.

Conclusion:
Arbitrum’s L2 stack: One, Nova, and Orbit offers a flexible spectrum of security, cost, and customization, all anchored by the Nitro technology stack. Within this framework, Arbitrum Stylus introduces a powerful MultiVM paradigm that brings WASM on-chain, enabling contracts written in Rust, C, and C++ to coexist and interoperate with Solidity.

Through HackQuest’s Co-Learning Camp 19, these ideas moved from abstract concepts to practical tools, culminating in the design of a Stylus-aligned mini-project like Contract Sentinel. Combined with HackQuest’s ongoing hackathons, co-learning programs, and ecosystem partnerships, this journey illustrates how structured education plus cutting-edge infrastructure can rapidly turn motivated learners into active Web3 builders.

From Idea to DApp: How I Vibe-Coded a Web3 Security Tool with Gemini AI

Prudhviraj — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 13:33:02 +0000

It started with a simple, almost vague question: "What's a truly innovative Web3 app I can build quickly with AI?" I was diving into the Monad Speed Run 101, and the energy was all about building, fast. I didn't have a grand, multi-year roadmap. I had a vibe, a curiosity, and access to some incredible new tools, namely Google's Gemini AI.

What followed was less of a rigid development cycle and more of a "vibe coding" session-a fluid, conversational dance between my high-level ideas and the AI's ability to architect, code, and refine them in real-time. The result? Contract Sentinel, an AI-powered security tool that gives anyone a clear, human-readable risk report on any smart contract on major EVM chains.
Here’s a look back at how it happened, what I learned, and how AI has fundamentally changed my approach to building.

The Spark: From Abstract Intent to a Concrete MVP

My initial conversation with the AI wasn't about code; it was about possibilities. I knew I wanted to build something at the intersection of Web3 and AI that was genuinely useful. The AI didn't just give me one idea; it gave me five radically different approaches, from an "AI Wallet Intent Translator" to "Proof-of-Thought NFTs."

This is where the magic started. Instead of me having to grind through brainstorming sessions, the AI acted as a creative partner, helping me see the landscape of what was possible. We quickly narrowed it down to an idea that felt both impactful and achievable: an "Intent-Based" tool that simplified a complex Web3 action. The hackathon-ready MVP we landed on was a tool that could take a user's natural language goal (e.g., "I want to swap ETH to USDC safely") and translate it into a secure transaction plan.
This evolved into Contract Sentinel. Why just translate one intent when you can analyze the very foundation of all intents-the smart contract itself? The mission became clear: demystify smart contract security for the average user.

How AI Became My Co-Pilot

Building Contract Sentinel wasn't a solo effort. Gemini was my pair programmer, my architect, and my UX consultant all rolled into one.

Architecture & Scaffolding: I knew the components I needed: a front-end, a way to fetch contract data, and an AI brain. The AI helped sketch out a minimal, effective stack: React/Next.js for the UI, Etherscan/BscScan/PolygonScan APIs for data, the Go+ Security API for automated checks, and the Gemini API for the core analysis. It then helped generate the boilerplate for the React components, the TailwindCSS styling, and the overall structure of the app. This saved hours, if not days, of setup.

The Core Logic: Prompt Engineering: The heart of Contract Sentinel is a single, powerful prompt. This is where AI's role shifted from a code generator to a reasoning engine. I didn't write complex parsing logic or a custom security rulebook. Instead, I engineered a detailed prompt that instructed the AI to act as "Sentinel," a world-class Web3 Security Analyst.

I fed it the contract's source code (if available) and data from the Go+ Security API. The prompt gave it clear rules: synthesize the data, don't just list it; prioritize source code; assign a risk level; and output the analysis in a structured JSON format. This prompt became the application's core logic, turning raw data into actionable intelligence.

Rapid Iteration: When an API call failed, or the UI felt clunky, I could just describe the problem to the AI. "The error message is too generic," I'd say, and it would help me write code to provide more context to the user. This conversational feedback loop made the development process incredibly fast and intuitive.

Key Learnings from Monad Session 1 in Practice

Looking back, this entire experience felt like a practical application of the core concepts from our first session in the Monad Speed Run.

The biggest takeaway for me was the focus on reducing cognitive load for the user. Web3 is notoriously complex. Users shouldn't need to be security experts to interact with a DApp safely. Contract Sentinel is a direct answer to this problem. It abstracts away the complexity of reading Solidity and interpreting security flags, presenting a simple verdict: green flags, red flags, and an overall risk score.

Session 1 also touched on building intent-centric applications. While Contract Sentinel analyzes contracts rather than executing intents, it serves the user's ultimate intent: to stay safe. It answers the fundamental question behind every transaction: "Can I trust this?" By focusing on answering that core human intent, the app provides immediate, tangible value.

What This Journey Taught Me

Building Contract Sentinel was an eye-opener. My key learnings are:

AI is a Force Multiplier: It amplifies a developer's ability to build. It doesn't replace the need for critical thinking, but it handles the heavy lifting, freeing you up to focus on the user experience and the core product value.

Prompt Engineering is a Superpower: The quality of your AI-powered application is directly tied to the quality of your prompts. Learning to communicate your intent clearly and concisely to an LLM is the most valuable new skill for developers today.

The Future is Composable: The most powerful apps are often built by intelligently combining existing services. We didn't build our own block explorer or security scanner; we stood on the shoulders of giants (Etherscan, Go+, Google Gemini) to create something new.

This project started as a hackathon experiment, but it has completely reshaped my view of what's possible. We're moving from an era of meticulously hand-crafting every line of code to one where we conduct an orchestra of powerful tools and services. And for a builder, that’s an incredibly exciting place to be.