Projects & Work

• heade.rs Domain and IP lookup with live routes and latency heade.rs
• Draftside Private writing editor with on-device AI draftside.ai
• Council CLI that runs three AI models and synthesizes one answer council.armstr.ng

Selected roles where I worked on payments, anti-abuse, privacy, and systems that reached large numbers of people.

1. Paragraph Founder & CEO Since 2022

   Paragraph is the media engine for early-stage startups. We help founders turn launches, product updates, and what they're learning into media they own.

   In 2024 we acquired Mirror and raised $5 million from USV and Coinbase Ventures. I lead product, engineering, and company-building.

   paragraph.com
2. Mirror CEO, via acquisition 2024–2025

   In May 2024, Paragraph acquired Mirror, the onchain publishing platform founded by Denis Nazarov, which had raised more than $10 million from a16z and USV. We raised $5 million from USV and Coinbase Ventures alongside the deal.

   We ran Mirror next to Paragraph, with nothing changing for its writers. In September 2025 we retired it and moved every Mirror writer and post to Paragraph.

   mirror.xyz
3. Google Senior Software Engineer & Manager 2017–2022

   I led engineering work on communications anti-abuse, building systems to protect people from spam, scams, and fraud across messaging surfaces.

   I built our first on-device anti-abuse SDK, and deployed ML models and heuristic rules to millions of devices.

   I also led initiatives in the privacy working group, ensuring abuse protections could work with minimal data collection and proper guardrails.

   google.com
4. Coinbase Engineer, Payments 2015–2016

   I worked on payments infrastructure and helped launch Coinbase in Canada.

   I also improved Bitcoin private-key signing infrastructure and anti-abuse systems around payments flows.

   coinbase.com

1. Paragraph absorbs Mirror in web3 publishing consolidation In Yahoo Finance Sep 2025
2. Onchain Media Empires with Paragraph and Mirror On Kaloh's Podcast Sep 2024
3. Paragraph, writing onchain On Into the Bytecode Aug 2024
4. Paragraph raises $5 million from USV and Coinbase Ventures, takes over Mirror In The Block May 2024
5. Web3 newsletter Paragraph raises $5M and takes over blogging platform Mirror In SiliconANGLE May 2024
6. Introducing Referral Rewards: an interview with Colin Armstrong Interviewed by Danica Swanson Oct 2023
7. How blockchain can transform the newsletter industry On Milk Road May 2023
8. Colin Armstrong, founder of Paragraph On Humans of Farcaster May 2023
9. The 3 pillars of building Paragraph On Inside the Den Apr 2023
10. #38: How Paragraph combined web2 and web3 to build a Substack alternative On Web3 Talks Jan 2023
11. Web3 newsletter platform Paragraph raises $1.7M in pre-seed funding In SiliconANGLE Oct 2022
12. Web3 publishing platform Paragraph raises $1.7 million In The Block Oct 2022