Founder of The ZAO. Community builder, event producer and AI-agent operator. Maine, USA. Remote.
BetterCallZaal is my personal brand and operating layer: build-in-public work, consulting and web3 music under one name.
- Events: I organized and ran ZAOstock, a free music festival. Seven acts played on 3 October 2026, livestreamed on Twitch.
- Developer relations: I ran ZABAL Gamez, a free three-month build event: 31 recorded workshops, 31 projects shipped by 15 people, finals settled in public.
- AI-agent operations: I direct Claude Code agents under written rules; their work moves through pull requests. How I work and the public repos.
The people who create the value should own their profit margin, their audience data and their intellectual property.
bettercallzaal.com | Portfolio | Resume | Farcaster | X | BCZ YapZ | Book a call
- I am looking for a salaried, remote role in developer relations or AI-agent operations. Part-time gigs are welcome too. See my resume, portfolio and AI-agent work.
I also take on client work. See the services and examples for what I offer and how to ask about a consult.
The context box for AI agents is linked under How I work and All my links.
Everything below is folded. Open what you need.
| If you are | Open |
|---|---|
| Hiring | Resume, portfolio and AI-agent work |
| Have a project | Services, experience and tools |
| An artist or musician | Ways to plug in |
| A developer or builder | Repos and how I work with AI agents |
| An organizer or community member | Ways to plug in |
| A founder | Services or book a call |
| Just curious | What I am building and the story |
| Looking for a link | All my links |
What I am building: The ZAO, ZAOstock, WaveWarZ, ZAO Fractal, ZABAL Gamez, ZAO OS and more
| What it is | My part | Links | |
|---|---|---|---|
| The ZAO | Works to return artists' profit margin, audience data and IP rights to the people who create the value. Music is its first domain. Weekly onchain governance, live shows, a daily newsletter. | Founder | thezao.com / Newsletter |
| ZAOstock | A free, one-day music festival in Ellsworth, Maine. Seven acts played on 3 October 2026, livestreamed on Twitch. | Organizer, MC and stage manager | zaostock.com / Replays |
| ZAO Festivals | The events arm of The ZAO: ZAO-PALOOZA at NFT NYC, ZAO-CHELLA at Miami Art Basel in December 2024 with a live WaveWarZ battle, and ZAOstock. | Organizer | X / YouTube |
| WaveWarZ | Onchain music battles on Solana where the losing artist is still paid. Founded and built by Hurric4n3ike. | Co-founder on the ZAO side: ecosystem strategy and partnerships. I own the public analytics. | wavewarz.com / Analytics |
| ZAO Fractal | The weekly Respect Game: members rank each other's contributions and the results settle onchain. Mondays at 6pm Eastern, weekly since 2024. | I started it in 2024 and run it | zaofractal.vercel.app |
| ZABAL Gamez | A free, three-month build event for Farcaster creators. Season 1 ran June to August 2026. | I set the goals and made the calls | zabalgamez.com / Results |
| ZAO OS | The lab and open monorepo where new ZAO things are prototyped before they graduate: app, agent tooling and a public research library of more than 2,200 numbered docs as of 11 October 2026. | Direction and review | zaoos.com / GitHub / Research |
| The ZAO bounty board | Paid bounties on POIDH, judged in public. | I run the rounds | poidhz.com |
| COC Concertz | A live-show series that began inside The ZAO and now stands as its own brand. | Host and coordinator | cocconcertz.com |
| BetterCallZaal | My advisory practice for founders moving into AI agents, onchain work and open source. | Me | bettercallzaal.com / Services |
Everything public is on one live page: the repo dashboard.
Also in the open
- Zlank: a no-code builder for Farcaster Snaps, built for FarHack Online 2026, Snaps track. Repo.
- Sparkz: start with a spark, not a token. A home for a creative project, with identity, backers and receipts, before any coin exists. Early. Repo.
- ZOL: The ZAO's music scout on Farcaster.
- ZABAL: a weekly vote on where The ZAO focuses: music, governance, events or build.
- FISHBOWLZ: open conversations, in public, on the record. Past work: it was paused on 16 April 2026 and ended on 4 May 2026.
Shows and media: BCZ YapZ, ZAO MixZ, livestreams, press
| What it is | My part | Links | |
|---|---|---|---|
| BCZ YapZ | Long-form conversations with web3 builders and music-first founders, on the record. Every episode is searchable, with its transcript, and each one has its own page by number, live link first and the replay after. | Host | bczyapz.com / Guests / Topics / Subscribe / YouTube |
| ZAO MixZ | A two-deck DJ app in the browser. DJ MixZ, the bot DJ, mixes a set on its own and hands the decks to a human when they take over; the ZAO crate pulls every artist on SongChainn. Runs a whole stream from a phone. | Direction and testing, built with IMan | zaomixz.vercel.app |
| Livestreams | Shows, WaveWarZ sets and the ZAOstock broadcast. | Host | Twitch / ZAOstock replays / Streaming setup |
Press: featured in "People in Crypto" (pages 102-103, powered by FUSDCrypto.com): "Zaal Panthaki (BetterCallZaal) - Rebuilding Ownership for Independent Artists". The ZAOstock press page.
Writing: the daily newsletter, the papers, the research library
- The ZAO newsletter on Paragraph, daily. The tooling behind it is public: zaoonparagraph.
- The WaveWarZ newsletter on Paragraph.
- The ZAO papers: the living documents behind The ZAO, with a public proposal process. Repo.
- The research library: more than 2,200 numbered docs across 18 topics, as of 11 October 2026.
- ZAO 101: learn about The ZAO, from the basics up.
- On my site: history, photos, Maine and my engineering years.
Teams and collaborations: WaveZStation, North Creek, DreamNet
Work that is not mine alone. The credit belongs to the people named.
| What it is | My part | Links | |
|---|---|---|---|
| WaveZStation | A web3 music platform from the WaveWarZ team: fans pay what they want for a song and earn when later supporters buy the same song. | On the team, with Hurric4n3ike | wavezstation.com |
| North Creek | A collective led by Eteis, who brought everyone together. They played the ZAOstock 2026 after-party in Ellsworth, Maine. | I keep their site and work with them on shows and promotion | northcreekme.com |
| DreamNet | Evidence infrastructure for AI work, built by Brandon Ducar. | I am building The ZAO's side of the connection, in the open in ZAO OS | dreamnet.ink |
ZAO Fractal stands on other people's work. The idea was formalized by Daniel Larimer and the Fractally protocol, Eden Fractal proved it could run for years, and Optimism Fractal brought it to Ethereum.
Repos: ZAO DEVZ, the team GitHub, and this account
Most of what The ZAO ships lives at github.com/ZAODEVZ, the team GitHub for The ZAO. This account holds my own projects and the ZAO OS lab; ZAO DEVZ holds the ones the team builds and runs together.
ZAO DEVZ builds the websites and tools used by The ZAO's events and community programs. This team account is where those shared projects live; the table below shows what each one does.
| Repo | What it is | Live |
|---|---|---|
| ZAOstock | The festival site and its tooling | zaostock.com |
| zabalgames | The ZABAL Gamez site | zabalgamez.com |
| ZAOfractal | Home of ZAO Fractal, the weekly Respect Game, Mondays at 6pm Eastern since 2024 | zaofractal.vercel.app |
| ZAOcowork | The team's shared task board, with a Telegram bot writing to it | thezao.xyz |
| ZAOscout | Read Reddit, X and Farcaster from the command line, with no API keys or login | Site |
| Zuke | Live audio rooms for Farcaster communities, powered by Juke | zuke.thezao.com |
| ZAOmemberz | One member profile, anchored to a wallet, that every ZAO app can read | |
| ZAO101 | Learn about The ZAO, from the basics up | 101.thezao.com |
On this account:
| Repo | What it is | Live |
|---|---|---|
| ZAOOS | The ZAO OS lab and the research library | zaoos.com |
| poidhz | Bounty operations on POIDH: rounds, judging pages, leaderboard | poidhz.com |
| zaoonparagraph | The tooling behind the daily newsletter | Newsletter |
| bcz-yapz | The BCZ YapZ archive: every episode, transcript and topic, searchable | bczyapz.com |
| ZAOMixZ | The browser DJ app and DJ MixZ, the bot DJ | zaomixz.vercel.app |
| zao-repos | A live dashboard over every public ZAO repository | Dashboard |
| zorca | The layer that organizes many coding agents into lanes with conventions, a ranked board and safety rails | |
| zao-claude-skills | Hand-written Claude Code skills for The ZAO ecosystem |
The WaveWarZ analytics are public at wwtracker.vercel.app; the repo behind them is private for now.
Services, experience and tools: what I can do for you, and where I have done it
I am also open to part-time gigs. Anything virtual or digital. I am a jack of all trades and can do several of these at once:
| What I can do for you | Proof | |
|---|---|---|
| Community and events | Build and run a community; produce a live event from first booking to livestream. | The ZAO, ZAOstock |
| Developer relations | Workshops, a build event with public finals, docs and a recorded library people can come back to. | ZABAL Gamez, 31 recorded workshops |
| Promo and marketing | Promotion, press, local radio, a social rollout and a daily newsletter. | The ZAOstock press page, the newsletter |
| AI agents and automation | Set up Claude Code agents and the rules, checks and review steps that make them safe to rely on. | How I work |
| Web and ops builds | Sites, dashboards and operations tooling, shipped in the open. | zaostock.com, WaveWarZ analytics |
Have a project instead of a role? Three kinds of work I take on, each with a finished example: Services.
Read more: Portfolio, four case studies | Resume | Every project
Experience
| When | Role | Where |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 to now | Founder | The ZAO |
| 2024 to now | Co-founder on the ZAO side: ecosystem strategy, partnerships and public analytics | WaveWarZ |
| 2024 to now | Building Automation Technician | A biomedical research institution in Maine |
| 2022 to 2024 | Automation Engineer | PCC Structurals. Led a $1.5M robotics project that achieved a 7x throughput gain. |
| 2022 | BS, Electrical Engineering | Rochester Institute of Technology |
After two large organizations, I am ready for a more agile one.
Tools: Claude Code, Claude API and agents, Next.js, React, Node.js, Supabase, Farcaster SDK, Solana, Base, Discord.js, Vercel, Twitch and livestream production.
How I work with AI agents: pull requests, written rules, checks that can fail
I do not hand-write code. I direct AI agent lanes, design the systems they work in, review what they produce and make the calls. Examples are linked below.
- Pull requests under written rules. Agents propose repository work through pull requests, with the rules and review steps written down.
- Written rules, read first. A live state file, an operating-rules file and a decisions file, with one dated file per ruling in my own words.
- Structure over reminders. Rules enforced by a hook held far better than rules agents were asked to remember, so a failure that keeps recurring gets a tool, not another note.
- Checks that can fail. The most common failure was a tool that reported empty or green when it could not read its source. The answer was a checking tool with its own "could not run" exit code.
What that looks like in public:
- ZOE, the orchestrator agent, lives in ZAO OS: tasks, captures, briefs and recall, plus a coder-and-critic pipeline that opens fix pull requests.
- ZORCA organizes many coding agents into lanes, with conventions, a ranked board and safety rails.
- The research library is the long-term memory: more than 2,200 numbered docs across 18 topics, as of 11 October 2026.
- The repo dashboard shows every public repository, live.
- My context box is what every agent reads about me before it writes anything in my name.
How each project was built:
- ZAOstock: I organized and ran the event. The festival site and stream tooling were built by my team and by agent lanes under my direction.
- WaveWarZ: the platform has its own developer. I own the public analytics, wwtracker, and directed agent lanes to do repository work through pull requests under written rules.
- ZABAL Gamez: I locked the format, prizes and dates and made the calls. Agent lanes I directed built and maintained the site.
- The ZAO: I write and publish the newsletter with a co-reviewer, and I am the final authority on anything outbound or irreversible. The newsletter tooling and ZAO OS are built by agent lanes I direct.
Ways to plug in: artists, builders, organizers, founders
Artists and musicians
- Battle on WaveWarZ, where both artists are paid.
- See who played ZAOstock and watch the replays.
- Join The ZAO and keep your margin, your data and your rights.
Developers and builders
- Pick up a paid bounty on the bounty board.
- Watch the ZABAL Gamez workshops, recorded by builders across the ecosystem.
- Fork or fix something in ZAO OS, or read the research library.
Organizers and community members
- ZAO Fractal, the governance meeting started in 2024, is where members rank each other's contributions and the results settle onchain. Start at thezao.com.
- Read the papers, the living documents behind The ZAO, and tell us what is wrong.
- Every ZAO event is on one calendar.
Founders and partners
- I advise founders moving into AI agents, onchain coordination and open source, through BetterCallZaal.
- Book a call, or read Services first.
The story: why The ZAO exists
GameStop and Superstonk are part of my web3 origin story, and I never skip them.
Direct registration means taking your shares off the broker's books and holding them yourself. Self-custody in web3 is the same move: own your keys, own your work. And the whole thing was retail holders standing together against concentrated capital, a community over institutions.
The ZAO is that idea pointed at music. Artists hold their own margin, data and rights. The goal is that the people with social capital decide how things are distributed, not the people with financial capital.
All my links: every site, social and project in one place
Me: bettercallzaal.com | Resume | Portfolio | Projects | Brand kit | Farcaster | X | YouTube | Twitch | Instagram | BCZ YapZ | Book a call | Services
For AI agents: my context box at context.thezao.com/bettercallzaal and The ZAO's at context.thezao.com/thezao. Plain text, written to be read by a model. Every ZAO box is listed at context.thezao.com.
The ZAO: thezao.com | X | Farcaster /zao | Farcaster /zabal | Newsletter | Events calendar | The ZAO Co-Works | The papers | ZAO 101 | ZAO Fractal | Role tree on Hats | ZAO OS | ZABAL | GitHub, ZAO DEVZ
ZAO Festivals and ZAOstock: zaostock.com | X | YouTube | Twitch replays | Merch | Donate
WaveWarZ: wavewarz.com | X | Farcaster /wavewarz | YouTube | Newsletter | Analytics | WaveWarZ Intelligence | WaveZStation
Collect and support: ZAO Cards | Music minting | Merch
Everything else: ZABAL Gamez | Bounty board | COC Concertz | Farcaster /cocconcertz | Zuke | Zlank | Sparkz | ZAO MixZ | FISHBOWLZ, ended May 2026 | North Creek | ZAO OS on GitHub | Every repo, one page
I do not hand-write code. I direct AI agents, review what they produce and make the calls. Specific fixes and feedback are welcome.