Mazens
Zibara

Product engineer with seven years full-time shipping consumer software, the last three and a half building crypto wallets. Took Plug Wallet from zero to 500 000+ installs as founding engineer and CTO - browser extension, React Native apps, and on-chain infrastructure across Solana, EVM chains, Bitcoin and ICP, including in-wallet perpetual futures and live market data. Previously shipped several of Latvia's most-used consumer apps, including the country's national COVID-19 exposure-notification app.

Current

CTO & founding partner, Plug Wallet

Based

Zurich, Switzerland

Education

Durham CS BSc, 81% avg, top 5% of year

Languages

Latvian, Russian (native) · English (fluent)

1. 500 000+

   Plug Wallet

   Extension · iOS · Android

   Browser extension · Chrome, Firefox, Manifest V3

   

   

   

   

   

   Mobile · iOS & Android, React Native

   

   

   

   

   

   Role

   CTO & founding partner

   Period

   Jan 2023 - present

   Scale

   500 000+ lifetime installs · 150 000 active · $1M+ raised

   Chains

   Solana · EVM · Bitcoin · ICP

   Founded January 2023 and built from scratch: a Manifest V3 browser extension, React Native apps for iOS and Android, and the on-chain infrastructure behind both. Three engineers hired and led.

   Trading sits inside the wallet rather than in a dApp - perpetual futures with candlestick charting on live market data, funding, open interest, margin and long/short entry; spot swaps routed across providers and chains; staking, bridging and supply/borrow markets with live rates and portfolio health. Every surface ships on both the extension and mobile.

   Signing

   Non-custodial on all three surfaces: keys are generated locally and never leave the client, with hardware wallet support for signing. Solana, EVM chains and Bitcoin are each signed natively on-chain, from an EVM transaction to a Bitcoin PSBT over a UTXO set, behind one chain-agnostic account, RPC, gas and signing interface.

   dApp support: provider injection and WalletConnect for Ethereum, sign-in for ICP.

   Also built

   • AI-driven perpetual futures trading on Hyperliquid: strategy generation, backtesting and execution on an agent-wallet architecture.
   • A token launchpad for coins backed by an on-chain treasury of their underlying assets; contracts on HyperEVM, linked below.
   • Direct user and developer support in Discord, feeding roadmap decisions.

   plugwallet.ooo Chrome Web Store Firefox Add-ons App Store Google Play github.com/perpgame/contracts - launchpad contracts, HyperEVM

2. 100 000+

   Apturi Covid

   iOS · Open source

   

   Role

   Led the iOS build

   Period

   2020 · SIA Mitigate

   Built in

   4 weeks

   Source

   Public - read the code

   Latvia's national COVID-19 exposure-notification app, built on the Apple-Google Exposure Notification API and shipped in four weeks to 100 000+ installs.

   github.com/ApturiCOVID/apturicovid-ios

3. 1 000 000+

   Consumer apps, SIA Mitigate

   Combined installs

   Shipped for Latvia's largest companies and municipalities. The install figure is the combined total across all three - per-app numbers aren't broken out.

   • LMT Straume

     iOS · Android · Video streaming

     Live TV and video-on-demand for LMT, Latvia's largest telecommunications operator.

     

     

     

     

   • Aranet Home

     iOS · Android · BLE · IoT

     Air quality and environmental sensor monitoring over Bluetooth Low Energy - hardware integration, live telemetry, and historical charting.

     

     

     

     

   • Mana Pilsēta

     iOS · Android · Civic

     Municipal services for Latvian city residents, shipped as a separate build per municipality. Shown here as Sigulda: news and events, a directory of council services, school meal management, and resident ID cards.

     

     

     

     

Front-end

TypeScript · React · React Native · TanStack Query · Zustand / Redux · Vite

Real-time UI

List virtualization (FlashList) · WebSocket lifecycle - reconnect, backoff, gap backfill · High-frequency update batching · Reanimated

Web3

Solana web3.js · ethers.js · viem · WalletConnect · Bitcoin (UTXO, PSBT) · HyperEVM · ICP (agent-js, ic-agent Rust) · Ed25519 / secp256k1 / P-256 key management · Secure Enclave

Trading

Real-time market data (WebSocket L2 / orderbook feeds) · Perpetuals mechanics - funding, margin, liquidation · Order types and routing · Charting (TradingView, lightweight-charts) · Backtesting

Platform

Browser extensions (Chrome, Firefox, Manifest V3) · iOS (Swift) · Android (Kotlin, Java) · Cross-platform (React Native)

Backend

Node.js · Ruby on Rails · Python · PostgreSQL

Jul 2016 - Dec 2022

SIA Mitigate - Software engineer, then project manager. Part-time during studies, full-time from July 2019. Full-stack delivery: native iOS and Android, TypeScript web frontends, Ruby on Rails backends. Hardware integration specialist - BLE sensors, biometric devices, and telemetry from an autonomous drone. As PM, scoped and led 12 client projects, ran agile delivery, and wrote technical proposals and system documentation.

Oct 2016 - Jul 2019

Durham University - Computer Science BSc, 81% average, top 5% of year. Dissertation on improving supply chain transparency using distributed ledger technology.

Community

Head of the Board, European Youth Parliament Latvia (2018-2020) - set the NGO's four-year strategy, managed finances and sponsorship. Events Head Organiser at EYP Latvia since 2014, running 8 international events for 1,200+ participants. Curator, TEDx Durham University (2015-2018).

Also

Professional pianist - music theory and history degree, Olaine Music and Art School (2004-2014).