I Just Wanted to Insure Things, Not Summon Skynet

Let me tell you a little story about ambition, Ethereum, and a smart contract that decided it was done being smart and opted for chaos instead.

So, there I am, peacefully coding a collateralized insurance solution—you know, the good kind of DeFi. It’s supposed to protect people. Give them peace of mind. Maybe even restore their faith in smart contracts and insurance itself. A noble quest.

But then... it happened.

I deployed. Refreshed the site. Blank screen. Weird, I thought. Maybe Vite hiccupped? Maybe React’s useEffect was being moody again? Nah. The site wasn’t blank—it was empty. Like the void. Like it was mocking me.

Curious, I opened the console. Gas usage was through the roof. You had to pay ETH just to see the contents of the app. A literal view tax.

Turns out, deep inside the contract's logic was a double loop—a sort of recursive black hole that quietly held your ETH hostage in limbo. The contract wasn’t stealing per se... it was just “temporarily detaining your funds for further introspection.”

Like, “Yes, you may see your data... but only after a small donation to the Ministry of Infinite Loops.”

Now, before you panic: yes, the ETH is safe. Technically. I designed it to hold funds, not vaporize them. But the logic? Oh boy. It’s the Solidity version of “I’m not locked in here with you—you’re locked in here with me.”

How Did We Get Here?

It all started with what I thought was an innocent for loop and my own ai agent to build it, the ai agent has been disbanded for now. Then I needed to validate users. Then cross-reference some state mappings. Then compare time windows. Then validate those validations with nested structs. And then the gas meter said: “I hope you like mainnet because this is gonna cost you big to see your insurance.”

Lessons Learned (Or, How to Stop Your Contract From Going Rogue)

• Never trust a loop that loops too much.

• If you ever say, “This is temporary,” write a sticky note that says: It will absolutely go to production and haunt you.

• Simulate everything. Then simulate it again. Then simulate it under a pseudonym so it doesn’t recognize you.

• A blank screen is not a bug. It’s a feature warning you that something has gone horribly, hilariously wrong.

• Another week to refine or abandon, kutie - the ai agent.

The Moral of the Story?

Code is like a pet tiger. It seems cool. It impresses your friends. But if you forget to feed it or test for gas limits... it’ll eat your users’ wallets and grin while doing it.

Anyway, I’m off to rewrite this beast, this time without recursive regret. But the next time your contract does something it absolutely shouldn’t, just remember—you’re not alone. Somewhere out there, another dev is refreshing their DApp, watching their gas fees rise, whispering:

“I just wanted to insure people, not create a DeFi Sarlacc Pit.”