Artur Gulinski is not a developer. He will tell you that himself. But he understands code, and more importantly, he understands people. His career has been defined by operations, by building systems that work at scale, and by managing large, diverse teams, first in the traditional world and then in the chaos of crypto.
“I worked in Sainsbury’s as a general manager,” he says. “I had 126 people, not working for me but with me. It was all about training, safety, KPIs. I covered a region of 10 supermarkets. It was heavy on operations but most of all it was about people.”
His professional past includes sales training, customer success, and marketing ops. He managed sales teams, worked across geographies, and developed a practical toolkit that now serves him well in the uncertain terrain of Web3.
That transition began in 2017 when a friend introduced him to crypto trading. “He told me it was easy money. I joined, made a wallet, bought some coins, some NFTs. I lost a lot of money,” Gulinski says. “I learned very quickly I wasn’t a trader. I don’t have the emotional capacity for it.”
But the experience hooked him. “I started reading. I went deep into blockchain, smart contracts, how to read them, how not to fall for scams. This was before meme coins took off, just utility projects and ICOs.”
Despite losses, he stuck with it. “I fell in love with Web3. That kind of anarchistic philosophy. I never liked governments or banks holding your money. It’s not yours at the end of the day.”
By 2018, he was working full-time in Web3. He consulted for decentralised and centralised exchanges, market makers, NFT projects, and early-stage startups. It was an ecosystem in flux, and Gulinski was in the middle of it.
“I was in the degen phase. I enjoyed it. I made some money, lost some money. We did raffles, whitelists, NFTs. We created 3,000 wallets and got 16 whitelist spots for Murakami Flowers. Each cost 0.1 ETH. We flipped them for 6 ETH each within five minutes. That paid back everything I’d lost trading.”
But for Gulinski, the work was always about more than price action.
“I joined token-gated communities like CPG Club. Amazing people. It was all about networking, about building relationships. That’s what Web3 gave me, access to builders, founders, people doing real work.”
Eventually, he co-founded a Solana-based project that scaled to $200,000 in monthly revenue in six months. It was fast, aggressive, and profitable. But something didn’t sit right.
“It was volume boosting, borderline market making,” he says. “We were deep in the meme coin season. It was a grey area, especially in the US. I knew that with incoming regulations in the EU, we had to pivot.”
When his partners refused, he left.
“I said, I’ll hand over my knowledge, find someone to replace me, and step away. I couldn’t stay in a grey area.”
That’s when Zekret Labs arrived.
Introduced through a network connection, he began working with the team, initially helping with operations and process design. Then he read the whitepaper and started asking questions.
“I don’t go shallow,” he says. “I read everything. I had meetings with the team from Zekret. And I realised this was what I wanted to do. This was the future.”
Zekret Labs is a compliance-focused infrastructure protocol described as Layer 3, or more simply, a regulatory plugin for any L1 or L2 blockchain. The goal is to enable institutional adoption by embedding compliance directly into blockchain architecture without compromising decentralisation.
“We call it Layer 3 because we’re not a chain, we’re not an L2, we’re a plugin,” Gulinski says. “We can plug into any L1 or L2 and create a regulatory framework. Everything goes through our filter. New users, new money, they all go through screening, KYC, and receive a ZK ID. From that point on, they’re compliant.”
He describes it as a protocol-level solution to the chaos of conflicting global regulations. “Projects want to be global. But you can’t build for the EU, US, Dubai, and Hong Kong simultaneously without spending hundreds of thousands a month on compliance. Zekret gives you that plugin. You don’t have to worry.”
The philosophy is simple. Mass adoption will not happen without regulation.
“Everyone talks about mass adoption. But it’s not about onboarding another 50 million retail users. It’s about institutions. If institutions come, they bring users with them. But they can’t come unless they can report.”
Zekret offers institutions clean rails, a system where illicit funds cannot enter, and where users remain decentralised via zero-knowledge proofs but verified through a trusted network of Watchtower nodes.
“These nodes are operated by law firms, regulators, compliance agencies. They can freeze assets, reverse transactions, but only through consensus. It’s like a DAO but for compliance.”
His team is equally compliance-driven. “We’ve got former regulators from the FCA, the Australian government, the New Zealand FMA. People who were pitched by 20 projects and chose us. We’re not a hype project. We’re building infrastructure.”
He’s particularly proud of Zekret’s approach to clean capital. “There’s so much dirty money in crypto. Legacy chains are full of it. You can’t erase history. Zekret starts clean. Everything is screened from day one. If your funds are dirty, they don’t come in.”
For users, this means not being forced to KYC repeatedly. “If I’m not doing anything dodgy, why should I KYC 75 times? With ZK ID, I stay decentralised but I’m verified. It’s a green tick. That’s all institutions need.”
Zekret is currently live on testnet. The core tech is being built in partnership with Avalanche teams and auditors like Hacken and CertiK. Gulinski says the mainnet launch will only happen once everything is ready and audited.
They’re bootstrapped, backed by principal investor Darren Franceschini, a serial Web3 investor, and a team willing to work for tokens. “We believe in the vision. We’ve got people who could demand high salaries, but they’re here because they see the future.”
That future, according to Gulinski, is inevitable.
“Regulations are coming. GDPR, MiCA, SEC, they’re all converging. Most DeFi projects aren’t compliant. In the EU, 85 percent of projects aren’t MiCA-ready, and the clock is ticking. We’re ahead of it.”
Zekret may not be flashy. It may not be designed to pump on day one. But Gulinski isn’t chasing hype.
“I’m still a degen at heart,” he says. “But I’m also an operator. And I know this is the only way institutions join the table.”
