Martin Lane
Reliable web developer, 10 years, client-focused
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AI Bots is an AI-powered forum add-on that helps online communities automate engagement, streamline moderation, and expand functionality through custom bots. Instead of relying on basic chat tools, communities can deploy bots with advanced capabilities such as vision, image generation, content handling, reminders, and role-based behavior — creating a more interactive and efficient user experience.
For forum owners and community-driven businesses, the product adds value by reducing manual workload, improving response speed, increasing member engagement, and enabling scalable community operations. With built-in permission controls and an extensible architecture, AI Bots can support a wide range of use cases — from member support and content automation to custom workflows tailored to the goals of the platform.
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This project is a real-time chat platform built for forums and online communities. Its goal is to bring the speed and convenience of modern messengers into traditional forum environments, making communication more dynamic, intuitive, and engaging.
The platform supports a wide range of messaging features, including private conversations, public rooms, channels, replies, reactions, mentions, quotes, and media sharing. It is designed to make community interaction feel natural and fluid, whether users are having one-on-one discussions or participating in larger group conversations.
A strong part of the product is its focus on customization and flexibility. Users and communities can personalize themes, adapt the visual style, and create a chat experience that fits their identity. The platform also includes AI-powered capabilities, expanding communication with smarter interactions and enhanced functionality.
Overall, this project represents a modern communication layer for forums – combining performance, usability, and rich features to improve how online communities connect and interact.
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GNZ – Digital Product Store, XenForo Add-ons & Software Studio Platform
GNZ is a software business platform I built and operate, originally focused on XenForo add-ons and now evolving into Genesis Studio – a software studio built around reliable delivery, long-term support, and technical ownership.
I developed the platform end-to-end: landing website, Laravel API, digital product store, licensing system, customer workflows, documentation, analytics, crypto payments, AI assistant, and internal operational infrastructure.
The storefront supports time-based digital licenses, renewals, license blocking, agreements, update access, and API-based license validation integrated with XenForo add-ons. Crypto payments are handled through a self-hosted BTCPay Server infrastructure.
The landing page acts as a fast product and service hub built with Astro, Vue 3, and a Laravel API. I developed a custom AI assistant to help visitors find relevant products and get answers from the studio FAQ.
A key product in the ecosystem is a real-time chat for XenForo communities. It runs on XenForo WebSockets, our open-source add-on that adds WebSocket-based real-time features via the Pusher protocol and self-hosted Soketi, eliminating reliance on third-party SaaS. The product gives XenForo a modern messenger-style chat experience with live message delivery and real-time interaction which significantly exceeds the platform's out-of-the-box capabilities.
I also maintain a self-hosted operations stack for analytics, uptime monitoring, task planning, time tracking, invoicing, surveys, documentation, and secure client communication.
Over 6+ years, GNZ has served hundreds of customers: ~375 license holders, ~500 add-ons developed, ~40 commercial products released, and 150-200 active support clients at peak.
My role covers full-stack development, backend architecture, DevOps, infrastructure, product maintenance, payment systems, licensing logic, documentation, customer support, and long-term technical ownership.
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WisePay – Crypto Payment Processing Platform Prototype for BTC, LTC, ETH, USDT & ERC-20 Payments
WisePay was a crypto payment processing platform designed to help businesses accept Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, USDT, and other ERC-20 token payments through invoices, a merchant dashboard, documentation, and an embeddable payment widget.
Although the product was not publicly launched due to a change in the founder’s priorities, I was responsible for planning and building a large part of its technical and product foundation.
My work included platform architecture, infrastructure planning, BTC/LTC/ETH payment logic, Solidity smart contracts, invoice tracking, landing page development, merchant cabinet design, documentation, content structure, and a web component that allowed merchants to embed a payment widget into their websites.
One of the key engineering challenges was Ethereum payment processing. Unlike Bitcoin and Litecoin, generating a separate Ethereum account for every invoice was not economically practical. To solve this, I designed a smart-contract-based approach that could process and identify payments through blockchain events while keeping funds accumulated under a more efficient structure.
This concept was not copied from an existing public solution at the time – it was an original engineering approach developed during the project. The same idea can also be adapted to any blockchain that supports smart contracts.
For testing, I initially used Geth, but later moved toward a more practical production model based on external blockchain providers instead of running a dedicated Ethereum node on the server.
WisePay gave me deep hands-on experience with cryptocurrency infrastructure, smart contracts, invoice-based payment systems, blockchain event tracking, merchant tools, and the real-world trade-offs involved in building crypto payment infrastructure.
Even though the product remained unreleased, it became an important technical case study in designing reliable, business-oriented blockchain payment software from the ground up.
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