W04 / Case study

One deployment, many artist storefronts

Multi-tenant Next.js on custom domains with per-site config at the edge, and a visual builder for non-engineers.

Client: LiveArt
Role: Full-stack engineer, top contributor to the web3 platform
Period: 2022 — 2025
Stack: Next.js
Vercel Edge Config
Plasmic
wagmi / viem
Prisma
Bitcoin Ordinals

components registered for visual page building: 146
page routes in the multi-tenant site tree: 57
data models behind the backend-for-frontend: 26

01 / Context

Context

LiveArt's NFT and creator platform: drops and collections, minting, staking and claiming, Bitcoin Ordinals, quests and airdrops with an art-price prediction game, and a Creator Hub where artists deploy their own contracts and launch branded sites on their own domains.

02 / Problem

Problem

Every artist wanted a branded site on their own domain, and non-engineers needed to build pages without waiting for a developer. One deployment per artist would not scale, and hand-coded pages would bottleneck on the engineering team.

03 / Architecture

Architecture

The middleware maps any host to a site and reads its settings at the edge, with no database call.

04 / Key decisions

Key decisions

Tenants resolved at the edge
Middleware maps the incoming host to a site and reads per-site settings from Edge Config, so one deployment serves every artist.
Trade-off Edge Config has size limits, so heavy settings stay in the database.
Pages built visually
Engineers register real code components in Plasmic, and non-engineers assemble pages from them.
Trade-off Every new component needs a registration and sensible props.
Contracts deployed from the browser
The Creator Hub deploys the artist's contract from their own wallet, so there is no backend deployer key to protect.
Trade-off Deployment depends on the artist's wallet and gas.
EVM and Bitcoin side by side
EVM wallets and Bitcoin wallets live side by side, so Ordinals drops sit next to EVM collections.
Trade-off Two wallet stacks to keep working.

05 / Hard problems

Hard problems

Tenants within Edge Config limits
Resolving every host to a site at the edge while keeping per-site settings small enough for Edge Config, with heavier data left to the database.
A visual builder at scale
Registering 146 real code components in Plasmic with props safe enough for non-engineers to assemble pages from.
Two wallet ecosystems
Supporting EVM and Bitcoin wallets side by side, from Ordinals tiers to mint pricing with print vouchers.

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