WAGMI Ventures Podcast: Recent Episodes
WAGMI Ventures
The WAGMI Ventures Podcast features interviews with the most interesting founders, builders, & investors in web3 (crypto, blockchain) from across the world—hosted by Tanner Gesek, Investor at WAGMI Ventures (wagmiventures.io).
Andrey Chabanov is the Co-Founder & CEO of Wellspring (wellspring.money), a next-generation high-yield savings platform that transforms everyday USD deposits into up to 12% APY through stablecoins and decentralized finance (DeFi).
Wellspring bridges the gap between conventional banking and the world of on-chain finance — delivering accessible, high-yield opportunities powered by audited DeFi lending protocols like Aave and HypurrFi, while keeping funds in self-custodial wallets and maintaining a simple, user-friendly experience that requires no crypto expertise. In this episode, Andrey breaks down how Wellspring makes DeFi yield effortless for everyday savers — converting bank deposits to stablecoins, automating deployment into proven lending strategies, and emphasizing self-custody so your money never fully leaves your control. He explores the real drivers of on-chain yields in 2025, the advantages over traditional high-yield savings accounts, strategies for risk management and security in DeFi, the impact of evolving regulations on mainstream adoption, and why platforms like Wellspring represent the future of personal finance — where transparency, automation, and higher returns empower users without middlemen taking the lion's share. He also dives into practical tips for beating inflation, avoiding common pitfalls, and why now is the moment to rethink how your savings work in a digital-first world.
Kony Kwong is the CEO and Co-Founder of GAIB AI, a pioneering platform transforming physical GPUs into a new yield-bearing asset class. As AI drives exponential demand for computational infrastructure, GAIB stands at the forefront of a new financial frontier — where AI and DeFi converge, to provide additional funding channels for cloud/data centers, while offering investors direct access to the explosive AI economy. With a background spanning quantitative trading, machine learning engineering at top-tier firms, and early bets on the AI + blockchain convergence, Kony brings a sharp operator-investor lens to one of the fastest-moving sectors in tech. In this episode, Kony unpacks WAGMI Ventures’ thesis on why AI agents are the killer app for crypto in 2025 and beyond, how GAIB is transforming physical GPUs into a new yield-bearing asset class, designing autonomous onchain agents that actually own assets, trade, and compound value, and the unique model of simultaneously building and investing behind its own convictions. He dives deep into the technical and economic breakthroughs needed for truly agentic crypto systems, the massive alpha in AI economies, and how GAIB is positioning itself as building the first economic layer for AI compute, bringing new investment possibilities into this surging sector.
Jin Kwon is the Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Saga, a Layer-1 protocol pioneering the future of chainlets and infinitely scalable, parallelized blockchain infrastructure for gaming and high-throughput consumer applications. With deep roots in both traditional venture capital and the cutting edge of Web3, Jin brings a rare blend of strategic insight and hands-on building experience to the rapidly evolving world of decentralized entertainment. Jin dives into Saga’s bold vision of bringing a million chains to life, the economics and incentives behind developer adoption, the critical importance of seamless user experience in mass-market Web3 gaming, and how Saga is positioning itself as the ultimate infrastructure layer for the next generation of onchain worlds. He also shares his perspective on where capital is flowing in the current cycle, why gaming remains the killer use case for blockchain, AI and Saga, and stablecoins.
Francis Berewa is Head of Investments and Growth at zkPass, (https://zkpass.org/), a private data oracle using zero-knowledge and multi-party computation to enables users to selectively and privately validate their data. Backed by Binance Labs, dao5, Animoca Brands, WAGMI Ventures, and others, zkPass empowers decentralized identity verification, on-chain compliance, and seamless data portability across ecosystems. Francis shares his journey from co-founding Homebloc—a blockchain platform for real estate investments—to venture roles, and finally landing at zkPass to drive growth. He discusses zkPass's milestones, powering ZKKYC for identity proofs without document uploads, and partnerships with zkSync, LayerZero, and Galxe to secure millions of private data verifications. Francis dives into the protocol's role in bridging Web2 and Web3 through anti-cheating mechanisms and hybrid ZK proofs, enhancing developer tools for on-chain privacy, and his vision for a decentralized future where users control their digital personas amid rising data regulations and AI-driven threats.
Stephen Hess is Director of the Metaplex Foundation (https://www.metaplex.com), the decentralized steward of the Metaplex protocol on Solana, empowering creators with no-code tools for NFTs, digital assets, and programmable on-chain experiences. Stephen shares his journey from product leadership at Solana Labs and roles at Omada Health to becoming CEO of Metaplex Studios and Director of the Foundation, a key player in Solana's ecosystem backed by Multicoin Capital, Jump Crypto, and a $46 million token sale. He discusses Metaplex’s growth milestones, including pioneering the Solana NFT standard in 2021, introducing compressed NFTs and the Core asset protocol, facilitating billions in trading volume across independent marketplaces, and the July 2025 launch of Genesis—a groundbreaking audited smart contract framework for fair token launches. Genesis prevents front-running and enhances trust with features like configurable launch pools, sealed-bid auctions, fixed-price presales, and on-chain airdrops with vesting, integrated with Solana DEXs for seamless liquidity. Stephen dives into the protocol’s evolution toward a fully decentralized digital asset economy, addressing community debates on governance, protocol fees, and immutability, while sharing his vision for a creator-centric Web3 where programmable NFTs, Solana’s speed, and innovations like Genesis enable equitable ownership and dynamic applications in gaming, music, and beyond.
David Phelps is the Co-Founder of JokeRace (https://jokerace.io), a dynamic, decentralized platform designed to foster community-driven competitions and incentivize innovation within Web3 ecosystems. With a robust background in technology and entrepreneurship, David shares his journey into the decentralized space, from his early contributions in tech to co-founding JokerRace, where he focuses on building an engaging and inclusive Web3 environment. He emphasizes the importance of community-centric infrastructure, the flexible design of JokerRace’s platform, and its critical role in empowering developers and creators to drive innovation through competitive and collaborative frameworks.
Grigore Rosu is the Founder & CEO of Pi Squared, (https://pi2.network/), a groundbreaking Web3 infrastructure company revolutionizing verifiable computing with its Universal Settlement Layer. As a distinguished professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and founder of the K framework and Runtime Verification, Grigore brings unparalleled expertise in formal methods and blockchain innovation. He dives into his journey from NASA to Web3, the philosophy behind Pi Squared’s “Proof of Proof” technology, and the mission to unify fragmented blockchain ecosystems with language-agnostic, zero-knowledge solutions. He dives into his seasoned perspective on unifying the fragmented Web3 space, the art and science behind building trustless, scalable systems, and the nuances of leveraging zero-knowledge proofs for universal computation.
Oliver Shen is the Co-Founder of GATA AI (https://gata.xyz), a pioneering decentralized AI infrastructure platform transforming the trillion-dollar AI economy with tools like GataGPT, DataAgent, and decentralized model inference. Backed by YZiLabs, Gate Ventures, IDG Blockchain, and others, GATA is breaking data and compute monopolies to empower community-driven AI innovation. In this episode, Oliver shares his journey from conceptualizing Aggregata to launching GATA, overcoming challenges in decentralized data curation, and building a privacy-first, on-chain ecosystem where users retain data ownership. He discusses Gata’s innovative product matrix, including GataGPT’s intelligent interaction layer and DataAgent’s decentralized validation, alongside strategic partnerships like Mind Network for enhanced privacy via Fully Homomorphic Encryption. Oliver also highlights GATA AI's roadmap, positioning GATA AI as a leader in scalable, censorship-resistant AI infrastructure.
Ammar Zaeem is the CEO & Co-Founder of Revolving Games (https://revolvinggames.com), a leading innovator in blockchain gaming, building immersive, decentralized gaming experiences powered by Web3 technology. Backed by top-tier investors like Pantera Capital, Animoca Brands, and Polygon Ventures, Revolving Games is redefining the gaming industry with scalable, player-owned ecosystems. In this episode, Ammar shares his journey from traditional gaming to pioneering Web3 game development, overcoming challenges in blockchain scalability, and creating engaging, community-driven gaming universes. He discusses Revolving Games’ innovative approach to integrating NFTs and decentralized economies, their robust tech stack, and strategic partnerships that empower players with true ownership and interoperability. Ammar also highlights Revolving Games’ latest milestones, positioning the studio as a trailblazer in the future of decentralized gaming.
Josh Benaron is the Founder & CEO of Irys (https://irys.xyz), the world’s first programmable Layer-1 datachain designed to integrate low-cost, scalable storage with high-performance, EVM-compatible execution via IrysVM. Backed by Lemniscap, Framework Ventures, and Primitive Ventures, Irys is revolutionizing onchain data infrastructure for AI, IP, and consumer applications. In this episode, Josh shares his journey from building Bundlr Network to launching Irys, overcoming challenges in transaction scalability on Arweave, and creating a network where data is not just stored but programmable—embedded with instructions to automate AI workflows, enforce ownership, and trigger smart contracts. He discusses Irys’s innovative multi-ledger system, hybrid consensus model, and strategic partnerships, which enable composable utilities and cost-efficient data solutions. Josh also highlights Irys’s testnet achievements, positioning Irys as the future of trust and scalability in decentralized ecosystems.
Yat Siu is Co-Founder and Chairman of Animoca Brands (https://www.animocabrands.com), a global leader in blockchain gaming, investing and web3, championing digital property rights through decentralized ecosystems. Yat shares his thoughts on stakeholder capitalism, redefining economic models by empowering users as network owners, as well as groundbreaking initiatives like Open Campus, which integrates blockchain into education to revolutionize student loan financing. He discusses the emergence of AI crypto use cases, and its role in enhancing transparency, reflections on the positive developments in the evolving U.S. regulatory landscape, and his vision for a decentralized future where crypto fosters equitable digital economies and cultural innovation. Yat's insights are some of the most valuable in the world.
Deborah Simpier is Co-Founder and CEO of Althea (https://althea.net), a decentralized infrastructure platform revolutionizing internet access through blockchain-based, community-driven networks. Deborah shares her journey from advocating for net neutrality and running a rural IT business to co-founding DePIN network, Althea, a company pioneering multi-stakeholder networks with innovative products like KeyLTE and Liquid Infrastructure. She discusses Althea’s milestones, including deploying networks in rural Oregon, powering connectivity in the Arctic Circle, and enabling the first ApplePay transaction on CBRS spectrum. Deborah dives into how Althea’s price-aware routing protocol and blockchain-based payment system empower communities to build affordable, resilient internet infrastructure, challenging legacy telecom models. She also shares her vision for a decentralized future where blockchain and 5G converge to democratize connectivity, foster equitable digital access worldwide, and usher the convergence of DeFi, DePIN, and real-world utility pushing forward the vision of democratized, autonomous infrastructure.
Itai Turbahn is Co-Founder and CEO of Dynamic (https://www.dynamic.xyz), a Web3 authentication platform that simplifies wallet-based login and onboarding through a flexible SDK, combining authentication, smart wallets, and secure key management. Itai shares his journey from product management leadership roles and consulting at the Boston Consulting Group to co-founding Dynamic, a company backed by a16z crypto, Founders Fund, and others. He discusses how Dynamic’s growth, milestones, including sponsoring six major hackathons, supporting 400 teams, and powering millions of monthly user logins, has advanced Web3 adoption. Itai dives into the platform’s role in simplifying developer workflows, enhancing user onboarding with features like social logins and Global Identities, and his vision for a more intuitive crypto future where wallet infrastructure empowers seamless cross-chain interactions.
Kurt Larsen is Co-Founder of Rhinestone (https://www.rhinestone.wtf), a platform revolutionizing Web3 by building modular smart account infrastructure to enhance interoperability, security, and developer accessibility. Kurt shares his journey from a banker to launching markets for Deliveroo and leading a machine learning product division, to co-founding Rhinestone, which recently raised $5 million in a seed round led by 1kx, with support from CoinFund, Lattice, Heartcore, Circle Ventures, among others. He discusses how his early fascination with crypto in 2017, coupled with insights from building Deliveroo’s marketplace algorithms, exposed the flaws of centralized networks and fueled Rhinestone’s mission to create user-friendly, self-sovereign tools that rival Web2 simplicity. Kurt dives into Rhinestone’s platform for developers to build and monetize smart account modules, the challenges of improving Web3 UX, and his vision for smart accounts as the dominant interface for users, AI agents, and blockchain-integrated systems in the next three to five years.
Nirav Murthy is CEO, Co-Founder of CAMP Network (https://www.camp.network), a Layer-1 blockchain designed to modernize intellectual property (IP) infrastructure, empower decentralized identity and data sovereignty, and power the next generation of AI Agents on verifiable IP. In this episode, Nirav shares his journey from advising global media and tech brands at The Raine Group to co-founding CAMP Network’s modular platform that empowers creators to own and monetize their IP. He discusses how CAMP’s Proof of Provenance (PoP) Protocol and zero-knowledge technology tackle scalability and privacy challenges, his insights on bridging social media data with on-chain value creation, and driving innovation to deliver intellectual property (IP) infrastructure, enabling user owned IP.
Rich Rines is a Initial Contributor at Core DAO (https://www.coredao.org), the first proof-of-stake (PoS) layer for Bitcoin, pioneering self-custodial Bitcoin staking and hosting the largest Bitcoin DeFi ecosystem. In this episode, Rich shares his journey from re-discovering Bitcoin in 2013, captivated by its potential as a non-sovereign store of value, to becoming a key figure in Core DAO’s mission to bridge Bitcoin’s security with DeFi innovation. He dives into how Core DAO’s layer-1 revolutionary infrastructure leverages the complementary qualities of proof-of-stake (PoS) alongside proof-of-work (PoW), and discusses his prior experience leading money movement engineering at Coinbase. He provides insights into how Core DAO’s Satoshi Plus consensus mechanism integrates Bitcoin miners and non-custodial Bitcoin staking to unlock Bitcoin’s potential for DeFi applications. He also addresses navigating technical challenges, his vision for user-friendly decentralized solutions, and driving global adoption to make Bitcoin-powered Web3 accessible to all, no matter where they are.
Ezra Kebrab is CEO and Co-Founder of Caliza (https://www.caliza.com), a platform leveraging stablecoin infrastructure to revolutionize cross-border payments, enabling instant, cost-effective international transactions, with a focus on Latin America. Ezra shares his journey from leading fintech initiatives at Visa and Intuit to building Caliza’s API-driven platform that bridges the gap in global finance. He also discusses how Caliza is reshaping the future of stable finance in Latin America, tackling regulatory and compliance challenges, his thoughts on the on-chain settlement buildout - DREX in Brazil, and driving innovation to make digital dollar accounts accessible to all, no matter where they are.
Tom Trowbridge is CEO and Co-Founder of Fluence Labs (https://fluence.network), a decentralized, enterprise-grade cloud infrastructure with global compute. Tom dives into Fluence’s mission to reshape the future of the internet through its cloudless computing platform, offering resilient, low-cost, and open alternatives to traditional cloud services. He discusses how Fluence’s DePIN platform, governed by the Fluence DAO and powered by FLT on Ethereum, delivers cheaper decentralized compute compared to conventional providers while enhancing security, scalability, and censorship resistance. Tom shares his journey from launching Hedera Hashgraph to building Fluence Labs, addressing challenges like customer acquisition and simplifying messaging for non-crypto audiences.
Illia Polosukhin is Co-Founder of NEAR, (https://www.near.ai), a high-performant, AI-native blockchain platform that provides the infrastructure needed for AI applications and agents to transact, operate, and interact across both Web2 and Web3. With a deep background in machine learning and software engineering, Illia shares his journey into crypto, from early contributions in tech to co-founding NEAR, where he focuses on building an accessible Web3 ecosystem. He emphasizes the importance of user-centric blockchain infrastructure, the modularity of NEAR’s design, and its role as a leading stack for creating decentralized applications, empowering developers to innovate seamlessly.
Patrick O'Grady is Founder and CEO of Commonware, (https://www.commonware.xyz), an open-source set of primitives that developers can use to build and reassemble their applications without resorting to a complicated fork. Patrick shares his journey into crypto, building in the early days at Coinbase and thereafter joining Ava Labs, where he left to pursue his passion for simplifying blockchain development with the founding of Commonware. He discusses the importance of application specific blockchains, the modularity of Commonware and how it is being designed to be "the best verticalized stack" for building blockchain applications.
Ryne Saxe is CEO and Co-Founder of Eco, (https://www.eco.com), a network for apps that use stablecoins and stablecoin liquidity, providing a frictionless stablecoin experience that accelerates user onboarding and streamlines money movement onchain. Ryne is quite the polymath, sharing his journey as a physicist, coder, lawyer, turned technology founder. He shares his unique perspective on the evolution of payments technology over the last decade, its embrace of crypto, stablecoins as crypto's killer use case, and insights into building Eco to a platform that maximizes money’s value, with seamless user experience, especially as his second run as Eco’s CEO.
Siddarth "Sid" Sridhar is Founder and CEO of BIMA Labs (https://www.bima.money), a decentralized finance platform that enables users to stake assets like Bitcoin and Bitcoin derivatives such as Liquid Staked Tokens (LST), to borrow USBD, a stablecoin pegged to the US Dollar. Sid talks about his journey from being a Draper-backed investor at 19 years old to being a crypto founder in the BitcoinFi space, the role of USDB plays in social impact by promoting financial inclusion, why over-collateralization is crucial for stability in the USBD model, how USBD differs from other traditional stablecoins - and insights on how BIMA's stablecoin, the USBD, fits into the broader financial ecosystem.
Aki Balogh is Founder and CEO of iBTC, (https://www.ibtc.network), a platform that harnesses the power of Discrete Log Contracts (DLCs) to establish the safest, theft-proof, and institutionally compliant trustless bridge between Bitcoin. Aki shares his journey into entrepreneurship and consequently crypto, discusses his vision of how Discrete Log Contracts (DLCs) can unlock BTCFi, the mechanics of iBTC fka dlcLink, and his thoughts on the exploding Bitcoin Layer 2 ecosystem.
Elias Tazartes is Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Kakarot, (https://www.kakarot.org), a zero-knowledge EVM written in Cairo aiming to allow users to leverage the scaling benefits of validity roll-ups while maintaining compatibility with the Ethereum ecosystem. Elias shares on the emergence of verifiable computing and how Kakarot is innovating applied Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP) to transform the blockchain industry securing billions of transactions. Elias dives deep into Kakarot’s evolution as it crosses its two-year anniversary, discussing the challenges ahead, the ambitious goals for 2025 and beyond, and how Kakarot is delivering Ethereum-compatible block proving in real-time. He also sheds light on the larger vision of ZK's role in evolving Ethereum and the broader digital ecosystem.
Jason Li is Co-Founder of Solayer Labs, (https://www.solayer.org), builder of Solayer, the hardware-accelerated blockchain, infinitely scaling the SVM to enable high-throughput, near-zero latency use cases. Jason returns this season to share the latest on this revolutionary innovation in blockchain, which enables a mind-blowing 100 Gbps throughput while maintaining an atomic state. He walks us through Solayer's vision of a world where billions of people can process USDC transactions, game in real-time, stream 8K videos, and trade at lightning speed—all within the Solayer blockchain ecosystem.
Eric Won Choi is CEO and Founder of The Guild, a decentralized web3 protocol that combines gig economy elements with social networking, enabling users to monetize their networks and build verified on-chain reputations. Eric shares about his crypto and founder journeys, key insights on on-chain community development, why he is innovating in the on-chain community space, growing the blockchain ecosystem in Korea, the future of web3 communities, and the work behind building the world’s first fully on-chain multi-tier, multi-level affiliate program, a key part of the Guild protocol's stack.
Alex Ryvkin is CEO and Founder of Rho Labs, an institutional grade decentralized crypto native marketplace that allows retail and professional traders to efficiently trade swaps and futures on-chain compliantly. Alex joins us to discuss his journey in traditional finance and crypto, building the first crypto interest rates derivatives exchange, an asset class currently valued at over $500 trillion, opportunities for investors and traders given the broader risk-off sentiment, and the road ahead for Rho Labs.
Ash Arora, is an Investment Partner at LocalGlobe, (https://www.phoenixcourt.vc/localglobe), a top-tier European early-stage venture capital firm renowned for backing unicorns like SoRare, LayerZero, Robinhood, Figma, Wise, and Twitter (X). As a Strategic Partner and valued member of the WAGMI Ventures family, Ash leads LocalGlobe’s Enterprise AI and Frontier Technology Investments practice. She dives into her seasoned perspective on investing in crypto, navigating crypto market cycles, the art and philosophy behind spotting winning investments, and the nuances of deploying capital in today’s complex global macro environment. Sharp insights and actionable wisdom from one of the industry’s most dynamic frontier tech investing voices.
Miguel de Vega is the Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Nillion, a decentralized infrastructure network based on the use of various privacy enhancing technologies to support private storage and computation of sensitive data, while seamlessly connecting to existing blockchain infrastructure. Miguel discusses his journey into crypto, his extensive background in AI, how Nillion seeks to provide decentralized privacy and compute solutions leveraging multi-party computation and fully homomorphic encryption, the importance of decentralization, and ethics and responsibility in AI.
Charlie Hu is the Co-Founder and CEO of Bitlayer, a pioneering Bitcoin security-equivalent Layer 2 solution aimed at overcoming scalability and smart contract limitations of Bitcoin utilizing BitVM paradigm and zero-knowledge proofs. Charlie shares his journey in the Bitcoin ecosystem, Bitlayer's approach to scaling and enabling a more programmable and secure Bitcoin ecosystem, the road ahead for Bitlayer, and how this innovation is redefining the decentralized finance landscape.
Michael Heinrich is the Co-Founder and CEO of Zero Gravity (0G), the fastest modular AI blockchain, providing unmatched infrastructure to scale both Web3 and AI, future-proofing the massive demands of AI infrastructure. 0G recently closed a $40 million seed round and secured another $250 million in liquid funds for its blockchain-based decentralized AI infrastructure. Michael shares his interesting journey into crypto, personal story on what drives him, how 0G achieves high data availability through its unique architecture separating data storage and data publishing, AI as a public good, and his takes on the future of AI x Crypto.
Dmitriy Berenzon is a Partner at Archetype (https://archetype.fund), an early-stage venture fund focused on accelerating the decentralized future, by backing the next generation of crypto founders disrupting the status quo. Dmitriy drives research, investments, portfolio support and fund strategy at Archetype. He shares his extensive experience as a crypto investor through the different phases of crypto development and adoption, the investment philosophy at Archetype, and his insightful thoughts across DePIN v DeVIN, verifiable compute, and the massive network effect of stablecoins.
Daryl Xu is Co-Founder of NPC Labs (https://npclabs.org), a core contributor to B3.fun, a game ecosystem built on Base, committed to building a seamless and open game ecosystem to change the ownership and incentive model of gamers and developers, as well as provide web2 gaming developers the necessary infrastructure to transition on-chain and to create an engaging user experience with casual and hyper-casual games. Backed by Pantera Capital, Makers Fund, Hashed, Collab+Currency, Mirana Venture among others, Daryl discusses his experience building at Coinbase, the vision and creation of NPC Labs, challenges building an ecosystem of chains, managing strong user engagement, and the potential for blockchain to revolutionize the gaming industry.
Rushi Manche is Co-Founder of Movement Labs (https://www.movementlabs.xyz), developer of the Movement Network, an ecosystem of modular Move language based blockchains, creating the Move Virtual Machine Layer 2 for Ethereum, that enables developers to launch high-performance Move-VM rollups easily, bridging Move and EVM ecosystems. Backed by Polychain, Hack VC, Placeholder, Archetype, Aptos Labs, among others, Rushi discusses the limitations of monolithic blockchains, and how Move-VM, through parallelization of execution threads addresses Ethereum's shortcomings.
Jordan Oroshiba is CTO and Co-Founder of Astria (https://www.astria.org), a modular blockchain that allows individuals to deploy their own censorship-resistant rollup without relying on a centralized sequencer, easily allowing many rollups to share a single decentralized network of sequencers that’s simple and permissionless to join. Jordan shares his thoughts on the modular blockchain ecosystem, issues Astria addresses across data availability and sequencing, and how Astria is re-inventing the space post mainnet.
Chjango Unchained is host of Interchain.FM (https://interchain.fm), a technical podcast that covers cutting edge crypto projects, and was one of the founding members of Cosmos Network. Actively involved in Cosmos appchains as a validator, investor, and advisor, Chjango is a long standing crypto evangelist, community builder, and specialist on Layer 1 consensus protocols. She shares about her journey from NASA Jet Propulsion Labs to being an early crypto builder and adopter, the evolution of crypto from 2017 to present day, building out the multichain vision, barriers to entry for building in crypto today, and her macro narrative on true decentralization.
Ron Bodkin is CEO and Co-Founder of TheoriqAI (https://www.theoriq.ai), the first on-chain multi-agent system, enabling users to build, deploy, and earn via a community-governed AI agent marketplace, developed under the ChainML AI agent research and development platform. Ron has held pioneering AI roles at the world's most innovative tech companies, shares his journey from Google to founding TheoriqAI, his passionate commitment to community governed AI, the role of decentralization in ensuring safe and ethical AI, and his reflections on data economy creation as a use case.
Chris Yin is Co-Founder at Plume Network (https://www.plumenetwork.xyz), a purpose built public layer-2 blockchain and ecosystem optimized for the rapid adoption and demand-driven integration of real world assets (RWAs). Backed by Haun Ventures, Galaxy Ventures, Superscrypt, Reciprocal Ventures and others, Chris passionately shares about his founder to investor to founder journey, how Plume Network is transforming the RWA/RWAfi space, building fullstack RWA infrastructure to deploy any asset onchain compliantly, and managing their fast growing ecosystem.
Ani Pai is Partner at Dragonfly (https://www.dragonfly.xyz), one of the largest and most successful global crypto-focused venture capital firms, investing across all stages of blockchain and crypto-native companies, protocols and tokens. Ani discusses his journey as an investor, Dragonfly's contrarian and long term approach to investing, the due diligencing framework that continues to deliver winning projects, rate cuts and its impact on investing into 2025, and his view on the current venture capital cycle.
Albert Castellana Lluis is CEO and Founder of GenLayer (https://www.genlayer.io), the world’s first intelligent blockchain, enabling smart contracts to use Large Language Models (LLMs) to access the internet’s knowledge to make complex decisions in a decentralized manner. Albert, a serial entrepreneur, shares about his extensive background building in blockchain, integration of artificial intelligence to developing intelligent smart contracts, and security considerations in this innovative approach.
Ittai Svidler and Jonah Erlich are Co-CEOs and Co-Founders of Den (https://www.onchainden.com), a self-custodial, multi-signature wallet for on-chain organizations managing protocols, DeFi and on-chain operations. The duo share behind the scenes takes on their viral hit project, ConstitutionDAO, and how it led them to the journey of building Den's suite of multi-signature tools that make it easier for crypto projects to move their operations fully on-chain, addressing key coordination challenges.
Ryan Bozarth is CEO and Co-Founder of Dakota (https://www.dakota.xyz) a modern, crypto-native banking platform allowing companies to easily accept and make payments in USD or crypto, operate globally, and generate yield automatically. Ryan shares his journey in crypto, from working as Head of Product at Anchorage, CEO of Coinbase Custody, to founding Dakota – building a stellar team across fintech, traditional finance, and crypto security to deliver modern business banking powered by crypto.
Luca Prosperi is CEO and Co-Founder of M^0 Labs (https://www.m0.org) Backed by Bain Crypto, Pantera Capital, Galaxy Ventures, SCB 10X and others, M^0 democratizes access to money issuance infrastructure, with a decentralized architecture and best-in-class collateral design, allowing institutions to issue fungible cryptodollars. Luca shares his journey from traditional finance to innovating in crypto, the evolution of stablecoin assets, and building an open, decentralized and interoperable money middleware disrupting legacy monetary infrastructure.
David Aronchick is CEO and Co-Founder of Expanso (https://www.expanso.io). Backed by General Catalyst, Hetz Ventures, and Array Ventures, Expanso, simplifies data governance with an architecture that streamlines management and control of data flows without losing functionality, delivering compute over data. David discusses his journey from big tech firms to co-founding Kubeflow at Google, leading innovative startups and now building Expanso, where they are revolutionizing distributed data processing, enabling edge computing to help organizations innovate and scale quickly.
Yitong Zhang is CEO and Co-Founder of Agora (https://www.agora.xyz). Backed by Haun Ventures, Coinbase Ventures and Consensys Ventures, among others, Agora is a cross-chain platform that offers a new standard of on-chain governance for protocols. Yitong discusses how Agora is simplifying on-chain governance and developing tooling for the future state of token-backed voting and collective governance.
Sergey Gorbunov is CEO and Co-Founder of Axelar Network (https://www.axelar.network). Axelar is a programmable interoperability platform that unifies web3 across chains. Sergey joined us to chat about his work building Axelar, solving blockchain interoperability and the security challenges along the way, and insights into shaping the future of open interoperability.
Matt Katz is CEO and Co-Founder of Caldera (http://caldera.xyz). Caldera specializes in building high-performance, customizable, and application-specific layer-two and layer-three blockchains. In this episode, Matt shares his thoughts on the modular blockchain ecosystem, how Caldera is enabling the growth and development of modular blockchains, and the Metalayer: Caldera's innovative interoperability ecosystem.
Fisher Mingchao Yu is Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Babylon Labs (http://babylonchain.io). Babylon is an innovative project designed to improve the security of Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchains by enabling Bitcoin holders to earn yield by putting their idle Bitcoins to work to bolster the economic security of Proof-of-Stake (PoS) chains and dApps. In this episode, we chat with Fisher as he breaks down in systematic detail, the unique challenges of building staking infrastructure on the Bitcoin blockchain, Babylon's trustless and decentralized approach to enabling the scaling of bitcoin to secure PoS chains and dApps, and the innovation journey of the protocol.
Jason Li is Co-Founder of Solayer. Backed by Polychain Capital, Hack VC, Binance Labs, Big Brain Holdings, ABCDE and others, Solayer is the restaking protocol on Solana, securing both endogenous AVS (dApps) through stake-weighted quality of service and exogenous AVS via Solana-based POS primitives. In this episode, Jason unpacks why (re)staking is one of the strongest narratives in crypto today, it's importance to the development of crypto, and how Solayer is leveraging the economic principles of staking with its unique innovative network bandwidth optimization approach, and how it can extend security beyond Solana.
Stephen McKeon is the Co-Founder & Managing Partner @ Collab+Currency (https://www.collabcurrency.com). Collab+Currency is a crypto-focused venture firm and one of the most prolific venture investors in Web3. Their investments in companies, DAO’s, and protocols include AllianceDAO, Arbitrum, Polygon, Seed Club, Sound.xyz, Superrare, & more. In this episode we discuss Collab+Currency’s latest thesis (including thoughts on AI/Crypto intersection), his most accurate predictions and his past narrative misses, founder advice (from the other side of the table) for surviving and thriving in crypto, & much more.
Recorded Thursday June 13, 2024.
Jason Zhao is the Co-Founder & Head of Product @ Story Protocol. Backed by a16z crypto, Endeavor, Hashed, Samsung Next, dao5, Insignia Venture Partners, Alliance DAO, Balaji Srinivasan, and more. Story Protocol is building the Programmable IP layer that is democratizing IP creation through a global and extensible IP repository. In this episode, Jason discusses his background and journey into Crypto, his vision for what Story Protocol is creating, challenges the team has faced, and the opportunities that excite him moving forward.
MacBrennan Peet is the Co-Founder @ marginfi. Backed by Multicoin, Pantera, Sino Global Capital, & Solana Ventures, marginfi is a decentralized lending and borrowing protocol on Solana. In this episode we discuss the latest leadership adjustment at marginfi, all the interesting work they’re shipping over the coming year (and what it means for the ecosystem), challenges (from past, in present) and how their team thinks about solving those obstacles, and much more.
Recorded Monday April 29, 2024.
Scott Dykstra is the Co-Founder & CTO @ Space and Time (https://www.spaceandtime.io). Backed by M12, Framework, & more, Space and Time is the first decentralized data warehouse that delivers sub-second ZK proofs against onchain and offchain data to power the future of AI x blockchain. In this episode we talk about why trust in analytics through cryptographic verification matters, possible surprises or future trajectories for the intersection of AI x crypto, insights from his founder journey that may be useful for new founders in the space, & much more.
Recorded Wednesday April 24, 2024.
Alex Cort is the Co-Founder @ Superform (https://www.superform.xyz). Backed by Polychain, Maven 11 Capital, CMT Digital, & more, Superform is a universal yield marketplace—enabling users to access any vault, on any chain, using any token, as well as distribute your vaults instantly across chains. In this episode we chat through exciting trajectories for what they’re building (and expected second-order effects), common failure modes for building in crypto, how crypto’s changed since Alex’s beginnings in the space, & much more.
Recorded Thursday April 11, 2024.
Yair Cleper is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Lava (https://www.lavanet.xyz). Backed by WAGMI Ventures, Hashkey Capital, Jump, Tribe Capital, & more, Lava is a modular network which rollups use to bootstrap a performant network of infrastructure providers. RPC requests are routed to the best available provider, giving developers and users optimal service. In this episode we talk about most exciting trajectories for the product vision, mistakes teams often make when building in crypto, what crypto’s getting right (and wrong) in 2024, his best advice for building infra in crypto, & much more.
Recorded Thursday April 11, 2024.
Alex Adelman is the Founder & CEO @ Lolli (https://www.lolli.com). Backed by WAGMI Ventures, Founders Fund, Bain Capital Ventures, Alexis Ohanian/776, Mr. Beast’s Night Ventures, & more, Lolli enables shoppers to get up to 30% back in cash or bitcoin across 25,000+ top stores with the free Lolli browser extension & mobile app. With partners like Nike, Chewy, Microsoft, Sephora, & Lowe’s, Lolli is building the category-defining company for bitcoin rewards. In this episode we talk about how to get partnerships right (in such a partnership-driven model), earliest challenges and earliest surprises that shaped the DNA of Lolli, how to avoid common mistakes of building in crypto (hint: survive!), what crypto’s getting right (and wrong) in 2024, and much more.
Clarisse Hagège is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Dfns (https://www.dfns.co). Backed by Coinbase, 6MV, Figment, & more, Dfns is the WaaS (wallets-as-a-service) platform chosen by leading organizations to streamline digital asset operations and onboard users into crypto, safely. With >1M wallets created, 0 wallets hacked, and >$500M transactions secured, Dfns makes it easy to deploy feature-rich web3 wallets directly into your stack. In this episode we talk about how Dfns thinks about getting security right, what’s most exciting about their current trajectory, how the space has changed since Clarisse’s beginnings in web3, best advice for web3 founders, & much more.
Recorded Monday April 1, 2024.
Adeniyi Abiodun is the Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer @ Mysten Labs (https://mystenlabs.com). Backed by a16z Crypto, Jump Capital, Binance Labs, Electric Capital, & more, Mysten Labs is all about building critical infrastructure to enable a more decentralized internet. They’re perhaps best known as the creators of Sui, a decentralized, proof of stake blockchain with horizontally scalable throughput and storage. In this episode we discuss Adeniyi’s crypto journey (with a focus on the jump from Meta to creating Mysten Labs), what Mysten Labs gets uniquely right as a team, early challenges (and solves) as well as exciting possibilities for the future, thoughts on the current moment in crypto (from a technology and maturation perspective), & much more.
Recorded Thursday March 28, 2024.
Ben James is the Founder @ Atlas (https://atlas.design). Backed by WAGMI Ventures, Square Enix, a16z Scout Fund, & Collab+Currency, Atlas’ vision is to become the market leader of 3D Generative AI for the next generation of immersive virtual worlds across gaming, web3, and entertainment. In this episode we talk about how virtual world design currently takes place, how what Atlas is building is such a stepwise change from status quo, what Atlas enables (now and in the future), how to build the right team to create something so remarkable, thoughts on the future of generative AI writ large, & much more.
Recorded Wednesday March 27, 2024.
Chris Were is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Verida (https://www.verida.io). Backed by Launchub, Gate Labs, Qwerty Fund, & more, Verida is creating a new era of hyper-personalization, where user data is privately and consensually used to create new products and services. In this episode we discuss what becomes possible as Verida scales, thoughts on self-sovereign identity, Verida’s experience launching the first mobile crypto wallet supporting zero-knowledge credentials issued through Polygon ID, & much more.
Recorded Monday March 25, 2024.
Mike Hanono is the Founder & CEO @ Talus (https://twitter.com/TalusNetwork). Backed by WAGMI Ventures, Polychain, dao5, & more, Talus is building at the intersection of crypto & AI. In this episode we discuss the current state of AI and blockchain technology, smart agents (and the corresponding usefulness of blockchains), Mike’s perspective on what wastes time during the early stages of a startup, what future possible trajectories could look like, & much more.
Recorded Thursday March 7, 2024.
Michael Shaulov is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Fireblocks (https://www.fireblocks.com). Backed by Sequoia Capital, Coatue, Paradigm, & more, Fireblocks is a digital asset infrastructure provider, with thousands of crypto businesses building on top of its products, 170M+ wallets created, $4T+ transactions secured. In this episode we discuss the Michael’s journey to creating Fireblocks, a unified view of the various products and services Fireblocks provides, how Fireblocks navigated the bear market, a deep-dive on stablecoins (present, future), how the future of crypto might look (from Michael’s vantage point), best advice for new crypto founders, & much more.
Recorded Tuesday March 5, 2024.
Jess Houlgrave is the CEO @ WalletConnect (https://walletconnect.com). Backed by Union Square Ventures, 1kx, & more, WalletConnect gives developers the tools to build secure, interactive, and powerful experiences that users everywhere can enjoy. In this episode we discuss Jess’ remarkable journey to the CEO role, most exciting possibilities at WalletConnect, what crypto’s getting right (and wrong) in 2024, what mistakes she most often sees from others building similar products, & much more.
Recorded Monday March 4, 2024.
David Furlong is the Founder @ Openframes (https://www.modprotocol.org). Backed by a16z Startup School & Dan Romero, Openframes is enabling developers to build mini-apps that are open, interoperable, and permissionless, now available for Farcaster. In this episode we discuss the nature of pivoting (what makes pivot good vs. bad), how to adapt in the fast-moving world of blockchain technology, why what’s happening within decentralized social matters so much, how to stick with your principles (in an especially tricky field to do so), & much more.
Recorded Friday March 1, 2024.
Jay Kurahashi-Sofue is the VP Marketing @ Ava Labs (https://www.avalabs.org). Backed by Polychain Capital, a16z, & more, Ava Labs is the creator of Avalanche, the fastest smart contracts platform in the blockchain industry, as measured by time-to-finality. Avalanche is blazingly fast, low cost, and eco-friendly. In this episode we discuss Jay’s advice on biggest marketing pitfalls to avoid for protocols, what it will take for crypto to move past the bad actors into new frontiers, what Ava Labs is focused on right now, & much more.
Recorded Tuesday February 27, 2024.
Austin Green is the Co-Founder @ Llama (https://llama.xyz). Backed by Founders Fund, Electric Capital, Elad Gil, & more, Llama is a full-stack platform for on-chain access control and governance, where users can securely take action using on-chain policies and custom execution strategies. In this episode we discuss Austin’s path to conviction around the problem space, his perspective on progressive decentralization (and how Llama fits into that perspective), how crypto’s changed since his introduction to the space, best advice for crypto founders in 2024, & much more.
Recorded Thursday February 22, 2024.
Bryce Ferguson & Jack Kearney are the Co-Founders of Turnkey (https://www.turnkey.com). Backed by Sequoia, Variant, Coinbase, & Exponent, Turnkey enables developers to spin-up thousands of wallets and sign millions of transactions, all without compromising on security. In this episode we discuss the preceding steps to launching Turnkey (and how they reached conviction on the opportunity), earliest challenges and surprises (and how their team navigated both), how crypto’s changed in the intervening years since their entrance to the space, & much more.
Recorded Friday February 16, 2024.
Dave Balter is the Founder & CEO @ Flipside Crypto (https://flipsidecrypto.xyz). Backed by HashKey Capital, Dapper Labs, M13, & more, Flipside Crypto offers decoded blockchain data for querying and building in its Studio. Users can also earn as an analyst by making dashboards and boards for various Web3 projects and networks. In this episode we talk about their journey through the bear market (as told via his open Medium letter to his team), what’s been different building Flipside Crypto (relative to other companies he’s founded), what we’re getting right (and wrong) in crypto here in 2024, and much more.
Recorded Monday February 12, 2024.
Ismael Hishon-Rezaizadeh is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Lagrange Labs (https://lagrange.dev). Backed by 1kx, Daedalus, Maven 11 Capital, & more, Lagrange Labs enables seamless interaction between chains with cryptographically secure state proofs, not opaque intermediaries. Developers can now run expressive and dynamic distributed ZK computation at a Big Data scale on top of multi-chain contract states. In this episode we chat through what they’re building (in its fullness), their recent collaboration with EigenLayer, biggest surprises thus far in creating Lagrange Labs, best advice for crypto founders, & much more.
Recorded Monday February 5, 2024.
Tyler Williams is the Head of Policy @ Galaxy Digital (https://www.galaxy.com). Galaxy Digital is a company that offers solutions to the digital asset and blockchain industry, such as global markets, asset management, and digital infrastructure. In this episode, we discuss the posture of market regulators and the executive branch toward crypto, key legislative battles on the horizon (and how crypto fits), whether crypto self-defeats in policy discussions, what material progress could look like for policy related to the crypto space, and much more.
Recorded Friday February 9, 2024.
Burnt Banksy is the Founder of Burnt (https://burnt.com). Backed by Animoca, Circle, Multicoin, Spartan, HashKey, & more, Burnt is a web3 foundry, on a mission to advance society’s financial and creative freedom, by any means necessary. Burnt is currently building XION, the first blockchain built to make crypto, human, by empowering developers & brands to create frictionless Web3 experiences with a toolkit that removes technical barriers for any user, anywhere. In this episode we discuss the genesis of Burnt Banksy’s journey in crypto, what it means to “rebuild broken systems of ownership by any means necessary,” some interesting ways XION is seeing adoption, how to build the right team for a studio model, what’s changed in crypto since 2021, his unreal plans for XION's mainnet launch, & much more.
Recorded Tuesday February 6, 2024.
Yubo Ruan is the Founder @ Parallel (https://parallel.fi). Backed by Sequoia, Founders Fund, Polychain Capital, Coinbase Ventures, & more, Parallel is both a lending protocol and a Layer 2. In this episode we discuss his path to conviction as a founder, what’s exciting about Parallel’s trajectory and roadmap, what happens to the space writ large if Parallel’s adoption continues to grow, an analysis of the future of crypto, & much more.
Recorded Monday January 29, 2024.
Tejas Kulkarni is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Common Sense Machines (https://csm.ai). Backed by Intel Capital, Toyota Ventures, & more, Common Sense Machines (CSM) is an end-to-end generative AI platform that creates game-engine ready content – enabling users to generate 3D Worlds from images & text. In this episode we discuss Tejas’ fascinating journey through MIT and Google Deep Mind, the remarkable bet on the pace of technological advancement, what CSM gets uniquely right about approaching their problem set, how gaming and entertainment could change because CSM exists, his best advice for early-stage founders, and much more.
Recorded Thursday January 25, 2024.
Henri Stern is the Co-Founder of Privy (https://www.privy.io/). Backed by Paradigm, Sequoia, Electric Capital, & more, Privy’s created one simple library to add beautiful authentication flows and powerful embedded wallets to your app. In this episode we talk about two things they’ve had to get right for Privy to work (and the insights behind that thinking), how web3 has changed since his beginnings in the space, Privy’s earliest challenges and opportunities, the ultimate vision of what Privy’s building toward, & much more.
Recorded Thursday January 11, 2024.
Brandon Thorpe is the Founder of FORMLESS (https://www.formless.xyz). Backed by WAGMI Ventures, a16z Crypto CSS, & more, FORMLESS is a decentralized network and digital space that empowers individuals to connect, create, collaborate and share in a multiplayer digital economy. In this episode we talk about Brandon’s background across music (signed artist) and technology (Apple, Google), his experience navigating the legacy music industry (and how lessons there flowed into creating FORMLESS), how to shift the natural processes of distribution in a creator-friendly way, interesting FORMLESS use cases thus far, advice for founders at the intersection of Web3 + creative industries, & much more.
Recorded Thursday December 21, 2023.
Jeff Morris Jr. is the Founder & Managing Partner @ Chapter One (https://www.chapterone.com). Backed by Sequoia & Marc Andreessen, Chapter One is an early-stage fund seeking protagonists - those who are eager to embark on the formidable task of inching the world forward. With 50+ investments across web3 verticals, Chapter One is a significant force in venture. In this episode we chat about his past work as VP Product, Revenue at Tinder, what it means to build the new Internet, his outlook on consumer applications in web3, the earliest challenges (and solves) at Chapter One, advice for founders new to web3, how to think about the present inflection point in market sentiment, his best advice for founders from the investor side of the table, & much more.
Recorded Friday December 8, 2023.
Kaledora Kiernan-Linn and Marco Antonio are the Co-Founders of Ostium (https://www.ostium.io). Backed by General Catalyst, WAGMI Ventures, LocalGlobe, & Alliance DAO, Ostium is building the first perpetuals decentralized exchange for real world assets. In this episode we chat through what it means to create a DEX built for RWA assets, what Ostium’s success ultimately could mean for the broader crypto space, the story behind their fascinating macro research, how to think about our current moment in crypto, Ostium’s progress thus far and upcoming launch timeline, & much more.
Recorded Monday December 11, 2023.
Brett Gibson is the Managing Partner at Initialized Capital (https://initialized.com). Initialized Capital is an early-stage venture firm that champions some of today’s most inspired and obsessive builders and thinkers, with 27+ unicorns (like Coinbase, Instacart, & Flexport), $3.2b in assets under management, and 175+ portfolio companies. In this episode we discuss Brett’s fascinating journey from software engineer to early YC founder to Managing Partner at Initialized Capital, the investment thesis for crypto at Initialized, what’s most exciting these days across the crypto landscape from Brett’s unique vantage point, how to interpret the present moment in crypto, his most generalizable advice for crypto founders (from an investor perspective), and much, much more.
Recorded Tuesday December 12, 2023.
Zac Townsend is the Co-Founder & CEO at Meanwhile (https://meanwhile.bm). Backed by Sam Altman, Lachy Groom, 6th Man Ventures, Gradient Ventures, & more, Meanwhile is creating the first and only life insurance company denominated in Bitcoin. Before building Meanwhile, Zac was an Associate Partner at McKinsey, Chief Data Officer of the State of California, Co-Founder & Head of Product at Standard Treasury, & CTO of the City of Newark. In this episode we discuss his path to conviction for launching Meanwhile, the various archetypes of who’s attracted to what they’re building, why they’re presently focused on Bitcoin, how they think about eventual differentiation as a first-mover, the interesting trajectories Meanwhile could take, & much more.
Recorded Monday November 27th, 2023.
David Amor is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Playmint (https://playmint.com). Backed by Bitkraft, 1KX, Cherry Ventures, & more, Playmint is composed of games industry veterans building fully on-chain games (currently working on Downstream, a fully on-chain MMO). In this episode we chat about creating a game world that lives forever and emphasizes digital ownership and composability, early challenges and future possibilities, where games on the blockchain are headed, state-of-the-union thoughts on gaming and Web3, best advice for gaming founders, & much more.
Recorded Friday November 24, 2023.
Annabelle Huang is a Managing Partner at Amber Group (https://www.ambergroup.io). Backed by Sequoia, Dragonfly, Paradigm, Pantera, & more, Amber Group is building the future of digital assets—with $1 trillion in traded volume, 150+ countries supported, 1k institutional clients, and $500m in returns generated for investors worldwide. In this episode we chat through Annabelle’s journey from TradFi into digital assets, how Amber adapted to the bear market, what gets her most excited about the future of Amber Group, her perspective on the evolution of crypto over time, her most generalizable advice for crypto executives, & much more.
Recorded Wednesday November 22, 2023.
Aniket Jindal is the Co-Founder at Biconomy (https://www.biconomy.io/). Backed by Binance, Coinbase Ventures, NFX, Bain Capital Ventures, & more, Biconomy is creating an Account Abstraction toolkit to enable the simplest UX on your dapp or wallet. In this episode we talk about Aniket’s journey from starting the first weekly crypto podcast in the Middle-East to launching Biconomy in 2019, what happens to crypto if UX improves 10x, exciting trajectories for the future of Biconomy, how to think about this current moment in crypto, & much more.
Recorded Tuesday November 21, 2023.
Benny Giang is the Co-Founder & Partner @ Future Primitive (https://futureprimitive.xyz). Future Primitive is a venture studio that builds startups, projects, and technologies for decentralized communities—including projects like token bound accounts (ERC 6551), a new primitive that will give every NFT its own account/wallet address. In this episode we chat through his work as a founding member of CryptoKitties and Dapper Labs, how he determines which projects to back as an angel investor or advisor, the genesis and possibilities of token bound accounts, how to think about learning about your community, his view on the near-term future of crypto, & much more.
Recorded Monday November 13, 2023.
Fabio Berger is the Co-Founder & CEO at Blowfish (https://blowfish.xyz). Backed by Paradigm, Uniswap, Dragonfly, & Hypersphere, Blowfish enables proactive defense for web3 wallets: making it easy to identify & stop fraud before it happens, with 10+ chains supported. In this episode we talk about his journey into crypto, what got Fabio to conviction on the Blowfish concept, their product evolution over time, what piques his interest/curiosity the most right now across web3, & much more.
Recorded Tuesday November 7, 2023.
Luis Schliesske is the Co-Founder @ Gelato (https://www.gelato.network). Backed by Dragonfly Capital, ParaFi Capital, IDEO CoLab Ventures, & more, Gelato is web3’s cloud platform, enabling developers to deploy custom chains with cutting-edge web2 UX, while also facilitating seamless integrations with all your favorite web3 tools & services. In this episode we talk about their Rollup-as-a-Service capabilities, how they think about differentiation in the market, how to think about team composition for creating a technical vision from scratch, the state of crypto these days, and much more.
Recorded Monday November 6, 2023.
Jon Kol is the Co-Founder @ Hyperlane (https://hyperlane.xyz). Backed by Variant, Galaxy Digital, Circle, & more, Hyperlane is the first interoperability layer that enables you to permissionlessly connect any blockchain, out-of-the-box. In this episode we discuss how his past work as an investor at Galaxy Digital helped him reach conviction on the Hyperlane opportunity, why permissionless interoperability is valuable and what it unlocks when widely distributed, how to think about team composition for a complex build, his state-of-the-union on the crypto space these days, and much more.
Recorded November 3, 2023.
Richard Ma is the Founder & CEO @ Quantstamp (https://quantstamp.com). With clients like Binance, SuperRare, Compound, Visa, Ethereum 2.0, & more, Quantstamp’s mission is to secure the decentralized internet, and has protected over $200B in digital asset risk from hackers. More than 500 startups, foundations, and enterprises work with Quantstamp to keep their innovative products safe. In this episode we chat about Richard’s path into crypto, what it’s like working with crypto-native projects vs. less crypto-native ones, what crypto looks like if it gets safer to engage with, the advice he wishes he could impart to his earlier self, & much more.
Recorded Wednesday October 25, 2023.
Alex Kahn is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Econia Labs (https://www.econialabs.com). Backed by Dragonfly, Faction, Lightspeed, & more, Econia is a high-performance on-chain order book for the Aptos blockchain. Built for equitable, global market access and engineered for composability, Econia provides trading infrastructure for Aptos DeFi. In this episode we talk about their Aptos selection process, obstacles to mass crypto adoption, what crypto is getting right (and wrong) in 2023, the advice he most wishes he’d received early-on, and much more.
Recorded Friday October 27, 2023.
Itai Turbahn is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Dynamic (https://www.dynamic.xyz). Backed by a16z Crypto, First Round Capital, Chapter One, & more, Dynamic is a web3-first authentication and authorization platform that lets developers harness the magic of wallet-based interactions in minutes. In this episode we discuss downstream possibilities from Dynamic for crypto at large, reaching early conviction on the authentication and authorization problems they’re tackling, what crypto’s getting right (and wrong) in 2023, & much more.
Recorded Monday October 23rd, 2023.
Justin Vogel is the Co-Founder of Safary (https://www.safary.club). Safary is a web3 growth community & marketing analytics platform. In this episode we chat about how Safary was created, key early moments in Safary’s existence (along with challenges and “good surprises”), why you can think about content and product and community all with a similar framework, the value prop of Safary’s marketing attribution platform, how AI is intersecting with his work as a content creator, & much more.
Recorded Friday October 20th, 2023.
Nigel Eccles is the Co-Founder & CEO of Vault (https://vault.fan). Backed by WAGMI Ventures, Placeholder VC, & more, Vault uses web3 technology to help artists launch limited runs of singles, albums and exclusive Box Set collections. In this episode we talk about Nigel’s professional journey (including the creation of FanDuel), the intersection of web3 and creative industries like music, what’s wrong with existing models for musicians, the theory and praxis of how Vault is solving deep issues in the music industry, & much more.
Recorded Thursday October 19th, 2023.
Jaemin Jin is the Co-Founder & CPO @ Magic (https://magic.link). Backed by PayPal Ventures, Lightspeed, Social Capital, SV Angel, as well as angels like Naval Ravikant, Balaji Srinivasan, Scott Belsky, Ryan Hoover, & more, Magic provides the leading wallet-as-a-service (plus essential NFT capabilities)—enabling all the benefits of web3, and none of the stress, for brands like Mattel, Animoca Brands, Magic Eden, & more. In this episode we chat about how Magic began, what their market is like, the earliest surprises and challenges in building Magic, working with big brands like Macy’s or 7-11 (and how to think about solving for their needs), how crypto has changed since his start in the space, his most generalizable advice for crypto founders, & much more.
Recorded Tuesday October 17th, 2023.
Paul Schmidt is the COO of fxhash (https://www.fxhash.xyz). Backed by 1kx, Fabric Ventures, Union Square Ventures, & more, fxhash is the open platform for artists and collectors to live out their passion for generative art. In this episode we discuss why generative art is the artistic movement of our era, fxhash’s recent evolution to become multi-chain (in supporting Ethereum), the most exciting possibilities in web3 from his present vantage point, & much more.
Recorded Tuesday October 10th, 2023.
Keone Hon is the Co-Founder & CEO of Monad (https://www.monad.xyz). Backed by Dragonfly, Monad is a decentralized, developer-forward Layer 1 smart contract platform that ushers in a new paradigm of possibility through pipelined execution of Ethereum transactions—crafted for productivity, fundamentally optimized. In this episode we discuss Keone’s perspective on where applications will find most traction, how they raised funds during the present market cycle, his thoughts on the future of crypto, & much more.
Recorded Wednesday October 11th, 2023.
Dima Romanov & David Cao are the Co-Founders of Layer N, and Patricia Xiang is the Head of Growth at Layer N (https://www.layern.com/). Backed by Founders Fund, Amber Group, Kraken Ventures, & more, Layer N is a hyperperformant rollup network designed to scale financial applications on Ethereum. In this episode we chat about why blockchain scalability is so important, the market dynamics of their particular space, earliest challenges and surprises in building Layer N, what crypto’s getting right (and wrong) in 2023, & much more.
Recorded Thursday October 12th, 2023.
Helena Gagern is the Co-Founder of Salsa (https://salsa.me). Backed by IDEO CoLab VC, Inflection.xyz, Dan Romero, Balaji Srinivasan, & more, Salsa is a web3 native messaging platform currently focused on creating community tools for musicians. In this episode we discuss the origin story of Salsa (and the story of how the co-founders met), earliest challenges and surprising opportunities, what kind of impact Salsa could make if they continue to execute, best advice for navigating web3 as a crypto founder, & much more.
Recorded Wednesday October 4th, 2023.
Bryan Pellegrino is the Co-Founder & CEO of LayerZero Labs (https://layerzero.network). Backed by Sequoia, a16z, Coinbase Ventures, Uniswap Labs, & more, LayerZero is a user application (UA) configurable on-chain endpoint that runs a ULN. In this episode we discuss interesting second-orders / downstream effects if their work continues to gain traction, Bryan’s fascinating perspective on the history and future of crypto, advice for crypto founders working on hard technical problems, & much, much more.
Recorded Tuesday October 3rd, 2023.
Uri Klarman is the Co-Founder & CEO of BloXroute Labs (https://bloxroute.com). Backed by Dragonfly, Lightspeed Venture Partners, SoftBank, & more, BloXroute Labs has created the first and fastest blockchain distribution network—across transaction propagation (400-1000ms faster), block propagation (up to 2 seconds faster), mempool service (50-400 ms faster), and more. In this episode we discuss Uri’s journey into crypto from a Northwestern PhD program, how the future changes because of bloXroute’s work, what crypto is getting right and getting wrong in 2023, & much more.
Recorded Monday October 2nd, 2023.
Guy Young is the Founder & CEO of Ethena Labs (www.ethena.fi). Backed by Huobi, Arthur Hayes, & more, Ethena Labs is all about unlocking the potential of staked Ethereum. Their main offerings are a delta-neutral stablecoin with embedded yield (called USDe), globally accessible floating & fixed rate USD-denominated bonds, and capital efficient and composable leverage. In this episode we discuss Guy’s journey to crypto from a $50b fund in TradFi, the mechanism and philosophy behind USDe (and why it works), most interesting trajectories for DeFi in 2023, the attitude of major TradFi institutions toward DeFi right now (despite the ETF excitement), and much more.
Recorded Wednesday September 27th, 2023.
Temoc Weber & Igor Mandrigin are the Co-Founders of Gateway (https://gateway.fm).
Backed by Lemniscap, Unstoppable Domains, & more, Gateway is building the next generation of web3 infrastructure and tooling products—offering RPC, staking, and instant private zk-rollups. In this episode we discuss private rollups and app-chain development, building during the bear market, what keeps them excited about building in crypto (despite macro adversity), their best advice for founders in web3, & much more.
Recorded Friday September 22nd, 2023.
Julia Zhou is a Partner—Venture & Market-Making at AlphaLab Capital (www.alphalab.capital).
AlphaLab Capital Group is a technology-driven trading group that transacts over $2B daily in cryptoassets on 40+ exchanges, both centralized and decentralized. They were one of the first movers in quantitative trading on the blockchain, and today they operate thousands of algorithms 24/7 on a globally distributed network of trading servers. In this episode we chat about whether market makers are necessary for every token project, DEX vs. CEX for different types of token projects, best tools to monitor liquidity during launch and trading, the various business models of market makers, and much more.
Recorded Tuesday August 15th, 2023.
Amrit Kumar is the COO at AltLayer (https://www.altlayer.io).
Backed by Polychain, Binance Labs, Balaji Srinivasan, & more, AltLayer offers Rollups-as-a-Service products that accelerate web3 projects. In this episode we discuss the original insights that led to the creation of AltLayer, the remarkable traction of their testnet, Amrit’s advice for building and scaling teams, his outlook on the crypto space writ large, & much more.
Recorded Wednesday August 30, 2023.
Tim Beiko is part of the Protocol Team at the Ethereum Foundation (https://ethereum.org/en/foundation). In this role Tim orchestrates development teams focused on the core protocol—most notably for The Merge. In this episode we discuss Tim’s origin story in crypto, how Ethereum can serve as an economic testnet for new types of coordination in the world (and why that’s a valuable proposition), what he’s most excited about for the future of Ethereum, his advice for developers new to the crypto space, and much more.
Recorded Thursday August 31, 2023.
J.M. Porup is the Chief Information Security Officer of Ava Labs (here in a personal capacity to talk security and web3). In this episode we discuss security differences within web2 vs. web3, how to think about security in web3 as an individual and as an institution, why being a CISO is about risk reduction (not risk elimination), and why security in crypto right now is like “fighting Mike Tyson with a blindfold on” (hint: it has to do with playing defense against actual nation-states—without governmental support).
Recorded Tuesday August 22nd, 2023.
Foobar is the Founder & CEO of Delegate (https://delegate.xyz).
Delegate is all about securing your on-chain identity—enabling you to keep your vaulted NFTs and ERC20s safe by linking wallets together, plus claim airdrops, prove token ownership, and more from your hot wallet. In this episode we talk about unexpected challenges of semi-pseudonymity on the internet, Foobar’s present outlook on the crypto space writ large, the interesting product evolution of Delegate (formerly Delegate Cash), Foobar’s thoughts and work around Friend.tech, and much, much more.
Recorded Monday August 24th, 2023.
Zac Williamson is the Co-Founder and CEO of Aztec (https://aztec.network). Backed by Variant, a16z, & more, Aztec is a first-of-its-kind hybrid zkRollup supporting both public and private smart contract execution. In this episode we learn how Zac got into crypto from his past life as an Oxford researcher in particle physics, his perspective on the practical uses of privacy (and the implications for the future of the internet), the limitations of blockchains today (compared to the past), the advice he would impart to his earlier self from his present self, & much, much more.
Recorded Tuesday August 8th, 2023.
Evin McMullen is the Co-Founder and CEO of Disco (https://www.disco.xyz/).
Backed by Polychain Capital, Winklevoss Capital, WAGMI Ventures, & more, Disco is your own personal data backpack—where you own yourself, and control what you share. In this episode we hear about Evin’s fascinating educational journey, her formative experiences with Napster early-on, how decentralized identifiers and verifiable credentials work in Disco, some upcoming exciting news for the Disco community, & much, much more.
Recorded Tuesday August 1st, 2023.
Jay Jog is the Co-Founder of Sei Labs (https://www.sei.io/). Backed by Multicoin Capital, Coinbase, WAGMI Ventures, & more, Sei is the fastest Layer 1 blockchain, designed to scale with the industry. In this episode we discuss Jay’s experience at Robinhood (and how it inspired the creation of Sei Labs), how speed unlocks new building possibilities, Sei’s evolution from the “DeFi-focused chain” to a “general-purpose permissionless chain,” and of course–today’s mainnet launch (plus much, much more).
Recorded Monday August 14th, 2023.
Max Galka is the Founder and CEO of Elementus (https://www.elementus.io/). Backed by Gemini, Lightspeed, & more, Elementus puts the democratization of quality blockchain data at the forefront of everything we do in order to transform industries at web3 scale. In this episode we chat about his tradfi experience during the financial crisis, the quest for enabling quality data at-scale, what’s got Max excited at Elementus these days (and looking toward the future), and much more.
Recorded Monday July 31st, 2023.
Antonio Garcia-Martinez is the Founder and CEO of Spindl (https://www.spindl.xyz). Backed by Dragonfly, Chapter One, Balaji Srinivasan, & more, Spindl is creating Web3's first real attribution system—so you can know where your users came from, what they're doing, and why. In this episode we chat about what attribution enables for analytics, communicating the value of marketing to crypto-natives, differences between building in web2 vs. web3 (and why web3 is simply more interesting), predictions for the future of crypto, reflections on which of his writings impacted him most (as a writer), and much, much more.
Recorded Monday July 31st, 2023.
Max Howell is the Founder and CEO of Tea (https://tea.xyz). Backed by Acuitas Group Holdings, Betaworks Ventures, & more, Tea is unified packaging infrastructure—and through that packaging infrastructure, they have plans of leveraging blockchain to help remunerate devs for their contributions to OSS. In this episode we discuss Max’s illustrious history within the open-source movement as creator of Homebrew, how blockchains uniquely enable what web2 technologies can’t in the quest to remunerate open source contributors, Max’s best and most generalizable advice for building in web3, and much, much more.
Recorded Thursday July 20th, 2023.
Sreeram Kannan is the Founder and CEO of EigenLayer (https://www.eigenlayer.xyz/).
Backed by Blockchain Capital, Figment Capital, WAGMI Ventures, & more, EigenLayer is the first market for decentralized trust—creating an ecosystem for restaking, which enables staked ETH to be used as cryptoeconomic security for protocols other than Ethereum, in exchange for protocol fees and rewards. In this episode we discuss Sreeram’s journey through academia, the key insights that produced EigenLayer, the many use cases enabled by EigenLayer, the importance of focus for early-stage projects, and much more.
Recorded Monday July 10th, 2023.
Raj Parekh is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Portal (www.portalhq.io). Backed by Haun Ventures, Chapter One, Slow Ventures, & more, Portal enables you to launch a powerful and secure offering with a single integration for all of Web3 that gives your users direct access to the world of DeFi, NFTs, blockchain-based gaming, and more. In this episode we discuss Raj’s perspective on user experience in web3 given his background at Visa, his thoughts on the future of multi-party-computation and account abstraction, commentary on TradFi adoption and movement toward web3, interesting frontiers within the crypto space from his vantage point, and much more.
Recorded Wednesday June 28th, 2023.
Michael Hiles is the Founder & CEO of 10XTS (https://10xts.com/). Backed by LOUD Capital, 10XTS builds compliant, programmable digital securities and interoperable web3-powered capital markets infra solutions. In this episode we discuss a law-centric approach for the blockchain industry, the importance of a solid legal regime for global capital markets (and integrating well), the state of crypto regulation in the US and abroad, & much more.
Recorded Monday June 26th, 2023.
Timur Csillik (Co-Founder & CEO @ Nabu) and Diederik Kruijssen (Chief Data Officer @ Nabu) join us on today’s episode.
Backed by Founders Factory, Nabu (nabu.xyz) is building the most trusted NFT valuation engine, to increase transparency in Web3 and enable the universal adoption of NFTs as an asset class. In this episode we discuss Nabu’s approach of leveraging machine learning and AI to ascertain NFT prices, perspectives on upcoming growth drivers within web3, the frontier space of NFTs in particular and web3 in general, and much, much more.
Recorded Thursday June 22nd, 2023.
John Crain is the Co-Founder and CEO of SuperRare Labs (https://superrare.com). Backed by Sound Ventures, Collaborative Fund, and angels like Naval Ravikant and Mark Cuban, SuperRare is an NFT marketplace for curated cryptoart—a new art market for artists, collectors, and curators. In this episode we discuss the fascinating origin of SuperRare, $RARE and their progressive decentralization into a DAO, interesting recent collabs and how those come to exist, the exciting future of cryptoart (and SuperRare’s unique position to enable that future), and much more.
Recorded Monday June 19th, 2023.
Nick Emmons is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Upshot (https://upshot.xyz).
Backed by Polychain and Blockchain Capital, Upshot is building financial infrastructure for NFTs, including industry-leading NFT appraisals and other financial tools that provide deep insight into NFT markets and unlock a wave of new DeFi possibilities. Upshot is currently providing accurate, real-time appraisals for 104M+ NFTs from over 87k collections. In this episode we discuss Nick’s narration of the NFT space’s history and future trajectories, the intersection of NFTs and DeFi, the frontier space of NFTs, his take on the outlook for crypto in the medium-term, & much more.
Recorded Tuesday June 13th, 2023.
Darshan Vaidya is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Credora (http://credora.io).
Backed by Paradigm, Coinbase Ventures, WAGMI Ventures, & more, Credora is building infrastructure for institutional credit—with its complete lending platform, counterparty credit ratings, & more. In this episode we discuss the advantages of data-driven lending relative to relationship-driven lending, the early challenges to adoption (and how they’ve successfully solved for those challenges), the promise of crypto’s potential for disintermediation (rather than decentralization), and much more.
Recorded Monday June 12th, 2023.
Ivo Georgiev is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Ambire (https://www.ambire.com/).
Backed by LAUNCHub Ventures, MetaCartel Ventures, & more, Ambire is the Web3 wallet that makes self-custody easy and secure for everyone (built on account abstraction). Ambire Wallet is available on mobile and allows registering using email (while keeping full custody). In this episode we discuss the journey from AdEx to Ambire, the wallet market when they originally launched Wallet, the two distinct types of account abstraction, their process of progressive decentralization, the need for a return to the more anti-establishment roots of crypto, and much more.
Recorded Wednesday June 7th, 2023.
Michael Feng is the Co-Founder @ Hummingbot (https://hummingbot.org/). Backed by Initialized Capital, Slow Ventures, & more, Hummingbot is open source software that helps you build high-frequency crypto trading bots that specialize in market making and arbitrage strategies. They average $100M+ 24H volume, have 1M+ all-time downloads, and support 13+ HFT strategies. In this episode we dive deep on recently decentralizing their operations to HBOT token holders, why they restructured as a not-for-profit organization, the key differences between TradFi and crypto markets for traders, & much more.
Recorded Tuesday May 30th, 2023.
Omar Yehia is the Head of Investments at Matter Labs, creators of zkSync (https://matter-labs.io/).
Backed by a16z, Variant, Dragonfly, & more, Matter Labs is scaling Ethereum with zero-knowledge proofs to accelerate public blockchain adoption. In this episode we discuss zkSync’s evolution from testnet to mainnet alpha, the breadth of their ecosystem (and Omar’s opinion on most exciting directions), how he thinks about capital allocation on behalf of Matter Labs, and his predictions for the various possible futures of the crypto space.
Recorded Monday May 22nd, 2023.
SHOW NOTES:1. https://zksync.io/
2. Omar's twitter: @0xomaryehia
3. zkSync's twitter: @zksync
4. Omar's content page: https://omaryehia.notion.site/omaryehia/A-collection-of-talks-podcasts-writing-and-so-on-0b6b31ccb0b44d5b847653d6bea6969e
Matt Cutler is the Co-Founder & CEO of Blocknative (https://www.blocknative.com/). Backed by Blockchain Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Ryan Sean Adams & David Hoffman, & more, Blocknative is powering the crypto space—building for validators, for dApps, for wallets, and for traders. In this episode we discuss Blocknative’s product evolution (from their beginnings to their now-expansive product offerings), rogue Ethereum validators, the possibilities & implications of ERC 4337, lessons learned from scaling Blocknative, and Matt’s thoughts on the future of crypto.
Recorded Friday May 19th, 2023.
Abhinav Gaur is the Founder & COO @ urFeed (https://urfeed.xyz). urFeed is a social video & streaming platform, co-owned by creators and their community. In this episode we discuss problems with traditional web2 social platforms, why their feed experience is better than the usual algorithmic feeds, migrating users from web2, the road of progressive decentralization, and much more.
Recorded Tuesday May 16th, 2023.
Bradley Miles is the Co-Founder & CEO of Roll (https://tryroll.com/).
Backed by Techstars, Arthur Hayes, Balaji Srinivasan, & more, Roll is enabling a world where the future of social tokens belongs to you. In this episode we discuss Bradley’s background in venture capital, what Roll is building toward (and soon launching!), and the incredible experience they’re designing for users that will broaden adoption and usability for tokens across the space.
Recorded Monday May 15th, 2023.
SHOW NOTES:
Book – #BreakIntoVC: How to Break Into Venture Capital and Think Like an Investor Whether You're a Student, Entrepreneur or Working Professional, by Bradley Miles
Himanshu Sahay & Dhruv Patel are the Co-Founders of Arch (www.archlending.com). Backed by Tribe Capital, Picus Capital, & more, Arch is the most secure way to borrow against alternative assets. Users can access instant credit without selling your crypto or equity stake, on the platform with best-in-class security and a regulatory-first approach. In this episode we discuss their policy to not “touch or reloan customer funds for any reason,” their state-by-state approach to getting regulatory compliance right, their thoughts on how to best approach building in crypto right now, and much more.
Recorded Monday May 8th, 2023.
Ben Su is the Co-Founder & COO of Capita (https://www.percapita.io/).
Capita allows you to easily design, launch, and operate the investment group you want, on a platform made for you. End-to-end. No-code—whether syndicates, incubators, funds, or DAOs. In this episode we discuss their interesting path from working as lawyers to landing on the present iteration of Capita, the missing ingredients in tooling they've stepped in to solve, the future of the crypto space in general, and much more.
Recorded on Tuesday May 2nd, 2023.
Alex Salnikov is the Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer at Rarible (https://rarible.com/). Backed by Coinbase Ventures, CoinFund, & more, Rarible is a leading blue-chip NFT company that powers both established and emerging brands and creators. Through a multi-chain, aggregated marketplace for NFTs, a self-serve marketplace builder tool, and a white-glove service for custom marketplaces, their products help brands and creators achieve success at every stage of their NFT journey. In this episode, we cover the verticalization of NFT marketplaces, their experience decentralizing Rarible, the NFT royalties debate, & much, much more.
Recorded Tuesday May 9th, 2023.
Chad Lynch is the Co-Founder of Loreum (https://www.loreum.org/). Previously engineer #1 at Maple Finance, Chad is creating Loreum to explore the frontier of human coordination. Right now Loreum is building a DAO Governance protocol for EVM chains, DAO capital formation tooling, and DAO labor market and productivity tooling. In this episode we discuss why Loreum is necessary given the current state of DAO’s, what ingredients have been missing to bring web3 into the next inning, and much, much more.
Recorded Tuesday April 25th, 2023.
Shane Mac is the Founder & CEO of XMTP (http://xmtp.org). Backed by a16z, Sound Ventures, Alexis Ohanian, Naval Ravikant, Balaji Srinivasan, & many more, XMTP is building the communication network & protocol for web3. In this episode we discuss the remarkable people who’ve come alongside XMTP’s purpose (with emphasis on the developers), the nature of value accrual for a network like XMTP, what the earliest days of XMTP were like, and much more.
Recorded Monday April 17th, 2023.
Elena Nadolinski is the Founder & CEO of Iron Fish (www.ironfish.network).
Backed by Sequoia, a16z, Electric Capital, Balaji Srinivasan, & more, Iron Fish encrypts every transaction, shielding your sensitive asset information from public view. With read-only view keys, you remain compliant and in control. In this episode, we discuss Elena’s journey up to the creation of Iron Fish, the use cases and second-order possibilities of Iron Fish, the biggest early surprises and challenges (and how their team navigated them), advice to crypto founders about productive dialogue with regulators, and why the future is bright for crypto.
Recorded Monday May 1st, 2023.
Tomer Afek is the Co-Founder & CEO of Spacemesh (www.spacemesh.io). Backed by Paradigm, Spacemesh is a L1 blockchain protocol, focused on the qualitative aspects of permissionless decentralization. In this episode, we discuss Tomer’s philosophical journey that led to the creation of Spacemesh, why they’ve spent so long working on Spacemesh, a deep-dive on some of the technical aspects of the protocol, and his most generalizable advice for founders in the web3 space.
Recorded Tuesday April 18th, 2023.
Fabian Vogelsteller is the Founder and Chief Architect at LUKSO, plus the creator of the Mist Browser, Ethereum Wallet, web3.js, and author of ERC 20 and ERC 725. LUKSO is a multiverse blockchain network where the worlds of fashion, gaming, design, and social media intersect. LUKSO allows brands, creatives and developers to dictate the distribution of wealth and influence from lifestyle activities, by having Universal Public Profiles, creating Digital Identities and Certificates, and by building Tokenized Communities. In this episode we cover Fabian’s extensive and exemplary history in the blockchain space, the exciting advancements that LUKSO represents, and the state-of-play for the space as a whole (including thoughts on what’s missing, important trajectories, and much more).
Recorded Wednesday April 12th, 2023
Vincent Ghossoub is the Founder and CEO of NiftyCraft (www.niftycraft.io).
NiftyCraft is a blockchain RPG with a player-driven economy. In this episode, we cover Vincent’s work building up the gaming industry in the Middle-East, the intricacies of game design in web3, the ultimate trajectories they’re building toward (technologically-speaking), and much more.
Recorded Tuesday March 28th, 2023.
Trevor Koverko is the Co-Founder of Polymath (https://polymath.network).
As the founder of several notable 9 and 10 figure businesses in both the private and public markets (like Polymath, Tokens.com, First Carbon and Matador), Trevor brings a unique perspective to investing in web3 (he’s invested in 58 companies as of publication here). In this episode we discuss the similarities between being a founder and being a professional athlete (Trevor played professional hockey), the hardest lesson learned (and proudest professional contributions) in his entrepreneurial journey, the source of his passion behind doubling-down on web3 during the past couple years, and much more.
Recorded Wednesday February 15th, 2023.
Toby Saunders is the Co-Founder & CEO at Cathedral Studios, creators of The Bornless.
Backed by Hartmann Capital, Cathedral Studios is a next-generation web3 game studio and creators of The Bornless, a first- person PvP/PvE horror-themed game. In this episode we discuss what makes a game great (and how to think about creating great games as a team), why it may take longer than commonly expected for web3 to fully deliver within gaming, what the future of gaming (and especially gaming within web3) looks like, and his insights into what building a remarkable game studio looks like in 2023.
Recorded Monday February 27th, 2023.
Austin Diamond is the Co-Founder & CEO of Alongside (www.alongside.xyz). Backed by a16z Crypto, Coinbase, Franklin Templeton, & more, Alongside has created the first fully backed on-chain broad-based crypto market index. In this episode we discuss the history of index funds, earliest insights that led to their unique methodology of token selection for AMKT, the biggest mistakes institutions make when broadening their exposure to digital asset markets, and much more. WAGMI Ventures is an investor in Alongside.
Recorded Friday February 24th, 2023.
Antoine Scalia is the Founder & CEO of Cryptio (www.cryptio.co). Backed by Draper Associates, Point Nine, & more, Cryptio offers enterprise-grade accounting, audit, and tax software for your digital assets. They work with top organizations like Metamask, Sorare, 1inch, Bankless & more. In this episode, we discuss the importance of their work for broader institutional adoption, what insights made the biggest product difference, what they’re excited about in the pipeline, and much more.
Recorded Tuesday February 14th, 2023.
Nanne Dekking is the Founder & CEO of Artory (www.artory.com). Artory is unlocking art & collectibles as a credible asset class—providing the expertise, tech, network, and data to deliver institutional-grade liquidity and financial products to the art market. Artory was the first company to tokenize an art auction, holds one of the largest databases of transaction data for art (which powers Art Basel’s yearly art report), and has worked with art powerhouses like Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Winston Art Group, & more. In this episode we discuss being an early mover in web3 from within the traditional art market, the impact of transparency (via technology) on an opaque market like fine art, some drivers of valuation in the art world (and how Artory’s work assists credible valuation), the art funds they’re creating alongside the Winston Art Group, & much more.
Recorded Monday February 13th, 2023.
Alex Poon is the Co-Founder & CEO of CharmVerse (www.charmverse.io). Backed by Orange DAO, BitDAO, GSRV, Alliance, & more, CharmVerse is building the solution for token communities to build relationships, work together, and vote. In this episode we discuss entering and learning web3 as an already-successful founder, current challenges with governance and community management for token communities, possibilities for the future enabled by CharmVerse, what they’re looking for in potential partners, and much more.
Recorded Wednesday February 8th, 2023.
Today’s episode is with Amit Gajjala (Founder & CEO) and Antonio Morales (Head of Ecosystem + Community) at Stader Labs (www.staderlabs.com). Backed by Pantera, Coinbase Ventures, Jump Capital, Accel, & more, Stader Labs is a multichain liquid staking platform. In this episode we discuss their earliest insights about the market that led to Stader Labs, their product roadmap (and how they continue to evolve), what it was like getting $150m TVL on day one of launch, the Terra/Luna collapse (and how they worked past it), comments on Coinbase’s recently-announced liquidity staking derivative cbETH, & much more.
Recorded Tuesday February 7th, 2023.
Vijay Pravin is the Founder & CEO at bitsCrunch (www.bitscrunch.com). Backed by Coinbase Ventures, Animoca Brands, Polygon, & more, bitsCrunch is forensic and AI-powered NFT analytics that fights wash trading, fraud, and gives accurate value for digital assets. In this episode we discuss how bitsCrunch fits into the current NFT space, his insights into the space driving their unique product strategy in 2023, his recent time in web3 circles at the World Economic Forum, and much more.
Recorded Tuesday January 31st, 2023.
Chris Georgen is the Founder & Managing Director of Topl (www.topl.co). Backed by Mercury Fund, Mercy Corps Ventures, & more, Topl is building an impact technology economy that enables digital and sustainable transformation across value chains and empowers the monetization of impact verified on the Topl Blockchain. In this episode we discuss the impact space (broadly construed), how blockchain technology can enable a greater impact on causes people care about, Topl’s unique discoveries about impact-driven blockchain building in 2023, and the possibilities for Topl over the next several years (plus much more).
Check out more about Topl’s work below:
Discord: https://discord.gg/ZqKC6k8pcJ
Topl's Twitter: https://twitter.com/topl_protocol
Chris’ Twitter: https://twitter.com/c_georgen
Recorded Monday January 30th, 2023.
Joseph Cooper is the Founder of Earn Alliance (www.earnalliance.com). Backed by Animoca Brands, CoinFund, Fabric Ventures, & more, Earn Alliance builds communities and tools to inspire and empower gamers to unlock their full potential in web3. In this episode we discuss Coop’s roots in IRC communities and entrepreneurship at a young age, curating games for entertainment value vs. NFT price, the state of the industry for blockchain gaming (good, bad, ugly), the second-order effects in the world if Earn Alliance continues to execute, & much more.
Recorded Monday January 30th, 2023.
Adi Sideman is the Co-Founder & CEO of Revel (www.revel.xyz).
Backed by Union Square Ventures, Polygon, Dragonfly Capital, & more, Revel is a social trading game that recently debuted as #1 Product of the Day on Product Hunt. In this episode we discuss where social networking is heading in the future, interesting possibilities for generative AI in the social networking space, what it’s been like fine-tuning the game economics of Revel, and much more. WAGMI Ventures is an investor in Revel.
Recorded Tuesday January 24th, 2023.
Arda Erturk is the Founder & CEO of DAOhub (www.daohub.xyz). As a Techstars participant, Arda is building a DAO marketplace to make DAO discovery, investment, and portfolio management easier in one central platform. Their long-term vision is to utilize AI by combining on-chain, off-chain data, and Decentralized IDs (DIDs) to enable data-driven governance and investment decisions for investors and DAO builders. In this episode we discuss Arda’s favorite DAOs (and why), new possibilities for DAO involvement, and what gets him most excited about the DAO space over the next several years (plus much more).
Recorded Monday January 23rd, 2023.
Andrew Choi is the Founder & CEO of SuperNormal (www.supernormal.art) & General Partner @ Factorial Funds (www.factorialfunds.com). SuperNormal is the #1 top-selling web3 brand in Korea with >$100m in volume traded, and with celebrity holders like Eva Longoria, Paris Hilton, Mark Cuban, Sergi Roberto, Android founder, and more. Factorial Funds has invested in top companies like Consensys, Coinbase, Robinhood, Affirm, and more. Andrew’s past work includes Tech Lead at Coinbase, Microsoft, Linkedin, & Snapchat. In this episode we discuss what SuperNormal understands about IP in 2023 that others don’t, the evolution from initial concept to a more expansive vision, the primacy of engaging one’s community in a cyclical loop, the investment thesis of Factorial Funds during the bear market, and much more.
Recorded Friday January 20th, 2023.
Mark Shekleton is the Co-Founder & CEO of Smart Seal (www.smartseal.io). Founded by aerospace engineers (and recently shipping the first physical NFT sold on Amazon), Smart Seal is delivering blockchain provenance for physical products (via merging encrypted near field communication hardware infrastructure with NFTs secured by 1:1 links) – tackling the massive counterfeiting challenges endemic to companies large and small across the world. In this episode we talk about the benefits to a world with fewer counterfeit products (hint: less funding for other criminal activities and enterprises), surprises and obstacles while engaging their earliest customers, his thoughts about the growth to come in the “phygital” space, and much more.
Recorded Wednesday January 18th, 2023.
Rohan Agarwal is the Co-Founder & CEO of Cypherock (www.cypherock.com). Backed by ConsenSys Mesh, Orange DAO, GnosisDAO, and more, Cypherock is the world’s first hardware wallet without a seed phrase. In this episode we discuss the three years of R&D necessary to produce their innovative wallet, second-order effects of users having a 10x more secure wallet, what it was like getting audited by Keylabs (the security firm that hacked Ledger), and much more.
Recorded Monday January 16th, 2023.
Griff Green has been a respected leader within the Ethereum community since 2015 and received a masters degree in Digital Currency in 2016 (as the first holder of its kind). As community manager for Slock.it and TheDAO, he led every angle of the crisis response effort following TheDAO Hack. He co-founded the White Hat Group, which secured the at-risk funds (10% of the total supply of ETH) during TheDAO hack and one year later rescued $210 million dollars worth of crypto assets following the Parity Multisig Hack. Griff and the WHG also audited Aragon and MakerDAO systems. Griff then founded Giveth, a crypto donation platform that radically empowers individuals and communities to affect real change in a transparent, decentralized way, and also founded Commons Stack, the natural progression of Giveth’s efforts to build the future of giving with the goal of turning any non-profit cause into an impact investment.
In this episode we discuss micro-economy governance possibilities, public and social goods funding, his best advice for those new to web3, and much more.
Recorded Thursday January 12th, 2023.
Laszlo Szabo is the Co-Founder & CEO of Kiln (www.kiln.fi). Backed by Illuminate Financial, GSR, Kraken Ventures, and more, Kiln enables enterprise-grade staking made easy. In this episode we discuss their journey from the origins of Kiln to powering 2.1% of all ETH staked (thus far), including how they uncovered insights from their earliest customers to build out their offerings, the intricacies of staking (and why staking is the first “Internet bond”), and common misunderstandings about what they enable and how it works.
Recorded Tuesday, December 13th, 2022.
Christoph Jentzsch is the Co-Founder & CEO at corpus.ventures (www.corpus.ventures). Christoph is a theoretical physicist who was one of the earliest developers on Ethereum, creator of The DAO (known for its hack in 2016), the founder of slock.it (one of the most exciting early Ethereum projects), and now, co-founder & CEO at corpus.ventures, a venture studio building in web3.
In this episode we hear what attracted him to Ethereum during its earliest days, how he wrestled with (and worked through) his emotional state during and after The DAO Hack, his unwavering commitment to the Ethereum community and its ideals (despite public perception that the “loud” frauds and scams across web3 are representative of everyone in the space), and the exciting projects they’re building at corpus.ventures. Follow them on Twitter at @ChrJentzsch and @cventurestudio, and learn more about their work at www.corpus.ventures.
Recorded Wednesday, December 14th, 2022.
Harrison Wang is the Co-Founder & CEO at Unblocked (onunblocked.com). Backed by Tiger Global, Marcy Venture Partners (Jay-Z’s venture fund), Dapper Labs, and more, Unblocked is at the forefront of producing blockchain-backed collectibles for your favorite communities. In this episode we discuss the virtues of “digital collectibles” vs. “NFTs” (in terms of name approachability), what’s attracting major brands/artists to the digital collectible space (and how Unblocked powers that work), and what FTX means for the broader space over the coming months (in terms of funding availability and mainstream perception/adoption).
Recorded Wednesday, December 14th, 2022.
Michael Sanders is the Co-Founder & Chief Storyteller at Horizon (horizon.io). Backed by Polygon, Coinbase, Take Two Interactive (the makers of the Grand Theft Auto franchise), & more, Horizon is making blockchain gaming easy, fun, and powerful for users and developers to drive the adoption of web3 and its open, transparent and symbiotic economies. With 700k+ total wallets and 3.4M+ total transactions on their Sequence platform (and exciting adoption of their Skyweaver game), Horizon is quickly establishing itself as a leader in building web3 gaming. In this episode we discuss challenges and surprises in the early days of Horizon (founded in 2017), where Michael sees web3 games and game economies going over the next 3-to-5 years, Horizon’s experience wrapping up a fundraising round in October 2022 (at a particularly precarious time in the industry), and Michael’s best generalizable advice for founders in web3 (hint: focus on the best ideas, and take care of yourself so you’re in it for the long-game).
Recorded on Thursday December 8th, 2022.
Solal Afota is the Co-Founder of Notebook Labs (www.notebooklabs.xyz).Backed by Bain Capital Crypto & Y Combinator, Notebook Labs is working on decentralized, anonymous, and accountable identity on Web3—making web3 safer so it can become more universal. In this episode we discuss what zero-knowledge proofs enable for accountable identity (and potential near-to-medium-term applications), their unique technical and business challenges, and their experience building within Y Combinator.
Recorded on Tuesday November 29th, 2022.
Dillon Rosenblatt is the Co-Founder & CEO of Autograph (co-founded alongside Tom Brady) (www.autograph.io). Backed by Kleiner Perkins and a16z, and partnered with icons like Simon Biles, Derek Jeter, and Tiger Woods, Autograph is an NFT platform that brings together the iconic brands in sports and culture to create unique digital collections. In this episode we discuss the possibilities and future of NFTs, the unique opportunity of building through the bear market, how to co-create alongside your community, and (of course) what it’s like building a company with Tom Brady.
Recorded on Thursday November 17th, 2022.
Soups Ranjan is the Co-Founder & CEO of Sardine (www.sardine.ai). Backed by a16z, Visa, and more, Sardine offers safer, faster payments by combining risk, compliance, and payment protection – all from one powerful API. In this episode we talk about his past work heading up Fraud & Risk for Coinbase (2015–2019), Sardine’s strategy of earning the opportunity to handle payments by solving fraud first, their unique flywheel from fraud prevention to better data insights, their data consortium initiative, and much more.
Recorded on Thursday November 3rd, 2022.
Andrew Webber is the Founder & CEO of Digital Power Optimization (www.digitalpoweroptimization.com). DPO helps owners and developers of power assets secure more value for their energy. They combine their expertise in cryptocurrency mining with partner expertise in power generation — offering Cryptocurrency Mining as a Service (CMaaS) to energy companies. In this episode we discuss the market dynamics of the cryptocurrency mining space, how DPO connects the dots for non-crypto-native energy industry players, and ultimately what the future of the space looks like over the next five-to-twenty years.
Recorded on Monday October 31st, 2022.
Blake West is the Co-Founder & CTO of Goldfinch (www.goldfinch.finance). Backed by a16z, Goldfinch is a decentralized credit protocol that allows anyone to be a lender, not just banks. With ~$100m in active loan value at time of recording, Goldfinch is the clear leader in on-chain emerging market credit – aka, crypto lending meets real-world businesses. In this episode we discuss challenges and surprises in the early days of Goldfinch, blockers to emerging market credit formation (and why obstacles exist), speculation about the possibility of a unified/global on-chain capital market, and Blake’s best generalizable advice for founders across web3 (hint: ignore the token at first).
Recorded on Friday October 28th, 2022.
Justin Gregorius is the Co-Founder & CEO of Pine Street Labs (www.pinestreetlabs.com). Backed by Polychain, Coinbase Ventures, Figment, and others, Pine Street Labs is a non-custodial API for managing wallets, built for enterprises. In this episode we discuss their experience fundraising in the current market environment, what the future of enterprises in web3 may look like, and how they’re thinking about go-to-market for their flagship product (hint: focus on crypto-native businesses first).
Recorded on Friday, October 14th, 2022.
Raullen Chai is the Co-Founder of IoTeX Network (https://iotex.io/). Backed by Samsung Next, IoTeX is the leading decentralized network to power billions of machines at scale via machine economy (MachineFi) applications. In this episode we discuss the possibilities unlocked by bringing the Internet of Things (IoT) on-chain, their $100m fund working to back over 1,000 decentralized machine economy startups, and the broader MachineFi philosophy and how it’s concretely translated into their work.
Recorded on Wednesday, October 5th, 2022.
Michael Marra is the Founder & CEO of Entre (www.joinentre.com). Backed by Kube VC & angels like Dharmesh Shah (Co-Founder/CTO @ HubSpot), Entre is the fastest-growing online professional network of web3 professionals in the world. In this episode we discuss what’s missing with existing online professional networks like LinkedIn, how Entre bridges the gap between web2 and web3 for professionals, and how generosity and authenticity drives relationships and projects forward in web3.
Recorded on Monday, October 3rd, 2022.
Chinmay Patel is the CEO of PERCS (www.getpercs.com).
PERCS supercharges communities with NFTs. In this episode we discuss the recent announcement about Starbucks Odyssey (their NFT-powered loyalty program), what most companies get wrong about implementing token-gating, how PERCS helps companies like Playboy and Superplastic think about NFTs, and the upcoming launch of “degen.deals” (an exciting Black Friday/Cyber Monday online experience powered by PERCS). WAGMI Ventures is an investor in PERCS.
Recorded on Monday, September 26th, 2022.
Neil Zhang is the Co-Founder of Frontrunner (www.getfrontrunner.com).
Frontrunner is the first zero gas fee, decentralized sports prediction market built on blockchain where you get the best odds with no house edge. No limits, no restrictions, just your bets and your profits. In this episode we dig into the exciting vision and possibilities of Frontrunner, building on the Injective protocol, and building resilience – in your team, in your company – through the bear market. WAGMI Ventures is an investor in Frontrunner.
Recorded on Wednesday, August 10th, 2022.
Shawn Douglass is the CEO of Amberdata (www.amberdata.io).
Backed by Coinbase, Amberdata delivers comprehensive digital asset data and insights into blockchain networks, crypto markets, and decentralized finance, empowering financial institutions with critical data for research, trading, risk, analytics, reporting, and compliance. In this episode we discuss the unique challenges associated with aggregating and providing data across chains and tokens, the financialization of the Internet, and unique advice for builders in web3.
Recorded on Tuesday, August 23rd, 2022.
John Linden is the CEO of Mythical Games (www.mythicalgames.com).
Backed by a16z (and recently achieving unicorn status), Mythical Games is a game technology studio at the intersection of blockchain and games. In this episode we discuss the past and future of blockchain gaming, what unique unlocks are enabled by web3 for games, and an announcement about their work building an EVM-compatible chain (in anticipation of the Merge).
Recorded on Tuesday, September 13th, 2022.
Mike Lopez is the Co-Founder and CEO of Cinder (www.cinder.io).
Backed by Animoca Brands, Cinder is a blockchain-native gaming metaverse created by game industry veterans –as a crypto-native social hub, creative commons, and free-form MMO community, it’s evolving rapidly and empowering players in innovative new ways. In this episode we discuss why they minted on Solana, advice for blockchain gaming builders, and the bigger picture of where blockchain gaming has been – and where it’s going.
Recorded on Thursday, September 1st, 2022.
Mriganka Pattnaik is the Co-Founder and CEO of Merkle Science (www.merklescience.com).
Backed by Kraken Ventures, Beco Capital, and others, Merkle Science is a predictive Web3 risk & intelligence platform offering risk mitigation, compliance, and forensics for crypto-native businesses, DeFi participants, financial institutions & government agencies. In this episode we discuss some of the history of risk mitigation in crypto, the possibilities for risk mitigation in the future, and the tradeoffs between privacy and KYC (“know your client”) as part of the bigger conversation about what mainstream adoption of crypto may require (from a regulatory standpoint).
Recorded on Wednesday, August 24th, 2022.
Aaron Rafferty & Martin Simms are the Co-Founders of StandardDAO (www.standarddao.finance).
StandardDAO is all about supercharging, scaling, and securing the 3rd generation of the internet. In this episode we learn more about StandardDAO, discuss big-picture trends across web3, and hear advice for builders in web3.
Recorded on Friday, August 5th, 2022.
Ben Simpson is the Founder & CEO of Collective Shift (www.collectiveshift.io)
Collective Shift’s mission is to democratize wealth and freedom through crypto to millions by giving investors and traders access to a suite of tools, expert daily insights, opportunity alerts, and a thriving community. In this episode we discuss Collective Shift’s unique insights underlying their education offerings, what’s been missing for crypto education, and how they’ve addressed the challenges associated with their commitment to transparency and credibility.
Recorded on Wednesday, August 17th, 2022.
Luca Basile is the Founder & Creator of Flovatar.
With customizable traits and accessories for NFTs, and fully on-chain interactive and animated SVG illustrations, Flovatar believes the top-down NFT consumer market is over-saturated and that the bottom-up creator era is about to replace it. So instead of leaving things up to robotic chance, Flovatar opts for inspired choice and puts back the power into people’s hands.