WAGMI Ventures Podcast

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.

Ilya 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, Ilya 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 Investment Partner at LocalGlobe, one of the leading early stage venture capital firms in Europe, with one of the highest number of unicorns in portfolio, with companies like SoRare, Layer Zero, Robinhood, Figma, Wise, and Twitter (X). Ash, also a Strategic Partner and member of WAGMI Ventures family, leads the B2B, AI and web3 practice of LocalGlobe. She shares insights gathered over her illustrious career journey as an investor, intricacies of investing through different cycles of crypto, philosophy on evaluating winners, and investing in the current global macro market dynamics. 

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.