Podcasts about solana labs

The CFTC's first Innovation Advisory Committee meeting put Coinbase, Ripple, Kraken and Solana Labs in the same room as CME, Nasdaq and ICE. Chaos ensues.~This episode is sponsored by Tangem~Tangem ➜ https://bit.ly/TangemPBNUse Code: "PBN" for Additional Discounts!00:00 intro00:10 Sponsor: Tangem00:45 CFTC Crypto Meeting02:40 Terry Duffy (CME) terrorizes hearing04:15 Kalshi eviscerates Terry Duffy05:50 Terry Duffy terrified of Hyperliquid & Trade.XYZ06:40 Kraken CEO says DTCC & Canton are old08:10 CBOE admits being old "gangsters”08:45 Frank Lasalla of DTCC threatens CFTC?10:00 Vlad: What's currently not available to U.S. customers11:10 IPO Perps might be approved next12:20 Mike Selig:  no new rules before CLARITY13:20 Ethereum Security & ZCash Privacy14:20 Zcash explodes14:30 Privacy trend will only go up14:50 San Diego privacy hearing proves this narrative won't die16:30 CLARITY countdown16:45 Odds climbing#Crypto #Ethereum #Solana~CFTC Crypto Meeting Turns Into A Brawl!

Stephen Hess is the founder of Metaplex, the leading protocol for digital assets on Solana. As a director of the Metaplex Foundation, Stephen drives strategy and ecosystem growth, establishing Metaplex as the backbone for digital asset creation and commerce. Previously head of product at Solana Labs, Stephen spearheaded the scaling of the application layer, including the first liquid staking programs, bridges, stablecoins, gaming, token standards and ecosystem integrations. Stephen leverages his background in Symbolic Systems from Stanford to focus on the intersection of technology, economics, and culture. Today, Metaplex powers hundreds of millions of NFTs and tokens, with its Genesis platform extending this foundation into on-chain token launches.

Stephen Hess is the founder of Metaplex, the leading protocol for digital assets on Solana. As a director of the Metaplex Foundation, Stephen drives strategy and ecosystem growth, establishing Metaplex as the backbone for digital asset creation and commerce. Previously head of product at Solana Labs, Stephen spearheaded the scaling of the application layer, including the first liquid staking programs, bridges, stablecoins, gaming, token standards and ecosystem integrations. Stephen leverages his background in Symbolic Systems from Stanford to focus on the intersection of technology, economics, and culture. Today, Metaplex powers hundreds of millions of NFTs and tokens, with its Genesis platform extending this foundation into on-chain token launches.

On this TCAF Tuesday, Josh Brown and Michael Batnick welcome Anatoly Yakovenko, CEO of Solana Labs and Co-founder of Solana to discuss the prospects for a tokenized stock market. Anatoly explains why SOL is the right answer for creating liquidity and tokenizing both privately-held and publicly-traded stocks around the world. Then at 44:28, hear an all-new episode of What Are Your Thoughts with ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Downtown Josh Brown⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Michael Batnick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! This episode is sponsored by Public. Fund your account in five minutes or less by visiting http://public.com/WAYT   Sign up for ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Compound Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and never miss out! Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://instagram.com/thecompoundnews⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/thecompoundnews⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-compound-media/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@thecompoundnews⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Investing involves the risk of loss. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be or regarded as personalized investment advice or relied upon for investment decisions. Michael Batnick and Josh Brown are employees of Ritholtz Wealth Management and may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this video. All opinions expressed by them are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. The Compound Media, Incorporated, an affiliate of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ritholtz Wealth Management⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, receives payment from various entities for advertisements in affiliated podcasts, blogs and emails. Inclusion of such advertisements does not constitute or imply endorsement, sponsorship or recommendation thereof, or any affiliation therewith, by the Content Creator or by Ritholtz Wealth Management or any of its employees. For additional advertisement disclaimers see here ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ritholtzwealth.com/advertising-disclaimers⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Investments in securities involve the risk of loss. Any mention of a particular security and related performance data is not a recommendation to buy or sell that security. The information provided on this website (including any information that may be accessed through this website) is not directed at any investor or category of investors and is provided solely as general information. Obviously nothing on this channel should be considered as personalized financial advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any securities. See our disclosures here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ritholtzwealth.com/podcast-youtube-disclosures/⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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.

Solana Mobile has announced Aug. 4 as the launch date for its Seeker Web3 mobile phone. A subsidiary of blockchain developer Solana Labs, Solana Mobile also revealed that the mobile ecosystem will have a native token, SKR. The token will power the economy and incentives of the platform and align users, developers and hardware manufacturers with growing the Web3 mobile ecosystem.Guest: Emmett Hollyer, GM of Solana MobilePRE-ORDER Solana Seeker NOW! ➜https://solanamobile.com/refer/paulbarronConfirming Shipping on Order ➜ solanamobile.com/shipping00:00 Intro00:17 Solana Saga & Seeker Phones00:48 Airdrops Incoming!!01:20 August 4th Shipping02:08 SKR Token03:29 Warning: Website Glitches04:19 A.I. on Seeker06:16 A.I. Agents on Solana08:57 Stablecoin DeFi Yields09:24 How Many Devs Building on Seeker?10:55 GEODNET GPS + Augmented Reality12:45 Better Trading Experience13:35 Apple Pay vs Solana Pay14:04 Loyalty Token Points for Brands16:12 Apple vs Solana App Store18:41 Notifications19:10 FREE Helium Mobile Service 19:40 150k to 1 Million Users22:00 Seed Vault: Security & User Data23:22 Gaming Device for Solana OS?24:44 XReal Mobile AR25:15 Project Aura Coming26:44 TEEPIN27:45 outro#Solana #Crypto #iphone ~Solana Seeker Launch Countdown!

In this episode, Austin speaks with Brennan Watt, VP of Core Engineering at Anza, about the evolution of Solana's validator clients. The conversation centers on Agave, originally developed at Solana Labs and now, by Anza. Brennan offers perspective on the critical role validator clients play in overall network performance, recounting challenges encountered in 2022 and 2023 and the improvements that have shaped the current landscape. They dive deep on topics such as memory allocation optimizations, the development of the Agave scheduler, and the broader movement toward a multi-client ecosystem. 00:00 - Anza's Origin and Early Challenges with Solana 07:47 - Technical Debt and Development Philosophy 12:58 - Scheduler Innovations and Performance Enhancements 18:19 - Modular Codebase and Future Improvements 22:36 - Governance and Protocol Changes 24:50 - CU Limits and Performance 32:08 - Validator Client Collaboration 35:54 - Future Performance Goals 41:25 - Final Thoughts  DISCLAIMER The content herein is provided for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities, options, futures, or other derivatives related to securities in any jurisdiction, nor should not be relied upon as advice to buy, sell or hold any of the foregoing. This content is intended to be general in nature and is not specific to you, the user or anyone else. You should not make any decision, financial, investment, trading or otherwise, based on any of the information presented without undertaking independent due diligence and consultation with a professional advisor. Solana Foundation Foundation and its agents, advisors, council members, officers and employees (the “Foundation Parties”) make no representation or warranties, expressed or implied, as to the accuracy of the information herein and expressly disclaims any and all liability that may be based on such information or any errors or omissions therein. The Foundation Parties shall have no liability whatsoever, under contract, tort, trust or otherwise, to any person arising from or related to the content or any use of the information contained herein by you or any of your representatives. All opinions expressed herein are the speakers' own personal opinions and do not reflect the opinions of any entities.

Raj Gokal is the co-founder of Solana and president of Solana Labs. He also serves on the board of the Solana Foundation. He was previously focused on startups in behavioral health. He was Director of Product at Omada Health; EIR at Rock Health; Co-Founder of Sano, building consumer glucose sensors; and an investor at General Catalyst Partners. He started his career in hedge funds at companies like Meridian Capital Partners. Raj studied Finance at the Wharton School of UPenn.

Gm! This week, we're joined by Anatoly Yakovenko Co-Founder of Solana Labs. We deep dive into Solana transaction fee's, how to remain competitive within crypto, SOL inflation, competing with Apple & Google, does Solana have a moat & so much more. Enjoy! – Follow Mert: https://x.com/0xMert_ Follow Anatoly: https://x.com/aeyakovenko Follow Lightspeed: https://twitter.com/Lightspeedpodhq Subscribe to the Lightspeed Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed Utilize the Solana Dashboard by Blockworks Research: http://solana.blockworksresearch.com/ -- Ledger, the global leader in digital asset security, proudly sponsors the Lightspeed podcast. As Ledger celebrates 10 years of securing 20% of global crypto, it remains the top choice for securing your Solana assets. Buy a LEDGER™ device now and build confidently, knowing your SOL are safe. Buy now on Ledger.com. -- Get top market insights and the latest in crypto news. Subscribe to Blockworks Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/ -- (00:00) Introduction (01:51) Solana's Transaction Front Running (06:37) Solana Fee Markets (10:18) Composability At Scale (12:50) Competing With L2s (19:43) Ledger Ad (20:20) Synchronous Composability (21:59) Validators (27:06) Solana Inflation (29:16) How Does Solana Compete? (32:31) Execution Is A Moat (35:36) Firedancer (40:47) Solana Mobile (45:25) Competing With Apple & Google (47:04) L1 Business Models (49:49) Solana Bandwidth -- Disclaimers: Lightspeed was kickstarted by a grant from the Solana Foundation. Nothing said on Lightspeed is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Mert, Jack, and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.

*SPONSORED CONTENT* Did you miss out on Breakpoint 2024? In partnership with Solana, Real Vision is releasing the best talks from Breakpoint 2024. In this chat, Balaji Srinivasan, author of The Network State, and Raj Gokal, co-founder of Solana and COO of Solana Labs, discuss decentralization, network states, and the Solana ecosystem. Breakpoint is the annual gathering of the worldwide Solana community, hosted by the Solana Foundation. Breakpoint 2024 was held Sept. 20-21 in Singapore. For more information, go to solana.com/breakpoint. DISCLAIMER The content herein is provided for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities, options, futures, or other derivatives related to securities in any jurisdiction, nor should not be relied upon as advice to buy, sell or hold any of the foregoing. This content is intended to be general in nature and is not specific to you, the user or anyone else. You should not make any decision, financial, investment, trading or otherwise, based on any of the information presented without undertaking independent due diligence and consultation with a professional advisor. Solana Foundation Foundation and its agents, advisors, council members, officers and employees (the “Foundation Parties”) make no representation or warranties, expressed or implied, as to the accuracy of the information herein and expressly disclaims any and all liability that may be based on such information or any errors or omissions therein. The Foundation Parties shall have no liability whatsoever, under contract, tort, trust or otherwise, to any person arising from or related to the content or any use of the information contained herein by you or any of your representatives. All opinions expressed herein are the speakers' own personal opinions and do not reflect the opinions of any entities.

What's the future of Web3 gaming? Join us for a special episode of the Solana Startup Series on The Index. Today, we're talking with Guido Pardini, CEO of Shaga, a revolutionary cloud gaming platform born from Solana Labs. Guido takes us on an inspiring journey from his teenage years in Italy, where he immersed himself in 3D printing and the maker movement, to his academic studies in computer science and electrical engineering in Milan. Discover how the 2009 financial crisis ignited his passion for decentralized technologies like Bitcoin, and how those early interests now fuel Shaga's mission to revolutionize gaming by drastically reducing latency through decentralization.We explore the key differences between centralized and decentralized gaming infrastructures and the innovative ways Shaga is solving the latency problem. Shaga's DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network) transforms individual gaming PCs into nodes, distributed near gamers. These nodes share their computing power to enhance the gaming experience, slashing latency and providing seamless, real-time gameplay. Guido also shares the ambitious plan to pilot a decentralized Xbox cloud gaming platform, offering lag-free experiences while giving small game studios access to free cloud infrastructure. Learn why Solana's unique state-on-flight technology was the perfect foundation for this game-changing platform.Don't miss this deep dive into the future of gaming and the transformative potential of decentralized networks.Website: https://www.shaga.xyz/X Channel: https://x.com/playonshagaShow LinksThe Index X ChannelYouTube

In today's episode, we cover Caroline Ellison's two-year prison sentence for her role in the FTX collapse and Sweden's FIU labeling several crypto exchanges as professional money launderers. We also discuss the DOJ's lawsuit against Visa alleging a payments monopoly, Solana Labs' partnership with Google Cloud on a Web3 API, and Telegram's controversial privacy policy shift. Plus, Bitcoin's potential price surge driven by China's recent economic stimulus. Tune in for these stories and more from the world of crypto!Further reading:Breaking: Caroline Ellison sentenced to 2 years in prisonSweden sees crypto exchanges as professional money launderersDOJ sues Visa over alleged payments monopolySolana Labs partners with Google Cloud to launch Web3 APITelegram's policy shift raises privacy concernsBitcoin price target rises to $78K after Chinese stimulus packageThis episode of Rise'n'Crypto is brought to you by Cointelegraph and was hosted by Savannah Fortis. You can follow Savannah on X.Rise'n'Crypto is brought to you by Cointelegraph and is hosted and produced by Robert Baggs. You can follow Robert on Twitter and LinkedIn. Cointelegraph's Twitter: @CointelegraphCointelegraph's website: cointelegraph.comThe views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this podcast are its participants' alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph. This podcast (and any related content) is for entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial advice, nor should it be taken as such. Everyone must do their own research and make their own decisions. The podcast's participants may or may not own any of the assets mentioned.

Gm! In this episode, we're joined by Emon Motamedi, the Head of Solana Incubator! We discussed Solana Incubator's selection process, the first cohort of projects, and synergies with Solana Mobile. We also dove into the stories behind Sanctum and Meme Royale! Finally, Emon gave his thoughts on evaluating startups on Solana. Enjoy! Grow your company alongside Solana Labs: https://incubator.solanalabs.com/ -- Follow Emon: https://x.com/EmonMotamedi Follow Mert: https://x.com/0xMert_ Follow Jack: https://x.com/whosknave Follow Lightspeed: https://twitter.com/Lightspeedpodhq Subscribe to the Lightspeed Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed -- Access is the new way to support and consume content from your favorite creators. Over 140 subscriptions to select from, spanning from large crypto media to a long tail of talented independent researchers and artists. No paying for subscriptions. Simply stake, consume, and get rewarded. Claim your free subscription through this link. But be quick there is a limited number available! https://tiplink.io/f/2195-aOAlZYc4ARht#Lhr8-0rBdVrxL94ZjOHwVtwxI2OSal2xw6Sz51lYuzU – Step into MyPrize—the online multiplayer crypto casino that lets you battle your friends and play alongside creators. On MyPrize, you're invited to get rowdy and share every victory and defeat with your pals. Because we know the only thing more fun than beating the house is beating your friends. Get started now with a 150% deposit or purchase bonus: https://myprize.com/invite/Lightspeed -- Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/43o3Syk Subscribe on Apple: https://apple.co/3OhiXgV Subscribe on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3OkF7PD Get top market insights and the latest in crypto news. Subscribe to Blockworks Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/ -- (00:00) Introduction (01:48) Are Incubators Worth It? (10:27) Solana Incubator's Selection Process (14:58) The First Cohort (22:18) Access Protocol Ad (22:59) MyPrize Ad (23:30) Sanctum's Time In The Incubator (31:59) Which Teams From Cohort One Are Underrated? (36:31) Meme Royale's Story (40:42) Synergies With Solana Mobile (44:12) Emon's Shifting Roles (47:15) Evaluating Startups On Solana -- Disclaimers: Lightspeed was kickstarted by a grant from the Solana Foundation. Nothing said on Lightspeed is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Mert, Jack, and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.

In this episode, Austin chats with Davis Hard (Solana Labs) to talk about GameShift, a new API designed to streamline blockchain integration for game developers on Solana. GameShift aims to simplify the process of incorporating blockchain elements into games by providing a Rust-based API that intermediates between the game and the blockchain, reducing the need for developers to manage keys and do blockchain development themselves. Davis explains but the technicalities and practicalities of Gameshift, using current and future game projects as case studies. The conversation also touches on the broader context of Solana's gaming ecosystem, the potential of meme coins in web3 gaming, and the hurdles remaining in the adoption of blockchain technology by traditional gaming studios. DISCLAIMERThe content herein is provided for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities, options, futures, or other derivatives related to securities in any jurisdiction, nor should not be relied upon as advice to buy, sell or hold any of the foregoing. This content is intended to be general in nature and is not specific to you, the user or anyone else. You should not make any decision, financial, investment, trading or otherwise, based on any of the information presented without undertaking independent due diligence and consultation with a professional advisor.  Solana Foundation Foundation and its agents, advisors, council members, officers and employees (the “Foundation Parties”) make no representation or warranties, expressed or implied, as to the accuracy of the information herein and expressly disclaims any and all liability that may be based on such information or any errors or omissions therein. The Foundation Parties shall have no liability whatsoever, under contract, tort, trust or otherwise, to any person arising from or related to the content or any use of the information contained herein by you or any of your representatives. All opinions expressed herein are the speakers' own personal opinions and do not reflect the opinions of any entities.  

Title: Crypto's Resilient Rhythm - Bitcoin Holds Steady as Titans Clash Summary Paragraph: In a dynamic crypto landscape, Bitcoin demonstrated its resilience by maintaining stability around $69,000, underpinned by the Fed's steadying hand on interest rates and positive inflation data. However, the market witnessed a multifaceted tapestry of events, from legendary trader John Bollinger's insights on Bitcoin's volatility to Solana Labs' innovative blockchain-based loyalty platform, Bond. Amidst this backdrop, Ethereum faced a significant correction, while altcoin predictions hinted at potential gains for meme coins like Dogecoin. Concurrently, the reduction in Bitcoin supply on centralized exchanges fueled optimism, and the Shiba Inu community anticipated an upcoming bull run. The Web3 realm continued to push boundaries with the Epic Games Store launch of the Ethereum-based NFT card battler, "Parallel," and Gamee's Wat Project's remarkable growth on Telegram. HOW CAN SUPPORT? SUBSCRIBE: ⁠RARE BITS PODCAST⁠    WATCH: ⁠RAREBITS LIVE YOUTUBE⁠   READ: RARE BITS SUBSTACK⁠  Follow on X: BEATBROKER RARE BITS LIVE GET SOME MERCH RARE BITS GEAR:⁠RARE BITS MERCH⁠

A conversation with Matty, the co-founder of Colosseum and former Head of Growth at the Solana Foundation.❤️‍

Solana has seen remarkable growth and market capitalization, with its token soaring by 791% over the past year. Despite this surge, the factors driving the popularity and success of meme coins on the Solana network remain uncertain.This episode is sponsored by the Stellar Community FundFollow the show here for more.In this installment of "The Protocol," hosts Brad Keoun, the founding editor of The Protocol Newsletter, and tech journalists Sam Kessler and Margaux Nijkerk, discuss the rise of Solana and the recent craze around meme coins on its platform with guest Anatoly Yakovenko, CEO of Solana Labs.Anatoly delves into his journey into crypto and evaluates the sustainability of meme coin growth, probing its impact on Solana's network. He also tackles the challenge of failed transactions on Solana and outlines upcoming upgrades aimed at addressing priority fees and expanding block size. Throughout the discussion, Anatoly Yakovenko provides insights into Solana's comparison with Ethereum, its competitive landscape and ecosystem, scalability initiatives, roadmap, outage management, security measures, and the business model behind the Solana Phone.Sign Up for THE PROTOCOL NEWSLETTER Takeaways | Solana has experienced significant growth and market cap, with its token up 791% over one year.Meme coins have gained popularity on Solana, but the reasons for their success are unclear.The meme coin craze has stressed Solana's network, leading to a high number of failed transactions.Solana is working on upgrades to address priority fees and improve transaction flow and scheduling. Solana is focused on execution and transmitting information quickly, while Ethereum is focused on settlement.The visions of Solana and Ethereum are different, but they compete because of overlapping use cases and features.Security in blockchain networks does not depend on the majority of the network, but rather on the cryptographic signatures and trust of entities like Circle.The Solana Phone aims to disrupt app stores by offering an app store with no fees, allowing developers to save revenue and provide a better user experience.EPISODE LINKS | Solana Anatoly Yakovenko and Solana Bounce BackSolana Meme Coin Slerf Clocks Higher Trading Volume Than All of EthereumSOL Crosses $200 as Meme Coin Frenzy Bumps Demand for Solana NetworkSolana-Based Crypto Exchange Drift Plans Pre-Launch Market for New Tokens-From Our Sponsor: The Stellar Community Fund (SCF) is an open-application awards program that draws on community input to support developers and startups building on Stellar and Soroban. Accelerate your web3 project today.Apply for Funding at communityfund.stellar.org-The Protocol has been produced and edited by senior producer Michele Musso and our executive producer is Jared Schwartz. Our theme song is “Take Me Back” by Strength To Last.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A conversation with Toly, the co-founder of Solana Labs and the Solana blockchain.❤️‍

We catch up with Austin, Head of Strategy at Solana Foundation and former Head of Communications at Solana Labs. In particular, we focus on how Solana continues to differentiate itself from a fast-growing array of challenger blockchain ecosystems with token extensions. We also chat about Solana's emphasis on grassroots growth over top-down business development approaches and how Solana positions itself across a variety of strategic sub sectors within the emergent crypto economy. A great overview from the perspective of one of Solana's most prominent voices. -        - Time Stamps 0:00 - Business Development strategy 5:18 - Token Extensions program 7:55 - Why build app chains anymore? 10:06 - Native L1 private transactions 14:03 - Unlocking on-chain payments 17:05 - Why Coinbase ignores Solana 19:05 - DePIN achieving PMF 24:53 - The rise of Solana-based games 30:50 - Unlocking the abundance of NFTs through compression 33:01 - Mobile strategy 38:06 - L1 governance 40:42 - Maintaining fast updates alongside decentralization   44:12 - Surviving state-level attacks 49:57 - Human coordination is the final boss? 55:59 - What is Austin excited about? -        - Podcast Resources Follow Sal: https://twitter.com/salxyz Follow Dave: https://twitter.com/SolBeachBum Follow Unlayered: https://twitter.com/UnlayeredPod Subscribe on Spotify, Apple, or Google: https://unlayered.io/ Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UnlayeredPod -        - Episode Resources Follow Austin : https://Twitter.com/AustinFedera Follow Validated : https://Twitter.com/ValidatedPod

Solana Labs announced the launch of GameShift, its Web3 service for game developers. Now available for developers to begin building a Web3-powered gaming experience with a single, easy-to-use API built on Solana, without the need for blockchain coding or knowledge.Guest: Davis Hart, Head of GameShift (Solana Labs) GameShift website ➜ https://bit.ly/4bHNZrYPRE-ORDER Saga 2 NOW! ➜ https://solanamobile.com/refer/paulbarron00:00 intro00:35 GameShift x Solana Labs01:49 Solana Games in 202404:18 Web3 Solutions for Game Studios07:54 Asset Import09:54 Player Wallets & Self-Custody Features12:38 Mobile Game Tools14:57 Solana Saga16:33 Cross-Chain Functionality18:57 DePIN Games Coming?21:08 Meta Quest & Apple Vision Pro23:00 Xbox & PS5 Games26:43 outro#Solana #Crypto #NFT~Bringing Games To Solana!

Solana Mobile's highly-anticipated and soon-to-drop Saga smartphone has sold 100,000 pre-orders in the last 30 days, according to Solana Labs. The phone's current special pre-order price will close in two days.PRE-ORDER Saga 2 NOW! ➜ https://solanamobile.com/refer/paulbarron~This episode is sponsored by Tangem~Tangem ➜ https://bit.ly/TangemPBNUse Code: "PBN" for Additional Discounts!00:00 intro00:18 Sponsor: Tangem00:49 Saga Hits 100,000 Pre-Orders01:13 48hrs Left!01:54 Marques vs Saga02:59 Value is Good03:43 Saga Crypto Experience05:36 Apple Vision Pro Hypocracy07:02 Apple Terrorizes Developers!09:30 Devs Will Leave Apple10:54 Merchants Pay for Rewards13:10 Helium Mobile Subscriber Payments13:47 Hivemapper Announcement Soon?14:20 Uber Strike Incoming!16:59 Saga Rewards Tracker17:38 Rewards Linked To Phone18:09 Paul on Leaderboard18:38 Saga NFT Airdrop19:22 outro#Solana #Crypto #Ethereum~Solana Saga 2 Reaches 100,000 Pre-Orders!

For this week's episode, Jacquelyn interviewed Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana Labs, the technology company that aims to help grow the ecosystem for the layer-1 blockchain Solana.The conversation focused on Solana Mobile and its flagship web3 Android smartphone, Saga, which sold out in mid-December, as well as its new phone, Chapter 2 – which was announced last week. Within its first 30 hours Chapter 2 had over 30,000 preorders – signaling a lot of demand for the next generation Android-based phone. At the time of recording, Anatoly shared there were over 40,000 preorders.Anatoly and Jacquelyn discussed the long road to selling out Saga, how important rewards and developers are and the nitty gritty details for Chapter 2. They also dove into the company's strategy and long-term mission of going up against Google and Apple app stores and how long it may take for Solana Mobile to breakeven.If you need a refresher on Solana Mobile's Saga phone, we've got you covered:Buying frenzy for Solana Mobile's second phone drives preorders sky-highRing ring, Solana's web3-focused Saga phone is callingSolana's web3 phone is an ‘opportunity' against Google and Apple, co-founder says(0:00) Solana mobile background information(1:51) Launching Solana Mobile(6:17) Benefits of building on the DApp sotre(8:14) Saga phone and developer revenue(12:46) Reward models for adoption(15:07) Launching Chapter 2(23:28) Solana's Mobile Strategy(24:35) Crypto and digital self custody25:52) What's next for Solana Mobile   Chain Reaction comes out every Thursday at 12:00 p.m. ET, so be sure to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite pod platform to keep up with the action.

In today's episode Jason and Santi are joined by Solana Labs founder and CEO Anatoly Yakovenko and Ben Sparango, the Head of Strategic Business Development. The duo has returned to discuss Solana's progress beyond the FTX fallout. They dive into Solana's priorities around scaling, fees, and alignment incentives between builders and validators. Anatoly elaborates on the network effects of open-sourcing core technology like the SVM, while Ben highlights mobile adoption and NFTs as driving new crypto demand. They debate the trajectory for permissionless finance to run mainstream markets on Solana, and whether the Saga phone can make a dent in Apple and Google's distribution monopolies. We hope you enjoy! - - Follow Anatoly: https://twitter.com/aeyakovenko Follow Jason: https://twitter.com/JasonYanowitz Follow Santiago: https://twitter.com/santiagoroel Follow Empire: https://twitter.com/theempirepod Subscribe on YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/4fdhhb2j Subscribe on Apple: https://tinyurl.com/mv4frfv7 Subscribe on Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/wbaypprw Get top market insights and the latest in crypto news. Subscribe to Blockworks Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/ - - Arbitrum is a game-changer for daily Ethereum's users and developers, offering top applications and lower fees. As the leading scaling solution with 600+ apps, explore Arbitrum's Portal to find your perfect fit. Interact with the home of DeFi, a flourishing NFT and creator ecosystem, and a rapidly growing Web3 gaming hub – Arbitrum has it all.  Get started at: portal.arbitrum.io  - - Harpie is the most advanced on-chain security solution for monitoring and protecting your crypto wallet from theft in real time. Harpie detects, blocks, and recovers compromised assets from malicious transactions before they execute, and is the only security tool to also protect users from off-chain signature attacks like the recent Ledger Connect Kit exploit. Secure your wallet for free at harpie.io. - - Join us at DAS (Digital Asset Summit) in London this March! DAS is the #1 institutional conference in crypto, hosted by Blockworks. Use the link below to learn more, and use EMPIRE10 to get 10% off your ticket! Sign up now because the price goes up every month. See you there! Learn more + get your ticket here: https://blockworks.co/event/digital-asset-summit-2024-london/home - - Timestamps (02:00) The Solana Recovery Post SBF (10:30) Priorities for Solana Development (22:14) The Next Gen L1 Case for Builders (24:56) Economics of the SVM (34:17) State of Solana Fee Market (48:18) Inflation & Staking Dynamics (51:17) DAS 2024 (52:32) Arbitrum Ad (53:18) Harpie Ad (54:32) Open Source & Security Approach (01:02:02) Governance & Alignment (01:12:25) The Value of Permisionless Systems (01:19:04) Saga Mobile Strategy & Potential (01:25:14) Remaining Moonshot Ideas - - Disclaimer: Nothing said on Empire is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Santiago, Jason, and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.

Chris Burniske and two proponents of each approach discuss their different characteristics and relative benefits, and what will drive the next crypto bull cycle.Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Pandora, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.In this episode of Unchained, Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana Labs, Nick White, COO at Celestia, and Chris Burniske, partner at VC firm Placeholder discuss the differences between modular and monolithic, or integrated, blockchains, with Solana epitomizing the monolithic approach and Celestia the modular one. They all agree that both approaches have their merits and will likely coexist, but argue each lends itself to specific use cases and developer preferences. They also discuss what will drive the next crypto bull cycle, and each gives their best predictions for a specific development in the crypto industry in the next few years.Show highlights | Chris's explanation of the modular vs. monolithic approach in blockchainsWhat drove Anatoly to prioritize speed in Solana's architecture and its impact on the networkWhat Celestia is and how it represents the first modular blockchain networkWhether developers and users will gravitate more towards modular or monolithic blockchainsHow Solana, as one of the fastest blockchains, is gearing up to handle massive usage and scalabilityWhy Chris views Celestia as a frontrunner in the data availability sectorHow Nick perceives the philosophical similarities and executional differences between Celestia and SolanaWhether there's potential for Solana to transition into a modular blockchain in the futureWhy Chris believes that the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) might surpass the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) in user adoptionWhat challenges Bitcoin faces in developing actual Layer 2 solutions, especially considering its "doomers storage" issueWhat could drive the next crypto bull marketTop predictions for 2024 and beyond Anatoly's perspective on how a significant hack could pose a serious setback for the entire industryThank you to our sponsors! Arbitrum Foundation | Popcorn Network | iTrustCapitalGuests | Anatoly Yakovenko, cofounder of Solana LabsChris Burniske, partner at PlaceholderNick White, COO at Celestia LabsLinks | Modular vs. monolithicAlchemy: Modular vs. Monolithic BlockchainsVisa: Monolithic vs. modular blockchainChris Burniske's tweet on modular vs monolithic“The horrific inefficiencies of monolithic blockchains” by polynyaBlockworks: A spicy salvo launched in the monolithic vs modular debateUnchained: What Is the Blockchain Trilemma?CelestiaCelestia's explanation of modular blockchainsData availabilityData availability samplingAn introduction to sovereign rollupsSpot Bitcoin ETF:Unchained: Why The Spot Bitcoin ETF Is a Big DealDeciding on Bitcoin: Should New Investors Jump In Now or Wait for an ETF?Ledger ConnectKit incidentUnchained: Ledger Library Compromised, Causing Confusion and Panic in Crypto CommunityUnchained Podcast is Produced by Laura Shin Media, LLC. Distributed by CoinDesk. Senior Producer is Michele Musso and Executive Producer is Jared Schwartz.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of Unchained, Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana Labs, Nick White, COO at Celestia, and Chris Burniske, partner at VC firm Placeholder discuss the differences between modular and monolithic, or integrated, blockchains, with Solana epitomizing the monolithic approach and Celestia the modular one. They all agree that both approaches have their merits and will likely coexist, but argue each lends itself to specific use cases and developer preferences.They also discuss what will drive the next crypto bull cycle, and each gives their best predictions for a specific development in the crypto industry in the next few years.  Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Pandora, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Show highlights: Chris's explanation of the modular vs. monolithic approach in blockchains What drove Anatoly to prioritize speed in Solana's architecture and its impact on the network What Celestia is and how it represents the first modular blockchain network Whether developers and users will gravitate more towards modular or monolithic blockchains How Solana, as one of the fastest blockchains, is gearing up to handle massive usage and scalability Why Chris views Celestia as a frontrunner in the data availability sector How Nick perceives the philosophical similarities and executional differences between Celestia and Solana Whether there's potential for Solana to transition into a modular blockchain in the future Why Chris believes that the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) might surpass the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) in user adoption What challenges Bitcoin faces in developing actual Layer 2 solutions, especially considering its "doomers storage" issue What could drive the next crypto bull market Top predictions for 2024 and beyond  Anatoly's perspective on how a significant hack could pose a serious setback for the entire industry  Thank you to our sponsors! Arbitrum Foundation Popcorn Network iTrustCapital Guests: Anatoly Yakovenko, cofounder of Solana Labs Previous appearances on Unchained: Anatoly Yakovenko on Solana's Astounding Recovery and Its Future Plans Will Solana Be the Execution Layer and Ethereum the Settlement Layer? Can Solana Seize Marketshare From Ethereum With Serum? Anatoly Yakovenko on Why Solana Is Building the SAGA Chris Burniske, partner at Placeholder Previous appearances on Unchained: Two VCs on Why This Is the Perfect Time to Invest in Crypto 2022 in Review + How Cobie and Chris Burniske Are Playing the New Year Cobie and Chris Burniske on How to Navigate a Crypto Bear Market How To Value A Crypto Asset Nick White, COO at Celestia Labs Links Modular vs. monolithic Alchemy: Modular vs. Monolithic Blockchains Visa: Monolithic vs. modular blockchain Chris Burniske's tweet on modular vs monolithic “The horrific inefficiencies of monolithic blockchains” by polynya Blockworks: A spicy salvo launched in the monolithic vs modular debate Unchained: What Is the Blockchain Trilemma? Celestia Celestia's explanation of modular blockchains Data availability Data availability sampling An introduction to sovereign rollups Spot Bitcoin ETF: Unchained:  Why The Spot Bitcoin ETF Is a Big Deal Deciding on Bitcoin: Should New Investors Jump In Now or Wait for an ETF? Ledger ConnectKit incident Unchained: Ledger Library Compromised, Causing Confusion and Panic in Crypto Community Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In today's episode, we have the creator of Solana and the Co-founder of Solana Labs, Anatoly Yakovenko. We brought on Anatoly to reflect on Solana in 2023 and its future in the New Year and beyond.  -----

Bartosz Lipiński joins us to discuss how Cube is building the first crypto-native centralized exchange. Cube leverages MPC wallets, Solana's client (creating a Solana appchain) and native integrations to offer the best trading experience in crypto. In this episode, we cover Bartosz's journey with Solana Labs, how he helped launch Solana's NFT ecosystem and Hacker House program, Cube's crypto-native functionality, what it takes to build a crypto company and more! - - Join us at DAS (Digital Asset Summit) in London this March! DAS is the #1 institutional conference in crypto, hosted by Blockworks. Use the link below to learn more, and use LIGHTSPEED20 to get 20% off your ticket! Sign up now because the price goes up every month. See you there! Learn more + get your ticket here: https://blockworks.co/event/digital-asset-summit-2024-london/home - - (00:00) Introduction (00:54) Joining Solana Labs (02:03) Solana NFTs and The Creation of Metaplex (11:53) Starting Solana's Hacker House (15:46) DAS London Plug (16:44) Solana's Secret to Winning Over New Developers (19:14) Cube: The Solana-Aligned CEX (28:44) Go-to-Market Strategy (40:49) Integrating New Blockchains (44:39) What it Takes to Build a Company (52:56) Rapid Fire - - Follow Bartosz: https://twitter.com/baalazamon Follow Mert: https://twitter.com/0xMert_ Follow Garrett: https://twitter.com/GarrettHarper_ Follow Lightspeed: https://twitter.com/Lightspeedpodhq Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/43o3Syk Subscribe on Apple: https://apple.co/3OhiXgV Subscribe on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3OkF7PD Get top market insights and the latest in crypto news. Subscribe to Blockworks Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/ - - Resources Cube https://twitter.com/cubexch https://www.cube.exchange/ - -  Disclaimers: Lightspeed was kickstarted by a grant from the Solana Foundation. Nothing said on Lightspeed is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Mert, Garrett and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.

Emon Motamedi joins us to discuss how Solana Labs hopes to find the next killer app. Emon leads product at Solana Labs and is the founder of Reddit's Digital Currency team. In this episode, we discuss Solana Labs' new incubator, finding the next killer app, multichain strategies, what crypto teams get wrong and more! - - Join us at DAS (Digital Asset Summit) in London this March! DAS is the #1 institutional conference in crypto, hosted by Blockworks. Use the link below to learn more, and use BLACKROCKLIGHTSPEED to get 20% off your ticket! Sign up now because the price goes up every month and the discount code expires November 27th! Learn more + get your ticket here: https://blockworks.co/event/digital-asset-summit-2024-london/home - - Timestamps (00:00) Introduction (00:41) What is Solana Labs? (02:16) Solana Labs Product Incubator (23:25) What Teams Often Get Wrong - - Follow Emon: https://twitter.com/EmonMotamedi Follow Mert: https://twitter.com/0xMert_ Follow Garrett: https://twitter.com/GarrettHarper_ Follow Lightspeed: https://twitter.com/Lightspeedpodhq Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/43o3Syk Subscribe on Apple: https://apple.co/3OhiXgV Subscribe on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3OkF7PD Get top market insights and the latest in crypto news. Subscribe to Blockworks Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/ - - Resources Application for Solana Labs Incubator https://incubator.solanalabs.com/ Solana Labs https://twitter.com/solanalabs https://solanalabs.com/ - - Disclaimers: Lightspeed was kickstarted by a grant from the Solana Foundation. Nothing said on Lightspeed is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Mert, Garrett and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.

A conversation with Brian Long, co-founder of Triton One.Full show notes: solfate.com/podcast/37Watch this episode on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=oVhif85sv_IFollow the @SolfatePod show on Twitter for updates. Thanks for listening frens :)Notes from the showBrian has been in the Solana ecosystem since very early days. Pre-mainnet days. He and his company, Triton One, helped Solana Labs bring up mainnet in March 2020. Even to this day, Brian and Triton continue to be active contributors to the Solana ecosystem. Not only does Triton operate the public mainnet and devnet RPCs nodes for the public, Linus Kendall from Triton is one of the few active contributors of the DAS API and infrastructure that is vital to compressed NFTs on Solana.Triton has also been hard at work on improving the Solana RPC Geyser interfacewith Project Yellowstone. In this umbrella project, the Triton team is focused on several aspects of the Geyser interface to make many improvements. One of those includes Old Faithful, the effort to put the entire Solana history (200TB+ of data) on the IPFS network. This is especially interesting, not only because Solana produces so much data that grows rapidly every day, but also because it this is being not only theorized by engineers at Triton and Firedancer, but is also a collaboration with Protocol Labs (the creators of IPFS and Filecoin). Multiple Layer 1 blockchains working directly together. Find Brian and and Triton onlineFollow Brian Long on twitter - @BrianLongFollow Triton on twitter - @triton_oneVisit the Triton website - https://triton.oneFollow us aroundNickfollow on twitter: @nickfrostyfollow on github: github.com/nickfrostywebsite: https://nick.afJamesfollow on twitter: @jamesrp13follow on github: github.com/jamesrp13

Follow the @SolfatePod show on Twitter for updates. Thanks for listening frens :)Notes from the showA conversation with Nicholas Chen, co-founder of SolanaFM.Alpha alert: Nicholas Chen shares a screencast of the new version of SolanaFM. One of the first around! Find the video on our YouTube channel here.SolanaFM is one of the most popular block explorers in the Solana ecosystem. They are well known for their “visual explorer” that allows even the least technical people clearly see how tokens and funds flow through a transaction on the Solana blockchain. Not to mention they have been around in the ecosystem for longer than most!Nicholas Chen and the team at SolanaFM have been cooking up some big changes for the site. After taking in so much feedback from the community, they have have rebuilt and rewritten most of their website to give an even better user experience, including more clear “what happened in this transaction” and “why did this transaction fail” type of information. They have big plans on how to us machine learning and social interactions within the explorer to take it to the next level.In this episode we also talk about:how a block explorer makes moneythe future of block explorers, including adding a social element to them?Alpha alert: Nicholas Chen shares a screencast of the new version of SolanaFM. One of the first around!Note: Even though SolanaFM owns a domain TLD for “solana”, they are not a part of the Solana Foundation or Solana Labs.Find Nicholas Chen and and SolanaFM onlineFollow Nicholas Chen on twitter - @nixxholasFollow SolanaFM on twitter - @SolanaFMVisit the SolanaFM website - solana.fmFollow us aroundNickfollow on twitter: @nickfrostyfollow on github: github.com/nickfrostywebsite: https://nick.afJamesfollow on twitter: @jamesrp13follow on github: github.com/jamesrp13

Ben is the co-founder and CEO of Meso, a platform that makes bank-wallet transfers easy across crypto apps. He's spent over ten years building payments products as part of the early team at Braintree, leading product at Venmo, and working on Solana Pay for Solana Labs.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Follow the @SolfatePod show on Twitter for updates. Thanks for listening frens :)Notes from the showThe creator and lead developer of Solang, Sean Young, a compiler that allow developers to write Solana programs (aka smart contracts) in the Solidity programming language. This has been a multi year effort to allow existing Solidity developers, like all those existing in the Ethereum ecosystem, to use their existing language knowledge to write Solidity smart contracts on the Solana blockchain.Sean describes how he started his developer journey in the blockchain space, starting as writing his own compiler for the Solidity programming language for a EVM compatible blockchain for the purpose of processing traditional documents.Sean began hitting roadblocks when he was trying to add new features into the Solidity language, which is effectively only used for Ethereum and EVM compatible blockchains and maintained by the Ethereum community.As a general overview, Sean describes how a compiler actually works. Including how compilers like Solang and even native Solana uses LLVM toolkit (Low Level Virtual Machine) to maximize compatibility for multiple programming languages.Words and acronyms used throughout the episodesolidity - A statically-typed curly-braces programming language designed for developing smart contracts that run on Ethereum and most EVM compatible blockchains.EVM - the Ethereum Virtual Machine - essentially the portion of any Ethereum based blockchain that actually runs/executes smart contracts written in the Solidity programming languageEIP - Ethereum Improvement Proposals - standards specifying potential new features or processes for EthereumWASM - Web Assembly - is a binary instruction format for a stack-based virtual machineLLVM - Low Level Virtual Machine - a set of compiler and toolchain technologies that can be used to develop a frontend for any programming language and a backend for any instruction set architecture.Solana specific terms (or at least common in the Solana ecosystem): BPF - Berkeley Packet Filter - a technology used in certain computer operating systems for programs that need to, among other things, analyze network traffic.SBF (aka SBPF) - Solana Berkeley Packet Filter - this is a custom implementation of BPF with tweaks for the Solana runtime and SVMSVM - Solana Virtual Machine - the portion of the Solana runtime that actually runs/executes code on the Solana blockchainIDL - Interface Definition Language - generic term for a language that lets a program or object written in one language communicate with another program written in an unknown languageFind Sean and Solang onlineFollow Sean on twitterSolang's documentationSolang getting started guideFollow us aroundNicktwitter: @nickfrostygithub: github.com/nickfrostywebsite: https://nick.afJamestwitter: @jamesrp13github: github.com/jamesrp13Solfate Podcasttwitter: @SolfatePodmore podcast episodes: solfate.com/podcast

Anatoly joins us to discuss why Solana is uniquely designed to utilize ever-increasing bandwidth and compute. We cover Solana's core thesis, how blockchains benefit from hardware improvements, the fundamental flaws of L2s, Anatoly's favorite applications, decentralization and more! Anatoly is a legend, you don't want to miss this one! - - Follow Anatoly: https://twitter.com/aeyakovenko Follow Mert: https://twitter.com/0xMert_ Follow Garrett: https://twitter.com/GarrettHarper_ Follow Lightspeed: https://twitter.com/Lightspeedpodhq Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/43o3Syk Subscribe on Apple: https://apple.co/3OhiXgV Subscribe on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3OkF7PD Get top market insights and the latest in crypto news. Subscribe to Blockworks Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/ - - Use code EMPIRE30 to get 30% off Permissionless 2023 in Austin: https://blockworks.co/event/permissionless-2023 - - Timestamps: (00:00) Solana's Core Thesis (10:40) The Scaling Bottleneck (13:58) Do All Blockchains Equally Benefit From Hardware Improvements? (17:57) Pros and Cons of Parallel Execution (21:12) The Realities of Decentralization (24:43) Solana's Design Moat (28:10) Permissionless ad (29:37) The Fundamental Tradeoffs of L2s (44:12) How Should Solana Approach Business Development? (48:12) The Role of Solana Labs and the Solana Foundation (49:47) The Compressed NFT Opportunity (53:31) We Need to Fix DAO Governance (55:14) Anatoly's Metric of Success for Solana (57:58) Why Anatoly Hasn't Left Crypto (01:00:03) Why an Average Joe Would Use Solana (01:01:39) Rapid Fire    - - Resources Endgame: Proof of Governance by Jon Charbonneau https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toPd1vgHjVE&t=0s - - Disclaimer: Nothing said on Empire is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Santiago, Jason, and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.

Anatoly joins us to discuss why Solana is uniquely designed to utilize ever-increasing bandwidth and compute. We cover Solana's core thesis, how blockchains benefit from hardware improvements, the fundamental flaws of L2s, Anatoly's favorite applications, decentralization and more! Anatoly is a legend, you don't want to miss this one! - - Timestamps (00:00) Introduction (01:47) Solana's Core Thesis (10:29) The Scaling Bottleneck (13:43) Do All Blockchains Equally Benefit From Hardware Improvements? (17:47) Pros and Cons of Parallel Execution (20:56) The Realities of Decentralization (24:32) Solana's Design Moat (27:57) Jito Mid Roll (29:01) Permissionless Plug (30:01) The Fundamental Tradeoffs of L2s (44:43) How Should Solana Approach Business Development? (48:33) The Role of Solana Labs and the Solana Foundation (50:18) The Compressed NFT Opportunity (53:54) We Need to Fix DAO Governance (55:40) Anatoly's Metric of Success for Solana (58:21) Why Anatoly Hasn't Left Crypto (01:00:12) Why an Average Joe Would Use Solana (01:01:58) Rapid Fire - - This episode is brought to you by Jito. Jito is the easiest way to earn MEV rewards on Solana with liquid staking. Stake your SOL with Jito to start earning high yield powered by MEV and access instant liquidity through Jito's liquid staking token JitoSOL so that you can use your staked assets across Solana DeFi. Visit jito.network to get started today! - - Follow Anatoly: https://twitter.com/aeyakovenko Follow Mert: https://twitter.com/0xMert_ Follow Garrett: https://twitter.com/GarrettHarper_ Follow Lightspeed: https://twitter.com/Lightspeedpodhq Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/43o3Syk Subscribe on Apple: https://apple.co/3OhiXgV Subscribe on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3OkF7PD Get top market insights and the latest in crypto news. Subscribe to Blockworks Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/ - - Use code LIGHTSPEED30 to get 30% off Permissionless 2023 in Austin: https://blockworks.co/event/permissionless-2023 - - Resources Jito jito.network Endgame: Proof of Governance - Jon Charbonneau https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toPd1vgHjVE - -  Disclaimers: Lightspeed was kickstarted by a grant from the Solana Foundation. Nothing said on Lightspeed is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Mert, Garrett and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.

Follow the @SolfatePod show on Twitter for updates. Thanks for listening frens :)Notes from the showNick and James talks about the recent Solana Bootcamp/workshop that the Solana Foundation's DevRel team hosted in the NYC office. Plus the Solana NYC hackerhouse has just come to a close and it was amazing!Huge thanks to all the show listeners that met Nick at the NYC hackerhouse and said they were a fan or listener of the show! It's things like this that motivate us to keep doing this show!In light of the recent SEC lawsuits alleging that many top cryptocurrencies and tokens are securities, we talk at a high level what some of the allegations are and what it could me.James expresses his opinion about this market reaction to this news to be an overcorrection and that “we will weather it, and we will be fine”.Disclaimer: Nothing said in this episode (or any of our episodes) is financial or legal advise. The opinions and statements expressed are the personal opinions/statements of those who said it.Links from the showBreakpoint tickets are still available! Devs AND creators are eligible for heavily discounted tickets!Want to learn Solana Development? Checkout the new Solana developer home page!People/Projects Nick mentioned meeting at the NYC hackerhouse: Jordan (from Solana Labs) https://twitter.com/jordaaashBrian Long (@brianlong) - founder of TritonCheckout the “experimental” version of solana/web3.js. It is very cool and will be very small!Follow us aroundNickfollow on twitter: @nickfrostyfollow on github: github.com/nickfrostywebsite: https://nick.afJamesfollow on twitter: @jamesrp13follow on github: github.com/jamesrp13

Sal and Dave tackle the hot-button issue of the Ledger recovery feature, providing their insight into the controversy. They shift gears and sit down with Steven Laver, lead software engineer at Solana Labs, for an enlightening chat into the future of crypto mobile experiences. Specifically, they delve into the world of the Saga smartphone and Solana Mobile Stack, highlighting the utility of the secure element and Solana dapp store. From exploring its potential to support other chains like ETH at the hardware level, to discussing why the phone is much more than a marketing gimmick, Steven underscores the significance of mobile experiences in driving global adoption of digital assets. (0:14) - Sal & Dave Opening Thoughts (13:56) - Why the Saga is more than a gimmick (18:42) - Solana Dapp Store, Crypto's App Store moment? (34:50) - How Seed Vault Secures Your Keys (44:50) - Wallet Adaptor & Support for ETH (55:05) - What Does Success Look Like?

Our guest this week is Austin Federa. Austin is head of strategy and communications at Solana Foundation, responsible for setting the direction of the Solana Foundation and working with projects and developers building in the Solana ecosystem. Austin discusses Solana's pragmatic engineering culture and the need for developers to focus on building things that are truly only possible on Solana. He also highlights the Foundation's role in supporting infrastructure-level initiatives and turning R&D into stable, standardized solutions. Finally, he stresses the importance for founders to focus on revenue and business models during the bear market and to build outside of the United States. Show Notes:0:55 - Starting with Solana6:42 - Pragmatism at Solana11:15 - Labs vs. Foundation17:36 - Exciting new things at Solana21:52 - Things Austin is personally excited about          26:19 - Contributing to Solana31:47 - Who is a builder you admire in the Solana ecosystem? Full Transcript:Brian Friel (00:00):Hey everyone, and welcome to the Zeitgeist, the show. We highlight the founders, developers, and designers who are pushing the Web3 space forward. I'm Brian Friel, developer relations at Phantom, and I'm super excited to introduce our guest, Austin Federa, the head of strategy and communications at the Solana Foundation. Austin, welcome to the show. Austin Federa (00:25):Hey, thanks for having me. Brian Friel (00:26):I'm super excited to talk to you today. As I was saying just before recording, I think this is the first time I'm recording someone who's actually a podcast pro, so I have a lot to learn from you. Thank you for making time. Austin, before we get into everything about Solana today, I'd love to just learn a little bit about you, how you got started at Solana. And I remember when I first joined Solana, you were the head of communications, and I think at the time there wasn't a clear split between labs and foundation. Since then, a lot has changed and maybe you could go in a little bit of that of how your role has evolved as well. Austin Federa (00:56):Yeah, definitely. So I originally joined in January of '21 out of Bison Trails. So Bison Trails was getting acquired by Coinbase to become Coinbase Cloud. I'd worked there for a little over a year running a bunch of the product marketing there and those sorts of things. And just with the transition over to Coinbase, it was like, oh, you don't want to go work for Coinbase, do you? And I was like, no, probably not. And so it was one of those things where it was somewhere in between one of the people who didn't make the cut and one of the people who they were like, you're just not going to be successful here. And I was like, that's a fairly accurate read. I got tons of great friends who are still working at Coinbase, but for me it just wasn't really the right spot. So I was talking to a bunch of L1s and L2s about coming over. (01:41):And so, one of the big things we'd done at Bison Trails is we had built out almost all of the world's Eth2 staking infrastructure. And I mean almost all the world's Bison Trails infrastructure ran solidly over 50% of the Eth2 network when the Beacon Chain launched, and still at that point in January of '21. Now this didn't matter from a decentralization standpoint because the Beacon Chain wasn't actually a thing. It was just a place you could stake. There wasn't actually user transactions or anything of value on it besides some Eth. But I was pretty heavily in the EVM world at that point. And so I was going around and talking to a bunch of different protocols. I was talking to a bunch of L2s and scaling solutions and these sorts of things, and I was talking to Polkadot as well and some of those type of other L1s. (02:25):And a friend of mine who I worked with back at Republic years ago, Ben Sparango was like, "Hey, what are you up to?" And I was like, "Ah, I'm kind of between stuff right now. I'm interviewing a bunch of places. I don't really feel super passionate about it. I was like, maybe I should leave crypto. I kind of like this industry a lot, but I don't know. We'll see." And he is like, "You should talk to Raj and Toly." I was like, "Of Solana?" He goes, "Yeah, yeah, I joined Solana a few months ago. It's great. You should come talk to us." And I was like, "I don't know, man. I worked with 20 different protocols when I was at Bison Trails and none of them were Solana. Solana was the weird thing that was hard to run and no one understood how to build software for it, but we supported it at Bison Trails because there was people who were trying to run infrastructure for it. (03:04):And he is like, "No, just come and talk to them." And we just finished up this big project with Masari, which was the state of Eth2 was basically the report that we just helped them write and put out. And I had a lot of questions and I thought the questions were just things that I was getting wrong. I thought it was me who was not understanding the model under which Eth2 was going to work. This is back at the time when you're going to have Parallax, execution shards on the network and all this sorts of thing. And I was like, I don't understand how DeFi is going to work here. The minute you break what now we call the global state, but the minute you start moving data into segregated places, that means the data has to be moved before it can interact. (03:45):And if there's one thing we all know about computer science, it's that copying is expensive and takes a lot of time. And so I got on the call with Anatoly, and I was just talking about Eth2 stuff and asking him some questions about what he thought about this stuff. And he's like, "Oh yeah, there's no composability in charting." And I was like, "You're the first person who's told me this. Tell me more." 'Cause I've been talking to a bunch of people who were talking about like, oh, well, it's just harder and it's like... He runs me through the whole thing about like Solana's, a single global state machine, really fast blockchain, what all these advantages were here. And all this stuff, for me, I was like, oh, this makes perfect sense. All of the things that I have been thinking and feeling about the undefined world of what the new state... Now I would sort of call it the cosmofication of Ethereum, what that process was like. (04:32):I wasn't an idiot and I wasn't just not smart enough to understand what folks were talking about. Folks just were talking ahead of the problems they'd solved. And this is not to say that we're never going to have composability uncharted ecosystems, but it took video game designers almost a decade to figure out how to program for multi-core processors. And that took a long time to figure. Out for me, this sort of decision to come and join the Solana Labs at that point was really practical. It was like, I don't know if this weird wacky idea is going to work, but I know I'm going to learn a hell of a lot here from these folks who are doing something very different than the rest of the industry. And the very different than the rest of the industry is usually where the cool stuff's happening. Brian Friel (05:15):I think that is the most perfect intro for this because it hits on so many themes. I want to dive in with you. Austin Federa (05:21):Great. Brian Friel (05:21):One theme that you kind of hit on right there, and this is before we even get into what you currently do as your role and everything, which we should definitely hit on, but I think that resonates pretty well with what Phantom saw originally. Because Phantom also coming from EVM background and the founders were all Zero X folks, seeing that, hey, there is this thing, it's maybe the redheaded stepchild of crypto right now, but these people who are marching into their own beat. This is like 2021, very early 2020 at this point. But basically what I would say it was a very non-consensus bet to do things differently and built out its own genuine kernel of developer ecosystem, which has just evolved into all this craziness today we can talk about. (06:00):But I think one of the key principles of that that I've noticed in my time in Solana is just the level of pragmatism and the reality of, Hey, these are problems today. We have users today, and how do we ship and iterate on these things and not talk about a problem that might be 10 years from now, which may or may not be solved, but actually addresses the problem today. And I think there's a lot that is going on in Solana about this across just all sorts of stuff. We should dive into all of that. Austin Federa (06:27):Oh yeah. Brian Friel (06:28):But I love that framing, and I'm curious, is that level of pragmatism... Who do you think that's set by? I feel like that's almost something an Anatoly thing, but is that an explicit choice that Solana Foundation or Solana Labs is choosing to bring into the ecosystem? Austin Federa (06:42):So one of the things I think is really important when you're looking at any software system is to look at philosophies that the people building it have. And a lot of the places you see that philosophy is in their background. And so if you look at Anatoly and Stephen Akridge and a bunch of the other early founders of the Solana project, their expertise was all in embedded systems. A bunch of these folks came from Qualcomm or very similar companies to Qualcomm, and they were trying to figure out how you could cram the best user experience possible on a flip phone or a proto smartphone onto a chip. And they had to do all these crazy low level optimizations to get this stuff to work. And Solana's not super, super low level, but one of the major things there was saying, we're going to combine the consensus layer with the virtual machine. (07:38):And that's not for some elegant principle of software architecture. That's because it's faster and yes, it's harder. And yes, there's a lot of other problems that come with that, but at the end of the day, the pragmatism comes from the background of folks who actually had to ship chips that companies were going to build software on that would interact in the real world and be the basis of all of this mobile revolution. And so there's other approaches that are very sort of come from the academic computing world where it's as long as we can define the perfect software system, in theory, the problem is just finding the execution place to do it on. And there are some chains that have been more successful than others with that. But I think at the end of the day, the thing Solana has going for it is this sort of ruthless pragmatism. It's a desire to build software in a way that doesn't let perfect [inaudible 00:08:33] of the good, but also keeps its values front and center. (08:36):And one of those major values is if you know you have to do the hard thing, do the hard thing first. And that is the thing I will routinely tell people internally is the only way you eat an elephant is one bite at a time. And that is kind of the way we go through all of this stuff. It's so easy to talk yourself into waterfall releases. It's so easy to talk yourself into, well, when this thing comes out, then this and this and this, and this can all come out and then we'll have this end state of this. And it's like you're making assumptions about what the blockchain industry's going to look like 18 months from now. I don't think any human is ever successfully predicted what the blockchain industry would look like six months from now, let alone three times that. So there's all this stuff about not working with entrenched assumptions, picking software architecture systems that feel like they're persistent. I would say that the software philosophy that Solana core engineering builds on is closer to brand philosophy than it is like technical philosophy. It's very interesting. Brian Friel (09:36):Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I mean, being [inaudible 00:09:39], I think we have a front seat to that too, as the ecosystem changes as the leadership basically, like you said, just takes the hard challenge first and says, this is something that we have to face. Let's tackle it now. Here's an open proposal, here's how we can do it. I'm looking back at what Solana was even just a year ago, one of the dev advocates on our team on it put out this tweet that said, "Things we didn't have a year ago on Solana Wallet's standard." Austin Federa (10:02):Oh, I love it. Brian Friel (10:03):Which is like looking at the state of other blockchains trying to be an ejected wallet there, it's a mess. Solana takes that hand on, makes a chain agnostic wallet standard for that version transactions, which like high level, massively refactoring how transactions can be done such that you can just access way more accounts on Solana DeFi doing multi hops exchange. Jupiter, the perfect example of that. Priority fees on the network, I mean elegant state level hotspot fee markets that don't impact the rest. Anyone else on Solana. Programmable NFTs, state compression, quick, stake weighted QoS. (10:37):I mean, not to mention Saga, new token programs. There's just so much going on right now. From where you sit, and maybe this can get into a little bit of the labs versus foundation discussion that we want to get into too, is how do all these ideas come to life mean? Some of these are community driven, like Metaplex having their own programmable NFTs. But a lot of these also are Solana engineers who are just on the front lines with their own proposals. Jordan Sexton has an idea he's doing it. How much of that is top down driven? How much of that is bottom up? And how much of this is a labs versus foundation? How do you see all this kind of how it plays out? Austin Federa (11:16):So before we even get to that, one of, I think the most interesting examples of pragmatism is how little work wallets have to do on Solana. This is super different. On Ethereum, the wallet has to build the transaction, that is a part of the thing. And on Solana, the DAPs have to build the transactions. Because the DAPs know more about what they're building than the wallet does. So why would the wallet build a transaction? The wallet's role is to verify that the transaction is what the DAP says it is, right? But it's those little tiny things where it's like how do we make it easier for people to build something like Phantom in six months as opposed to nine months? (11:55):And that's kind of one component that falls into that. But you were saying these sort of ideas about where do these things come from. A lot of it comes from best practices in other ecosystems about things people are talking about. I think one of the things that Ethereum is far ahead of Solana on is formal verification. And formal verification is not something that we came up with or claimed to have come up with. (12:20):It's like, oh, this is a really strong thing in another ecosystem that we should take and bring into this. Proof of history is just time division multiple access. It's TDMA, it's literally what 2G cell phone technology run on. But you've applied that to a blockchain with a leader schedule now and suddenly you have an incredibly fast blockchain. I think one of the best things to think about is Solana is full of out-of-the-box solutions to very conventional problems. And those out-of-the-box solutions will often come from engineers who are working on this stuff. They'll often come from engineers who are not working on this stuff. The number of suggestions that have come from someone's like, oh, I'm trying to build this thing, and someone like over lunch or over a Zoom on something else is like, what if you just do it this way instead? And they're like, okay. (13:08):And then they go down that... It's sort of this idea that there's not an intellectual purity test. You don't have to subscribe to a philosophy of how something should be built in order to have an idea here. P NFTs came entirely from community demand for them. That was a direct response to sort of a problem. The wallet standard is again, it's like it's really annoying that developers have to integrate calls for every wallet into their DAP. Wouldn't it be so much easier if there could just be one thing they could call and all the wallets in your Chrome Exchange could be like, hello, here I am. And that was an incredible easy turnkey thing that didn't require creating a whole separate product, a whole separate company to just connect wallets or adapt wallets if we should say it that way. And that's where these kind of things come from. (13:58):Now sometimes this leads to suboptimal user experiences too. I would say that we have three excellent explorers on Solana for what you want to do with that explorer. And you don't go to Solscan for the same things you go to Solana FM for and you don't go to the explorer.solana.com for the same things you go to those other ones for. And so there is sometimes this sort of fracturing that occurs because everyone has great ideas and they feel very comfortable building them before we've had a committee meeting or faculty meeting or something to decide what the right path forward is. As much as possible, the goal is to move fast and see what's adopted and the stuff that's adopted then gets tons of resources thrown behind it from the community. Brian Friel (14:48):Yeah, I do think that's incredibly refreshing though for crypto. I mean, especially an industry that's still... I think as a whole macro level iterating a lot. The meta is constantly changing. Some pattern that I've noticed is with P NFTs is a lot of times Solana will hit a new meta or figure out a new problem well before other ecosystems because of this rapid iteration and experimentation. And it's almost like, hey, Solana's figured it out. Let's take the learnings from there and tell everyone else and get up to speed on that. Austin Federa (15:16):Oh yeah. And tell everyone else we thought of it ourselves. That's also the other thing. And we see this all the time, not in a way that people are like, but all of the tricks that Monad is doing to try and speed up EVM, they're all the things that Solana did. Except they're trying to do it with an underlying architecture that it's a lot harder on because transactions on Solana have to specify their accounts, their instructions, their memory, their compute, before they get accepted and executed. So the work of transaction simulation on Solana is a lot more about just reading what the data says and being like, yes, these things say what they actually say they say, and then you can simulate balance changes and all that sort of stuff. But that is a very different problem than trying to stochastically model what an EVM transaction is going to do. (16:05):And if you're trying to do out of order processing of EVM transactions, I'm not going to say it can't work because a lot of people thought Token Ring was the only protocol that could possibly make the internet work. And the idea of just throwing packets randomly at a router and being good luck, well, that sounded insane, and that is exactly how the internet works. You just randomly throw packets at routers and most of them get there somehow. It's pretty astonishing. Like packet collision's super rare nowadays, even though everyone's just screaming at the top of their lungs constantly for bandwidth, and that's wild. (16:37):So who knows if the stuff will actually work on that side. But the cool thing I think that's going on in Solana is this lack of ideological purity around how something has to be done, and it's more of a purity around what the outcome has to be. There's so many analogies here, but the United States, we talk about equality of opportunity all the time, and that is actually a much harder thing to do than equality of outcome. And so I think with Solana, it's like if you focus on the outcome that you want and not the process by which you get there, you will find a better way to get there. Brian Friel (17:12):I love that. So from where you sit on the foundation side now head of strategy at Foundation, you mentioned that there's all these engineers, some at Solana, some not at Solana, who basically have these problems. They come up with pragmatic solutions. What's the role of the Solana Foundation on all of this? And is there any big bets in particular that you're excited about or you guys are making for this year on Solana? Austin Federa (17:36):Yeah, So the Foundation is a Swiss nonprofit foundation that exists to further the adoption and advancement of the Solana blockchain. And so this is the entity that gives grants. This is the entity that if you've ever sort of interacted with a granting apparatus, breakpoint, hacker houses, developer boot camps, those are all run out of the Solana Foundation. That's its role for being in the world. And so the initiatives that we are working on are really infrastructure level. They always have been, and I think they will continue to be throughout this year. So a great example of this are fee markets, like you mentioned, right? Local fee markets. That was technically shipped in September, but I would argue it practically wasn't shipped until December. And that was because there wasn't a method at that point for an RPC, for a wallet, a DAP, anything to hit up an RPC and say, how much do you think I should prioritize a fee if I really want to make sure this transaction gets through? (18:34):And without the ability to guesstimate, you don't have anything, right? That is not a functional, usable, shipped thing without developers actually being able to implement it. And that's kind of the difference I would describe between the work that gets done through let's just say Solana Labs and core engineering there and the work the Foundation's supporting. A lot of the work that core engineering does and a bunch of, obviously not all, there's core engineers all over the place, but a number of the core engineers are on Solana Labs' payroll. And those individuals, they're focused on the core engineering, right? (19:09):They're like, we shipped fee markets. We're good. At the Foundation, we're like, wait a minute, wait a minute. There's so much work to actually be done to turn this into a standard that every DAP and wallet can use without spending days writing custom code. And so I would say that's kind of the place that the Foundation comes in is it's not directing what work gets done, but it's sort of the process of taking stuff that feels like it's either R&D or it's super hot production engineering. And turning it into something that's more stable, that's more standardized, that's more universally understood, and doing that in a way that there's feedback collected from many people in the ecosystem, in addition to the whole granting apparatus. Brian Friel (19:47):So the developer relations team sits at the foundation level no longer at the labs level? Austin Federa (19:52):Yes, very much. You were saying earlier like, oh, these things maybe weren't as separate before they actually were just as separate. They were just very few people worked for Foundation. So because most of the work at that point was just sort of kick out as much as you can get out the door. There were folks at Foundation giving grants and stuff like that, but a lot of that sort of work that we do today, it wasn't necessary to do it yet because the thing didn't exist yet, at that stage. When I joined, there were 36 programs on the network that had daily transactions through them. Brian Friel (20:25):Wow. Austin Federa (20:26):Absolutely nothing. And now we're over like 1200 easily. And I just think that's such an interesting change to see over such a quick period of time. Brian Friel (20:35):Oh, for sure. It stood out to me too, that... I think I mentioned the earlier conversation too. It's like this kernel of genuine developer interest that basically no other blockchain ecosystem I think has outside of Ethereum where it's people who are very much specialized, Solana centric as Chase loves to say too in Glass, but really just thinking about what's only possible in Solana? How can I iterate on this and expand on this? That's super invigorating to be a part of, and that's my favorite part of the ecosystem, essentially. Yeah, Austin Federa (21:04):We love it. Brian Friel (21:05):On that note, there is this meme now, is recording this in April 2023 of only possible on Solana and these things that everything we talked about, this pragmatic engineering culture of basically what's the outcome, what's the end user experience that we really want, and finding ways to ship that. There's a lot going on right now. I mean, I think Saga is an awesome example of this. It's like, how could we take a phone that just is the most kick ass crypto experience you could possibly have on mobile, but there's all sorts of stuff. There's compressed NFTs and state compression, what that means, DPIN is this new thing. There's all existing, DeFi, just normal FTs payments infrastructure. What are you personally most excited about and are any key themes in the year ahead that you think people should look into now that really highlights the strengths of Solana? Austin Federa (21:52):So the decentralized physical infrastructure layer is a really interesting story for me personally. And I think there's so much that goes on with that that goes into that, whatever kind of language you want to use to describe that. I am just super excited about what that looks like. And for me personally, the stuff I'm most excited about on Solana is you really don't have a choice to build it anywhere else that you need a fast composable ecosystem that has the capacity to go up to tens of thousands of transactions per second for a base fee of $.000025 and that's rare. You really can't find that in a lot of other places or a lot of other applications. And so for me, that's like some of the coolest stuff on Solana. Now, in terms of what's coming this year, I think we're going to see Fire Dancer rolling out on testnet probably in Q4. (22:40):That's going to be really interesting to see how that performs when it's intermingled with the other clients on the network. So that's going to be very interesting. There's a ton of work being done to make custom contracts easier to deploy on Solana. This is a project called Interfaces. This is out of necessity. The Token 22, which is code name, it definitely won't be called that once it's released. Token 22 is this new token program coming to the network. And it brings all sorts of things like interest baresing tokens. You can charge fees to use contracts directly in the contract. (23:11):There's a lot of really interesting stuff that comes to it, but it adds a second token program to the network. And that second token program means you need to suddenly have a way that a wallet can instantly say, Hey, which program should I look at for this arbitrary piece of data on chain? And because of that, it means if you've built support for two, you can build support for 20,000. So there's little pieces like that that are coming, but I really think this is going to be another infrastructure year, but instead of it being base level infrastructure, it's going to be something closer to developer tooling. I'm not sure I would call Interface is developer tooling, but it's definitely usability tooling. That means it's easier to develop novel things for the Solana ecosystem. Brian Friel (23:55):Yeah, I see that as well. The conversation shift towards interfaces is really exciting too, because Solana's account model and program model has some implicit instruction in that where, okay, this is the canonical token program. Austin Federa (24:08):It's perfect. What are you talking about? Brian Friel (24:09):Yeah, it's perfect. What are you talking about? And I think that just leans even more into those pragmatic values kind of shipping. And that's like, Hey, if we do have these interfaces where all of a sudden any wallet can take any of these token programs, any NFT exchange you can list on, you can list your NFTs through them. Opening up that design space, a deeper infrastructure level, I think would be really exciting. Austin Federa (24:31):Yeah. This will support everything from if you are a... No offense, but if you're a super corporate NFT project and you want to make sure that you have certain protections or certain things or whatever, you might want to deploy your own version of an NFT contract. And right now it's really hard to do that. It's not hard to deploy the contract, it's hard to get the ecosystem on board with the contract you've deployed. Brian Friel (24:55):You have to knock on every door to get a custom integration. Austin Federa (24:59):And we're seeing this with compression, right? Compression is awesome. It's been picked up by a ton of wallets. There's not an NFT marketplace that supports it yet. Brian Friel (25:08):Not yet, but I have heard soon. So maybe, and by the time that this podcast is released. Austin Federa (25:13):Who's adding it? Brian Friel (25:14):I have heard Tensor. Austin Federa (25:15):Interesting. Brian Friel (25:16):As an alpha drop. Austin Federa (25:17):They've been making moves. Brian Friel (25:18):They're making moves, but I would not be surprised if Magic Eden and others would be following suit at some point. But if we can open up an interface, some sort of interface standard where we can get buy-in, do the hard work up front to get all these different companies to buy into some sort of interface together, it's going to unlock a lot of really cool potential on Solana. Austin Federa (25:38):Absolutely. Brian Friel (25:39):One other thing I want to ask too is, you mentioned a few things kind of implicitly there. One of my questions was going to be like there's all these exciting things happening where we should we be investing now to unlock all this. But I guess there's also... I've noticed on Solana, and particularly Solana Twitter, there's this part of what this pragmatic culture has attracted is a culture of doers and people who show up and they want to contribute and they want to lend their time. And a lot of developers who maybe not even be working in the Solana ecosystem who are just excited and passionate about it. If you could speak to those people, where do you think they should be focusing their time and energy? What is Solana most in need from external contributors at this time? Austin Federa (26:19):It's a really good question. I mean, the problem there is I don't think the advice that I would give external contributors is good advice for their project at this point. It's great advice for Solana. The advice for Solana, I'd say is keep building strong open source tooling and foundations so we can make it easier for new developers to get involved. Anything you build that fits into the Lego thesis super strong, please keep doing it. What I would actually give as advice for founders in this space right now is that we're probably in a bear for at least another 12 months, and it's going to be a climb out of this thing. And you should be spending time thinking about revenue. You should be spending time thinking about business models. Not a lot, not enough to go raise a massive series beyond, but enough that you're extending your runway by a few months that if you have to raise a bridge round, you can show, hey, actually we do have revenue. (27:23):Here's our revenue numbers. Give us a little bit of money. Because I think this is a really hard time in the capital markets. It's really easy to be like the bear is a great time for building. That's true. The bear is a great time for building. It's a terrible time for payroll though. And that's kind of something they just remember as you kind of go through the process. Now, what does Solana need? I mean, I'm going to tell you my vision of how Solana could not win. And the way Solana doesn't win is if these incremental small scaling solutions for EVM, that 400 transactions per second, you can do an EVM right now if you really try. Maybe we just don't come up with transaction heavy use cases that anyone truly wants for a while. And that's a situation where all this horsepower that's been brought to bear on something like Solana isn't actually needed for what things people want to build on blockchains. (28:20):Now, I don't think that's true, but that's the thing to think about. What Solana needs is for people to embrace only possible on Solana and to build more things that are truly only possible to be built on Solana. Because as much as I love NFT projects, very few of them are only possible on Solana. This is the great thing about XNFTs. Those are truly only possible in Solana right now. But let's see teams going out there and saying, okay, a 10,000 drop is cool. What if we do a million, 10 million, a hundred million? Yeah, they're going to be cheaper. Yeah, the dynamics are going to change. Something's going to change, right? But this is the thing that I think is so interesting about this space is everyone has internalized this financialization, Bitcoinification view of all crypto. Like, Bitcoin's value is scarcity, period, end of day. (29:20):That's great. Props to Bitcoin, nothing since Bitcoin is Bitcoin. Like Magic The Gathering is not worth less money every time they print a new trading card pack. The Pokemon company is not worth less money every time they sell a new Pikachu plush. There are models here that people just seem emotionally afraid to try. I think Clano is getting pretty close to this and they're doing some very cool stuff with how they're doing some collection expanding. On the NFT side though, I think people need to get away from the idea that their value proposition is scarcity and figure out ways to do like LVMH and Louis Vuitton have done where they have something that is still high end, that is still hard to get but is not fixed cap. And sort of see where that maybe heads from there. On the DeFi side, start building outside of the United States, translate your projects, websites into Vietnamese and Turkish. (30:18):Don't think your growth is going to come from the United States in the next year or two because the regulations here are really uncertain right now. And it's a bit of a tricky time for folks to be in the United States. But I went to Turkey and I went to Vietnam, and folks are using crypto, and they're using crypto because in Turkey it's significantly more stable than their actual native currency. And that's a crazy thing to be thinking about, but that's true. So let's embrace that. Let's actually think of this stuff and make sure that the work that's being done truly actually supports this kind of stuff. And I think that's kind of one of the most important things to think about from the perspective of a founder at this point. Brian Friel (30:57):Yeah, I think there's been a key theme here throughout this whole conversation of basically going back to first principles and thinking, what's the outcomes that we want? Originally, I think Solana's tagline, even blockchain at Nasdaq speed, we were promised flying cars. We got Twitter, we got the greatest JPEG trading engine in the world on Solana, but how can we continue to iterate on this and what are things we can only do on Solana? All those examples you brought up I think are awesome examples. I really appreciate that you guys are continuing to challenge the ecosystem and to push and to not be afraid to try new things, and that's where the unlocks happen. Austin Federa (31:30):Yeah, of course. I think that's incredibly important and powerful here. Brian Friel (31:34):Well, Austin, this has been an awesome conversation. Thank you so much. One closing question we ask all our guests. Keeping line with the last question of the things you're excited about is who is a builder that you admire in the Solana ecosystem? Austin Federa (31:48):I mean, there's so many, it's hard to pick one. There's the easy answers of Armani and those folks and Mango Max. And I think the truth is that the folks who are doing some of the most interesting work are the ones who are bug fixing, who are going in and saying, ah, I ran into this problem with this tool set that I've seen someone else build. Let me go spend a little time trying to fix this thing up. And I don't have anyone particular to name in that, but it's very easy to be like, holy shit, Armani and X NFTs. Wow. And it's like, that is incredibly important. You know what else is really important? The dude that went in and made RPCs 20% more efficient for certain types of calls. And I think those are equally important things, and I wish we did a little bit more celebrating of the maintenance work in addition to all of our celebrating of the true innovations only possible on Solana. Brian Friel (32:40):Mert is going to love that, that you said their call that out, so. Austin Federa (32:44):There we go. Brian Friel (32:44):Maybe we can put Mert, Triton, all those folks, everyone, all the infrastructure that does the unsexy blocking and tackling that maybe really is the true glass eating on Solana, all of those guys. Austin Federa (32:56):Totally. I mean, there's a bunch of devs that work in Mango that are actually part of core engineering now, and they just fix a bunch of stuff because they're just like, we were trying to build our next version of Mango and we kept running into these problems, so we just started fixing stuff. Brian Friel (33:10):No one knows it better than them. Yeah. Austin Federa (33:12):Exactly. So it's good. Brian Friel (33:13):That's amazing. Well, Austin, I'm really excited for the next year Solana, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Austin Federa (33:20):Definitely. Thank you. This is fun.   

Coinbase Sues the SEC, Yuga Labs Claims 'Landmark Legal Victory' Over Copycat NFTs, VeeFriends x SnoopDogg, DJs Steve Aoki - 3LAU Reveal First Single as ‘Punx' NFT Duo, Solana Labs x ChatGPT, Adidas NFT connected to Adidas Confirmed, MNTGE Debuts Token-Enabled Vintage Jeans With ‘Fruits & Veggies' Drop, Romania's NFT Marketplace, Lexus Launches Hoverboard NFT Collection as part of Crack the Case competition, Animated series “Space Junk” let's NFT holders vote on narrative & more!

✨ DEBRIEF | Unpacking the episode: https://shows.banklesshq.com/p/debrief-anatoly-solana  ------ ✨ COLLECTIBLES | Collect this episode: https://collectibles.bankless.com/mint  ------ In today's episode, we have the creator of Solana and the Co-founder of Solana Labs, Anatoly Yakovenko. We brought on Anatoly to ask: is Solana going to make it? Price is down. A major public backer…SBF is down for the count…will Solana make it? Will it survive the bear market? Anatoly shares his thoughts. In addition, he also shares the full Solana story, back to its earliest inflection points all the way to the current state of Solana today. ------

This week on The Defiant Podcast, we speak with Tal Tchwella, Product Manager of Products Engineering at Solana Labs. In our conversation, we dive deep into Tal's work on crypto inside Facebook (Meta), his transition to Solana, the resurgence of NFTs on the network, and all the hype with the $BONK meme coin. We also discuss what it's like working full-time in Web3, the Solana Phone, as well as the future of Solana after the collapse of FTX. Thanking our podcast sponsors: This episode is brought to you by the Glo dollar, a new stablecoin that reduces extreme poverty as its market cap goes up. With Glo, you can lift people out of poverty just by holding a stablecoin. To join the waitlist, visit https://www.glodollar.org/defiant Store your tokens safely. Go self-custodial with 1inch Wallet.

Rea Dulcetta and Anton Restuta - Co-Founders of Sharky.fi join Brian Friel on the latest episode of The Zeitgeist. Sharky.fi is the first escrow-less, decentralized NFT lending protocol on Solana that brings DeFi liquidity to NFTs. Are you NFT-rich but SOL-poor? Sharky.fi allows you to instantly borrow SOL by using the NFTs in your wallet as collateral. For lenders who want to earn yield on their SOL, Sharky.fi allows users to offer loans for specific NFTs in a collection and earn yield in return.In this episode, Rea and Anton share their journey into web3, how Sharky.fi works, their views on NFT royalties, and their vision for the future of NFT-backed lending.Show Notes:01:10 - Background / Origin Story 02:57 -  Why Solana and NFTs? 06:54 -  What is Sharky? How does it work?09:55 -  Transition from web 2.0 to Web 3.0? 15:18 -  NFT collection 20:03 - State of royalties on Solana26:24 -  Sharky's roadmap and vision for the future31:44 -  A builder they admire in the Web3 ecosystem34:10 -  Learn more about Sharky Full Transcript:Brian (00:06):Hey everyone and welcome to the zeitgeist, the show where we highlight founders, developers, and designers who are pushing the Web 3.0 Space forward. I'm Brian Friel, developer relations at Phantom and I'm super excited to have on today the founders of SharkyFi, Rea and Anton Sharky is the leading NFT lending protocol on Solana. Rea and Anton, welcome to the show.Rea (00:29):Hi, so excited to be here.Anton (00:31):Hey everyone. Thank you for having us.Brian (00:33):I'm super excited to have you guys on, I think we actually first met way back last summer. We were all working out at the Solana Labs office in San Francisco. For those who have never been there, it's a really cool environment where a bunch of ecosystem teams are huddled together, iterating on ideas. You guys were very early to this concept of NFT lending and since then you guys have just exploded in success. Before we dive into all things Sharky, I'd love to know a little bit about you guys in particular. Who are you guys, and how did you come to start working on this idea of Sharky in the Solana Labs office in San Francisco?Rea (01:10):Oh, yeah. Well, that's a pretty long journey, but yeah, I've always been a fan of startups. I think I started engaging in startups even when I was in college. I started hacking using my college student manual labor to really hack for free back then. And I really fell in love with the idea of being able to have so much impact. And I think that you can have impact anywhere if you're passionate about what you're doing. But there's something that's really intrinsically beautiful about being able to touch something so closely, be able to talk to someone about the problems they're having and then actually solve that. Do all parts of that. Being more than just a full-stack developer, being a full-desk founder where you do the design, you have to walk through the customer stories. So I found that entire thing really exciting.(01:59):So I've been bouncing around startups since and Anton and I actually co-founded a startup before this for engineers because we really like the idea of giving back. And Sharky is another way that we're giving back to another community. We're really, really proud to be part of the NFT Degen crowd and this is some way that we can actually give NFTs lasting power. We can give NFTs this sort of financial backbone that it needs to really be this asset that people don't have to take so lightly and think of as just JPEGs. So I'm really excited to be contributing to that cause.Brian (02:33):That's awesome. So Rea, you graduated from CalTech, I see you were the former founder of Slack community and then as you mentioned, you co-founded a startup with Anton. Both of you guys do have an engineering background. Anton, I'd love to know from you what brought you guys over from working in Web 2.0 Together? What was it about Solana and NFTs that made you guys think this is a problem we're solving?Anton (02:56):Yeah, so I had also pretty long journey before I came to Solana. I'm originally from Ukraine. I started way back when as just an engineer working there. I remember pretty well how board startup was pretty scary for me. It felt like, "Oh, it's a whole different world. I don't know if I'll ever be ready to help my own startup and things like that." Then I moved to the United States, moved to Bay Area and Silicon Valley and all of this became way easier and way more tangible. And I started working at a lot of early-stage startups, kind of preparing myself for the journey. Then co-founded my first company and then I met Rea after work we were working on again one of the startups and we met just engineers and we faced some problems in that company as engineers that we were unsolved and we thought, well how about we just hacked something over weekend and also had another common friend, mutual friend and was like, "Well, let's hack it together. It seems fun. Maybe we can solve this problem."(03:59):Most of the stories like that, it grew slowly, we got our first customer, we sold our own problem, and somebody wanted to pay us for it. Then we started thinking, "Well, maybe it's going to be a business." And we grew it to a pretty substantial profitable company. Our goal was to try building a company, try running a startup, try working together, but keep it small, keep the company small in all the separations. And I think we succeeded on that. And since then, I kind of worked a little bit on other Web 2.0 companies, worked on education, passionate about education, and we've been in crypto as an investor for quite some time. And I think last year in August, I think that's where I first heard about Solana, maybe in July.(04:48):But August when I seriously read about it, I listened to podcast with Anatoly (Yakovenko), was impressed with just general intelligence and thinking behind how conceptualization of ideas and the grand vision I get similar wipes, how that I got from Steve Jobs when I first listened to his presentations, and I wanted to build here and try how it feels. And I think I pitched Solana in kind of this whole space to be at, and we came to Miami for Solana's second hacker house, kind of met a bunch of people in the ecosystem, fell in love with all the people we met and the energy around. And that's where a decision was made to, well, how about we found the company here. And by that time, we already were passionate about NFTs and saw them as the future, if anything would bring crypto to the real world. I think the first theme of concept that is likely to do it is NFTs.(05:47):And it felt good to be early in that journey. It felt good to kind of try and build something fundamental. And I think financial products are very fundamental for NFTs and that's kind of how we got to it. And we were not sure at first, we were all very confused kind of how things work in general and not how technology works I guess how dynamics of building Web 3.0 companies works. That was definitely a new and very, very interesting journey. But yeah, that's how we met and that's how we started.Brian (06:18):Yeah, I love that. And so you guys had this key early insight that Solana was unique. You mentioned listening to Natoli, getting those Steve Job vibes, but then also that NFTs were really what was bringing it into the mainstream a little bit more. At the time that I met you guys, pursuing this financialization of NFTs was basically unheard of in Solana. I'd definitely say that was a contrarian bet and then now that's worked out pretty well. Could you walk through for the uninitiated, what is Sharky? What is it that you guys are doing for people? How does all of this work under the hood?Rea (06:54):So what we do is allow you to take all these JPEGs in your wallet and basically use it as a credit card. If you're willing to put the JPEG on the line, then you get access to a lot more of that liquidity. So anytime people say, "I'm rich in JPEGs, but illiquid AF." This is what Sharky comes into play, you can take those NFTs that you have and actually put them as collateral in a loan and then you can take out that money and do whatever you want with it and then you pay back that loan and then you get an NFT back.(07:32):Now, traditionally this requires you to actually put your whatever, if you're using a physical object, your grandmother's heirloom ring, you would have to put it in a safe box somewhere and not have access to that during the time that you have access to the money. But what we actually have done is allowed you to be able to do this in wallet. So you keep your NFTs in your wallet, you don't actually have to send them away somewhere and never see them again. You hold onto the NFT during the loan, and you just can't move it around, so it's locked in your wallet. So the escrow is effectively staying in your wallet and then when you pay back the loan, then the NFT gets unfrozen and you can do whatever you want with it.Anton (08:11):Yeah, and I guess the second side of what Sharky is about is we also allow you to be a lender. We'll allow you to lend money versus borrowing them. So in the traditional world, it's either you go to a bank and bank lends your money or maybe you go to some pawn shop and that small pawn shop lends your money. There is not really a lot of opportunity to be a lender just as an individual. And that's what Sharky also allows and that's one of the most talked about features I would say. You hear lots of stories on Twitter, Twitter threads, basically how to make money in the bear market, and usually Sharky comes up. So as a lender you can lend money. I would say you need to be somewhat knowledgeable about the space. You don't have to be an expert, but at least be aware of what's going on. And you can make a pretty substantial yield with Sharky in the current volatile market. But yeah, so that's that we're kind of creating this two-sided market in a sense. Rea (09:09):Brian, aren't you a lender?Brian (09:11):I have tried it out. It is a pretty interesting novel phenomenon. We have a few folks at Phantom who I would say are, I don't know if the term whale is right because it's Sharky, but giant sharks, I guess. But...Rea (09:23):Whale sharks.Brian (09:25):I am curious because to build all this, you mentioned that building a Web 3.0 company is pretty different from your previous Web 2.0 ventures. It's not just a consumer app that you guys are building, which is already hard enough trying to build a two-sided marketplace, get these consumers. You guys also had to build the plumbing and the protocol for all this to happen as well. Talk a little bit about that, the difference between your guys' success and Web 2.0 and what lessons you guys had to learn to bring that knowledge into Web 3.0.Rea (09:56):I think one of the biggest shockers when we came to Web 3.0 is seeing the amount of traction that people were having with no product or even the semblance of one people were raising from community and raising from VCs with, “I have a plan”, and sometimes that plan isn't even very well thought out, but I mean I attribute that to the infancy of the space at the time. I think at the beginning of any bubble that's still inflating, there's just sort of dumping money in and it's exciting. Everyone's euphoric on that whole experience. And now I would say this ecosystem, it's been only a few years, but for most people in this space, it's only been one year. And it's already mature to the point where I see lots of founders that were famous, no longer around, or lots of products that were literally the epitome of – that was your role model when you grew up on Solana.(10:55):And that's also not no longer around. And I think what you see is some of the lasting teams who are continuously building and that's something that I have to hats off to everyone who sort of stuck through the storms on this. But even beyond that, something that I'm noticing is all of that hype and that big rush of raising before pre-product and all of that. That is no longer the extreme meta that we're seeing. We're seeing people having to prove yourself a little bit more, but what I think is also I guess coming to some of the pros I see in Web 3.0 is it's so much more of a community atmosphere to build in. I think previously there was a lot more in Web 2.0 we see more under isolation or you kind of go heads down until you either make it or break it.(11:38):Whereas in Web 3.0 there's a lot more of this open communication. I would say it's almost more similar to if you ever participated in a kickstarter campaign for everyone out there who's Web 2.0 and doesn't understand Web 3.0 yet, you see this continuous discourse while they're sort of raising from the community and having this conversation back and forth. And there's a little log of how the founders are going about this. "Oh, today we had production issues, so sorry about that." But we really nailed a prototype on this other thing. We finally got some of our supply line issues figured out. And that open communication, that transparency is so important, and I dare say a lot of times we kind of idolize some of these tech founders whether Web 2.0 or Web 3.0, but they're human, and their teams are also human and they're really worth learning from.(12:27):So a lot of times you have these stories and you hear and the more transparent a team is, the more you actually get to be a part of that process and it builds so much compassion within the ecosystem because a lot of times I think it can become you're building this thing you promised this time and you said you're going to do the deliver this exact thing, what's up with that? And I think this discourse. One, makes it much more fun to build it. And two, allows the community to be much more excited because a lot of times if you only get the finished product every quarter or whatever, you're not able to really stay continually engaged. So I think a lot of these things makes this much more of a more welcoming atmosphere to build in both for the people we're building it for and for the builders.Anton (13:10):Yeah, I would say it's hard to separate Web 3.0 building from just building and crypto space and I think this space is just very volatile. So I think another side of the story of what Web 3.0 is describing. There's a lot of apps, but there's also lots of downs. There's like market downturns or just space volatility. There's always things that are hard to predict. You wake up every morning and you kind of read the news, Twitter and all kinds of things can happen positive and negative.(13:44):And unlike Web 2.0 companies that move much slower, everything moves faster and if everyone moves faster, it doesn't mean everything is just better. It just means in the condensed time you'll experience these ups and downs. And to me, it's definitely a more challenging aspect I guess as a founder I feel like I needed to step up in terms of mental health and mental stability even more than usual and don't let myself to be too high or too down and try to be more even here that less reactive and more strategic and it's sounds generic but it's real. This pain is real, and the hardship is real.Brian (14:27):Yeah, one year in the crypto ecosystem is living 10 or 20-years in traditional markets, just compressing those ups and downs not only in the market but also as a founder, journey, and all of that as well. I definitely resonate with that. One other thing just on this topic of differences between Web 2.0, Web 3.0 is that you mentioned the community buy-in aspect, you have this community that's rabid. If you haven't seen Sharky's Discord, you go in there at any time you guys have a product update, it's like there's a stadium in there that's going crazy. But in addition to all that, you guys made a pretty interesting decision. You guys, not only are you this protocol for lending NFTs, you also created your own NFT collection. Talk a little bit about that. What is this NFT collection? Why did you guys decide to launch this?Rea (15:18):We are an NFT centric company, so it only made more sense to completely Degen-ify ourselves. I mean there are also business aspects to which I'll let Anton dive into the more boring parts, but I think that has just been just so fun. I mean our entire team is really creative and for me, I've been a part of many NFT projects, whether as a consultant on the team or just help with some of the strategy there, but never taken something that's really fully our own. And we considered hiring other artists, but since we had people that actually are artistic and on our own team, like myself included or championing that effort, it was just really fun to actually take something, give back to the community in a wholly different way than we have in the past with our tech without products. But now actually being able to take our art to the next level and to put it out there with the Sharky standard, that was really, really fun.Anton (16:14):So there are several aspects of why. One, we planned this from the beginning when we started the company. We thought we would do an NFT sale sometime around August and we did this in October. So we were not even that far in our estimation in obviously this aspect of fundraising, kind of public fundraising and you get extra funds for company runway operations, all of that. But it is also what we thought would be useful, but we didn't realize how useful. It's one of the best growth mechanisms for the company because you build in so many incentives for people to promote your company without you doing this. It's kind of like this network snowball effect and that's very powerful. I think all of our metrics pretty much doubled within just two weeks of intense... I wouldn't say promotions because we didn't do promotions of us announcing that we're going to have an NFT collection and how it's all going to work and just trying to sell that vision, pretty much within two weeks we got more customers than we ever had gotten.(17:20):So that's just a very powerful growth strategy. And a lot of companies run NFT projects as a fundraiser before they have a product. I think it's also super useful and nice, but it accelerates growth basically if you do have a product. And third aspect, we want to embrace building in Web 3.0, and I think building in Web 3.0, the major difference from Web 2.0 is building together with your users, users/ investors and that social building is impossible without aligning incentives and alignment of incentives. It basically allows everybody to be part of the journey, allowing everybody to invest, to be holder, to get benefits from platform growth. And that's what we ultimately wanted to do, and experience how it feels to truly build Web 3.0 company, truly build community and succeed with community together.(18:09):So yeah, I guess NFT is not the only way to do it. Realizing and talking through the ideal process would feel somewhat similar but not exactly. I think the NFT community is unique in that it is formed by more, I guess, demanding investors, some smaller, less experienced, but also much more focused on being involved, versus just basically observing the company. So those are the reasons why I would say.Rea (18:37):I would just add that beyond all of the very reasonable or good reasons that we've already said, the community every single day was like when NFT. So I think that was also a pretty big driver for us.Brian (18:49):Fair, definitely fair. It's pretty wild when you go on Twitter, and you just see someone that you've never interacted with before wearing your NFT as a profile picture. In your guys' case you have these cute little baby sharks that are going to power up as the protocol evolves. They're definitely pretty cool. But yeah, I agree it's a pretty wild and unexplored lever for growth when you have users who just are continually showing their allegiance and buying in with displaying these NFTs month, after month, after month. It's pretty wild to see.(19:21):Now that you guys have your own NFT collection, I have to ask you guys, the hard-hitting question that the Solana ecosystem is pondering right now is, what is your take on the state of royalties on Solana? So for those who don't know, every NFT sale traditionally has paid out a percent royalty to the creator, it's baked into the tokens metadata, but this was not enforced programmatically. It required some sort of social buy-in by the marketplace or whoever was selling it. And now months into this NFT journey that's coming under fire, what have you guys seen in Sharky that informs your opinion on what's the state of royalties on Solana?Anton (20:03):Yeah, I think we're in this state where we're trying to figure out how to make it work. So clearly, how it was working before is not sustainable. So right now, it's kind of like everything is broken and with really building and rebuilding, I think incentive systems and also technology, how to make it all possible. I think Sharky's stance is that there needs to be a choice at the time of creating a collection allowing holders to decide whether they want to invest into something where they have to pay royalties or not. I think it's not great to do it retroactively, kind of remove royalties from project creators or introduce royalties to holders when they didn't agree to them, and the choice wasn't possible before. And right now, we have quite a few approaches that make it possible. None of the technical solutions are perfect. So unfortunately, we will have to choose some trade-offs.(21:00):Whatever we choose, we have to support two things. One, we should allow existing collections to migrate all at once without making it to be a holder's decision. So basically, the choice that I described before, allowing holders to decide what projects they want to invest in. Unfortunately, we'll have to kind of reinstate this and make everybody re-decide that if... Let's say as Sharky, we want royalties because it's part of our benefits for holders, part of benefits for the team as well. But maybe some holders don't want royalties, so they would have to exit the project at that point in time and that would be a decision. But what I don't want to happen, what I think would be really bad for the space, if all holders would have to decide one by one whether they want to upgrade their NFT to be royalties enforced or not. I think that should be a choice for creators, for collection owners.(21:52):So that's one aspect of it. Otherwise, it'll be a fractured ecosystem. It'll be kind of like, oh, within the same collection, some sharks from our collection support royalties, some don't. And there'll be confusion all over the place. And second, there is this debate right now. So basically, for context, all of the solutions involve some kind of whitelisting and blacklisting protocols that NFTs allow you to interact with in some sense. In my worldview, the approach with blacklisting is much more forgiving. Imagine if we go with a whitelisting approach, I think there will be a negative consequence for the ecosystem. Let's say Solana Hackathons. I want to experiment and build a new protocol and deploy it to main net and demonstrate how it works. If that protocol is not whitelisted, I cannot demonstrate this using any popular NFTs that use this royalty enforcement because I need to go through approval, I need to get some DAO or some authority or somebody to get my protocol approved.(22:48):And I think that extra hoop, that extra step, just would stagnate innovation and would create a lot of roadblocks, but it'll be in the sense, some kind of perfect solution excluding that because then we can only trade on these whitelisted marketplaces or at least the protocols and everything is great. But I think the trade-off is very significant. Versus if we go with a blacklisting approach, then we can just say, "Hey, you're not allowed to trade with these protocols that are not respecting royalties and the trade-off there will be like, there would be a lot of attempts and protocols (created) to work around royalties short-term and as a space we would have to play the catch up game. We'll have to keep blacklisting them, and keep kind of finding solutions for that. But I think it's better, I think it's better than the alternative because we're still open for innovation. We are kind of permissionless by default, if that makes sense, and require less authority, less authority on decisions. So not a lot of solutions allow for those two. And I don't know where we land in this space, but that's our viewpoint, I guess, on this year.Rea (23:50):I was also going to add that with royalties, you also kind of have this free rider problem if you allow everyone to pick and choose what they want to pay. Because whether it's a team that's not really doing anything and then they're just collecting royalties and you kind of feel bad, they're like, "Oh man, we're all paying and they're just sitting on their asses, that's so messed up." Versus a team that's really actively putting out content or new ways for you to earn or whatever it is that the team is doing. And then you have a bunch of people that don't pay for that and then a bunch of people who think it's worthwhile. So they pay for that. The creators aren't really getting paid for their work and the people that aren't paying for that anyway are also receiving the benefits. So what is the incentive to be a good actor in this case?(24:37):So I think that there are some ways that we've thought about within Sharky about how we incentivize, and people who are not caring about these benefits don't need to have these benefits and they don't want to pay for these benefits. But the people who do care about these benefits can actually be a part of the contributing community. So I think this is a problem that really requires a tailored approach according to what your company or project is doing. And I think I would just like to see more people put more intent towards this, whether you're just a part of the ecosystem, someone who's buying and selling flipping NFTs or a team.Brian (25:08):I think that's a great-nuanced take, which we don't always hear on the crypto Twitter side of things, but I agree it's definitely in this state right now whereas you said, Anton, we kind of have a way to just wipe a clean slate and rebuild this. And there are a lot of benefits to this Web 3.0 ecosystem where it is permission lists by default and people like you guys can come in and build a protocol idea without having to ask anybody's permission and keeping that spirit alive, I think is pretty important.(25:37):So I want to look ahead a little bit, what do you guys see as the future for Sharky? So today, Rea, we started this podcast, you said if you have JPEGs and you're JPEG rich but cash poor, you can lend these things out, you risk losing the NFT, but you can get immediate liquidity on the flip side of that. There's some speculators who think that they'll be able to make a pretty good ROI, assuming that the market holds up. Obviously not financial advice, very, very risky, but that's the current state of things today. As you guys look out about the long-term potential for what NFTs could be, what financialization of NFTs could be lending of these things, what excites you guys? What's on the roadmap and on the vision for Sharky?Anton (26:24):Yeah, it's a good question. So I think we'll be releasing a series of new products next year. So that's one exciting thing. Basically, applying our learnings to make the product better. One of the big ones is mortgages, or Buy Now, Pay Later. We've already been seeing experiments in this space with that. And yeah, basically the overall goal is to allow you to finance JPEGs on the entire spectrum of that. Whether you hold this JPEG or maybe you don't yet hold this JPEG, maybe you just want to get it, but you don't have enough funds to get it or maybe you want to just buy with leverage and buy several. So we want to release that product to the market, allowing you to basically pay a down payment and get an effect. You pay the full price of the NFT later, but still start being a holder immediately. Imagine you can join MonkeDAO and only pay 20% of the price and kind of see what's it about.(27:24):And maybe if you don't like it, you can sell it back but you only invested a fraction, or for any other benefits, you can look at the community or you can just trade. There's two different aspects. Deciding whether you want to be a holder or just trade in with leverage, which we believe will be a pretty popular use case as well. Obviously, there's a lot of nuance with our existing product and we are adding more features to that, but I think one of the things that I'm excited about is not directly a Sharky product feature, but it's more experimenting with user experience in this space. And we've been trying to pioneer at least some approaches and try to see how we can establish new norms. Right now, every interaction with a DeFi protocol on Solana on other chains, I call it click approve UX.(28:12):Basically, you do some meaningful action and then you need to approve a transaction in your wallet. What we want to experiment with is to build a different kind of experience that allows you to interact with protocol and look ahead, do actions, several of them, and then approve it all at once. Basically, making this experience more smooth and fluent. And that's kind of a UX pattern that we are developing. I'm personally very excited about releasing it and seeing how users will accept it, and see whether other protocols and other products will also try to do something similar. And on the NFT side of things, we are releasing our gamified revenue share program. It's not a passive revenue share, it's kind of requires users to actively contribute to the platform, engage with our product and with our NFTs and with that we will share some portion of upside with them. So that's coming pretty soon. And for the next year there's a lot of secret strategies and secret features for our holders that we will release over time. Did I miss anything, Rea, do you think? Like anything major?Brian (29:20):Anything for the clamoring Discord channel that is asking when, when, when any hidden nugget you can drop in here.Rea (29:28):I was like, "Are we going to drop some alpha?" Yeah, I mean I think that there's probably some other further development. I should probably check with the marketing team before I say anything crazy. But there's further development on the NFT that I think the community already knows about and that involves more goodies for the people who are really excited about sharks and love the art style. So there's a lot there. And yeah, I think that's it.Anton (29:54):Yeah. And like you mentioned something about the future of NFTs, how we see that. I think it's very interesting to see the first attempts to bring NFTs to real world assets and tie them together in some ways. And we're already talking to teams who are trying to do that. So our vision is to stay in the space of JPEGs, but also branch into the space of where NFTs start representing assets that could be your car or any collectibles and stuff like that, and provide financial infrastructure there. It'll be a pretty different product because the market is different, volatility is different, but fundamentally it's kind of the same type of incentive systems.(30:36):Fundamentally it's like lenders. Some people could be lenders, people could be borrowers, with just a different structure and maybe different terms of loans. So we definitely want to be in that space as well. And that also requires us to not just build a protocol, but requires us to gain expertise in those specific domains. Because lending is not created equal. What works for NFTs, and JPEGs may not work for collectibles, may not work for houses or cars. It requires different risk models and probably slightly different products. So yeah, that's kind of the vision for the next three to five years is expanding to those areas as well.Brian (31:13):Yeah, that's exciting. I think we can all kind of picture a world where one day those assets are represented on-chain. Obviously, the frictionless nature of transferring those makes a lot of sense. But as you noted, it's important to stay in-the-now and be realistic that right now there's a lot of JPEGs,  and I'd say that you guys are handling that use case pretty well. This has been an awesome discussion. One closing question we always love to ask our users, and I want to hear this take from both of you is who is a builder that you admire in the Web 3.0 ecosystem?Anton (31:45):Yeah, it's really hard to pick one. I would say top of mind is the Tensor team, Tensor founders. So I think both of them are pretty amazing builders. It's impressive to me how just two of them, how much they built and how quickly in this space. And not just with Tensor. I was following their journey before, and they built lots of cool things for the ecosystem and they also just have a good intent. Things they built, they try to align those incentives with just like what's good for the space. Not just like, "Oh, let's build a cool product." There's plenty of really good builders in Solana that just like to build things, but the reason I'm highlighting that team, I think they have a combination of both. They're really good builders but also built things that are very, very important and useful for the space and make the space better. So that's my take. It's Richard  and Ilmoi from Tensor Trade.Brian (32:42):Yeah, Tensor Trade, the real-time NFT trading platform. Rea, your take.Rea (32:48):Yeah, like Anton said, it's pretty hard to pick one. I think if I had to hat tip to my origins, I learned a lot of my early technical knowledge on Solana from Brett, who's now at Star Atlas. And he's done a lot of, I think, open-source work that is just a lot of the necessary work that goes into making the ecosystem something, who builds for the builders, is kind of how I think about him.(33:16):And so he is also been really fun to talk to about the different, if you want to look sort of long and far at what's going to happen to the technology down the line and what are some of the upcoming scalability issues, roadblocks that Solana faces, if you want to just get a pulse on that to be able to build with that in mind so you're not constantly building to catch up. You always have really good conversations with Brett, and I just really like that he's also someone who you can tell is genuinely passionate about the space. He's working on his own time to learn more and also to contribute more. And a lot of times when something happens in the ecosystem, if no one knows what's going on, you can still go talk to him about it. And he always, we can always theory craft and it's always a good time.Brian (34:02):Oh, that's great. Well, Rea and Anton, this has been an awesome conversation. Thank you so much for your time. Where can people go to learn more about Sharky?Rea (34:12):Well, the Sharky.fi is a really good place to start. You can look at the beautiful order books. We've recently rolled out some performance improvements, so that's going to be really fun. And I think nothing creates a better impression than making money. So go and make some money. Not financial advice.Anton (34:31):You can read over white paper on the homepage. Kind of gives you a high-level overview. Otherwise, if you just type “Sharky lend Twitter” in Google, you'll see threats that are written by the community. At this point we've seen more than 10 just not even sponsored by us in any way. Just some lender supporters describe how to use Sharky. And I think those are the best to learn because it's through the eyes of real users and there are even YouTube walkthroughs of how to open Sharky. Yeah, it's a pretty rich ecosystem already.Brian (35:05):Awesome, thank you so much. Anton and Rea, founders of SharkyFi.Anton (35:09):Yeah, thank you for having us. It was a pleasure.

Helium is the first people-powered decentralized wireless network.In episode 14 of The Zeitgeist, Boris Renski, GM of Wireless at Nova Labs sits down with Brian Friel to discuss how crypto is enabling new ways to deploy wireless infrastructure. Show Notes:00:52  - Who is Boris Renski / Background 03:23 - What is Helium?                  06:44 - Catalyst behind creating a network11:20 - People's network built by the people14:50 - Is Web3 essential to this network? 17:08 - Partnerships                     20:20 - How do Saga users benefit from Helium?24:41 - Building in a bear market / Roadmap29:05 - Things Boris is excited about       33:30 - A Solana builder Boris admires Full Transcript:Brian (00:05):Hey everyone and welcome to the Zeitgeist, the show where we highlight the founders, developers, and designers who are pushing the web through the space forward. I'm Brian Friel, Developer Relations at Phantom, and I'm super excited to have with me today, Boris Renski.(00:20):Boris is the General Manager of Cellular Wireless at Nova Labs. At Nova, Boris is responsible for leading the charge of all things related to Helium Mobile, the world's first people's carrier. Boris, welcome to the show.Boris (00:33):Thank you. Great to be here.Brian (00:35):Great to have you here as well. I'm really excited about what you guys are building. For those who were at BreakPoint, you might have seen a little bit about how you guys are going to be powering some of the upcoming Saga phones. But before we get into all that, I'd love to learn a little bit more about you. Who are you, and how did you come to start working at Nova Labs?Boris (00:52):Yeah so, this happened fairly recently. I, what the people in the cryptosphere refer to as the normie, not a Degen, so to speak. Most of my career, I spent in open source cloud infrastructure. Prior to my [inaudible 00:01:11] to Web3, I've helped build and co-found a company called Mirantis, which to this day remains one of the bigger players packaging this cloud, open source cloud operating system, so to speak.(01:29):My journey towards crypto was the extension of the work that I did in the open source cloud infrastructure, in that when I was still working for Mirantis, one of the open source projects at that time my team was focusing on, was this project called Magma that is can think of it as the open source software that allows anybody to build a cellular network.(01:58):And I, about three years ago, left Mirantis with the idea of taking this open source Magma project and creating a very simple way for people to basically take advantage of it such that anybody can just click a few buttons, get a small hardware appliance and have a small cellular network that they can operate.(02:25):And the original focus was very much towards the private LT and private 5G space. There was no even thinking of crypto at the origination of this company, FreedomFi that I've started, but then midway for our journey with come across Helium and some of the folks of the Helium team and they've pitched to us to look into this other use case which is a distributed wireless.(02:52):And we did a couple of pilots and basically the rest is history, and the whole thing culminated, and Nova acquiring FreedomFi, and my joining the team and now working on Helium Mobile.Brian (03:05):That's awesome. Yeah, I definitely think you have a unique path towards coming towards crypto building, very practical open source everyday solutions, and then finding your way into this industry.(03:17):For those who maybe aren't familiar with Helium, how would you describe what is Helium and what do they do?Boris (03:22):So Helium is a people-powered decentralized wireless network. In a nutshell, it's from the standpoint of a builder. It's a new way to build a wireless network where anybody, be it an individual or a company, can buy a piece of hardware, click a few buttons to enable it, and then this piece of hardware effectively becomes a node on a wireless network. And then the Helium blockchain aggregates all of its individual nodes into a single macro network that is usable effectively by anybody.(04:04):And I think that Helium started this with the idea to build a global worldwide network for sensors using this IOT protocol called Laura, but it ultimately has become so successful and was built out so quickly, there's over a million nodes on the network now, that it's almost like it's become a beacon for a new way to deploy wireless infrastructure. Not so much just specifically for Laura, but for almost any use case.(04:40):So that drove the community to explore, okay, well we've built out this global worldwide network for sensors, but the model, this bottoms up model of building the wireless coverage is so powerful where else can we apply that model? And that led to this concept of introducing the network of networks of which I think the cellular network for not the sensors, but the phones which Helium Mobile is all about, is the first instantiation.Brian (05:16):Yeah, and when you say sensors specifically, what type of sensors are you talking about?Boris (05:20):So any sensors that use this protocol called Laura, which is a particular protocol with a couple of aspects to it that make it useful for situations where you would have very low bandwidth and very low power usage. So if you have for example, a sensor to see if there's termites in the ground, you will have that sensor of a battery buried in the ground that'll just live there forever, and it needs access to some global network to transmit something once a day, whether or not there's termites eating something.(05:57):So there's basically a huge ecosystem of these types of Laura sensors, and any Laura sensor can work with the Helium network. So I come from a cellular side, so I'm a little bit less in the weeds with the types of lower sensors specifically, but at a high level that's what it is.Brian (06:19):That's great. Well then let's jump into the cellular side of things. So, you described this network of networks essentially that Helium now is, and one of the initiatives though as you've pointed out is this Helium Mobile.(06:31):You talked a little bit about how "Hey, we have this network that's growing very fast and is very popular and worldwide," but what specifically was the catalyst for starting a mobile network and then what does this mobile network look like today?Boris (06:44):Yeah, so let me see if I can give you a little bit of history and that will also share, provide the bigger context. So at FreedomFi prior to my joining Nova, like I said, what we have built is a very straightforward way for anybody to deploy a mini cell tower. You can think of it like a cellular wireless node, which was our technical know-how and the core differentiation for FreedomFi as a company.(07:17):And at that time, Helium was already fairly far down their path of creating global coverage for Laura. And when they saw what we did with respect to simplifying the cellular deployments, I got that pinned literally by a buy who was chief product officer at Helium, and he said, "Hey, look at the stuff that we have built with Laura and what you guys have done with the simplification of deploying cellular infrastructure at FreedomFi is amazing. How about we marry these two concepts? We enable people to deploy mini cellular towers or small cells and basically compensate them in crypto depending on whether or not the placement of the small cell is useful or not."(08:10):So it was like, "okay, that's very interesting." And we did some pilots, and we did then a bunch of work to actually productize that and we launched that to the general public just some months ago. And obviously the community just took that up and started building all of a sudden. So in the matter of, I think, now three or four months, we have close to 7,000 small cells around the US that people have deployed and that are operational.(08:43):And in parallel with doing this work to marry a Helium way of building networks with our know-how, making it very simple to deploy, we started talking to a whole bunch of operators, the mobile network operators as they call them in the US, about saying, "Hey, look at this network that we are building. How about you guys partner with us and integrate this network that we're building with your macro network?"(09:17):And we got to some degree of success there. We've announced a couple of partners, but at the same time it's also become clear that the carriers in general are very conservative and very importantly slow moving entities. So in our thinking of how we can further accelerate this? We've decided that an important pillar to doing this would be us actually eating our own dog food and launching our own people's carrier as we call it, which is Helium Mobile.(09:54):So this was the catalyst to the partnership with T-Mobile and the people's carrier announcement that we did recently.Brian (10:01):That's awesome. And so this people's carrier, this is essentially what people would expect from their normal iPhone or Android phone carrier 5G connectivity being able to make calls throughout the US. Is that right?Boris (10:15):Yes, that is absolutely correct. So it's basically a US nationwide network for cell phones that provides connectivity for data and voice globally. And what makes it unique is that unlike almost any other carrier, we are not exclusively using one macro network, but we're using the macro network of our partner, T-Mobile, which we've talked about, and we compliment that with the people built network that is basically being built by the Helium community using this very model that I have described.(10:55):So the back end to the service that the people yet to take advantage of is actually very much also built by the community.Brian (11:06):I see. So The Peoples Network quite literally means the network built by people who go in and they take the effort themselves to put up these infrastructure and then they're compensated in crypto for the effectiveness of that?Boris (11:20):Yes. That is correct. And that's the whole notion behind this concept of the people's carrier. And I think that the unique and interesting thing about it is that if you look at the mobile wireless industry at large, if you look, peek under the hood of how a mobile operator functions, there are always dozens of different entities that are collaborating under the hood to make a carrier. So if a consumer, you go to AT&T, you buy a cell phone, you buy a subscription, and then you just start using it.(11:57):But if you peek under the hood, it's not really almost one company. Any carrier is an entity that has assets in the form of wireless spectrum and there are subscribers. And then under the hood there is dozens of different organizations that actually do work to comprise a carrier.(12:22):So most carriers, they don't build their own radios, they don't build their own wireless software, they don't install or operate their own towers. Most of the time, don't even own and operate their own stores. So many different companies aggregated under one umbrella.(12:40):And I think that this notion of a people's carrier that we're trying to pioneer with Helium Mobile is all about using blockchain and crypto economics to dramatically improve the efficiencies of the value chain that is basically the modern day carrier. So instead of having dozens of different independent entities all shuffle paperwork between each other, but ultimately roll into this one umbrella of whatever, like AT&T, or Verizon, or whatever it is, you actually simplify a lot of this overhead by actually having the blockchain take care of it.(13:25):And probably the most capital intensive part of any carrier and the most complicated is actually building the network. So finding a location for deploying a radio, contracting with somebody who either builds a tower there or who maintains a building, then actually deploying it, maintaining, et cetera. So this is all very capital intensive, complicated process that usually involves a lot of entities that we are making significantly more efficient.Brian (13:56):Let's talk a little bit about that crypto element. I mean you yourself said that you consider yourself a normie and that you found yourself into this crypto environment. I think this is pretty unique because we, as a wallet, we see a lot of different players in the crypto space so much or just inherently digital. It's either DeFi or NFTs is the vast mass 95% of the use cases we see. This is very different. This is taking something that's very much real world cellular infrastructure and trying to incentivize a network around that.(14:29):I think also everything you described too, it seems other carriers may be more potentially top down, whereas this is almost a bottoms up movement of getting individuals to go out and create this network. To you, what is the importance of this Web3 element? Do you actually think this could be made without Web3? Or is Web3 really a vital ingredient to all of this?Boris (14:54):I mean, I think that this is next to maybe solving some of the problems in the financial space, probably the second biggest opportunity for the Web3, because from my standpoint, Web3 is really the key enabler, is the new way to coordinate economic activity. That's when various parties, I would argue. This is what the crux of where Web3 can unlock the most value.(15:18):And if you look at various industries, the mobile network industry is one where you have a tremendous number of different parties that are collaborating with each other with a tremendous amount of inefficiencies in between. So if you could, instead of having a company that is building and operating cellular towers, and a company that is building the radios, and a separate company that is operating the stores, and a separate company that is doing the RF planning, combine all of that using blockchain and coordinate the economic activity between these parties using blockchain and radically distribute the value that is created by this collaboration using crypto economics, you will cut out a tremendous amount of inefficiency from the value chain, and then consequently you can transfer this value to the end user, meaning the subscriber of the user of the cellular network.(16:28):So there's a few industries I think that they're like that, and I would argue that the cellular wireless space is up there and to the extent that you can apply this concept that Web3 allows more efficient collaboration and then better and more creativity around the economic activity between the different parties, can apply that to that space. There's an enormous amount of opportunity to unlock value.Brian (16:54):Yeah, I love that. I couldn't agree more. Let's switch gears a little bit and talk about some of the partnerships that you've been mentioning, so.(17:00):The first one that you brought up is T-Mobile. What specifically does that partnership entail and what made them get involved with Helium Mobile?Boris (17:08):The network that we're building uses a particular type of wireless spectrum called CBRS. And this is a shared spectrum, which is a new innovative model that allows basically anybody in the US with just a little bit of money to get access to clean wireless spectrum that is usable for the cellular use case. That spectrum and the radios that are built to operate in that spectrum, the physical properties of it are such that the reach of the wireless radio is limited to a couple of city blocks. And because of that, using that technology, it's very challenging to build a network that would be contiguous and will provide contiguous coverage around the entirety of the US.(18:00):And obviously if you're building a wireless network and if we as Helium Mobile want to provide a service to our end users, nobody's going to be using a service where you only have it working around your house and then you leave and all of a sudden there is no service, and then maybe you traveled half a mile and then your friend has a cell, and then you have a service again, and then there's no service.(18:23):So you need to have contiguous coverage.Brian (18:26):Right.Boris (18:26):So no matter where you go, you always have access to your voice and data. And to make that happen, it's important for us to partner with a macro network operator with somebody who has the service throughout the US. So T-Mobile is that macro network operator that we partnered with. And the way that, as I mentioned, Helium Mobile works is that whenever there is Helium CBRS cell in range, the subscriber would use that cell, but whenever there is no cell it would use the T-Mobile service, so that's going to be the technical underpinning behind the partnership.(19:07):The business logic here is that for T-Mo, I think we are effectively another MV&O customer. So it's not uncommon for an operator carrier to resell their network to other wholesale customers. So the relationship between us and T-Mo is that we basically procure macro network capacity from them. We augmented with the Helium 5G coverage to create this hybrid network with The Peoples Network component in it, and we sell service to the end users as Helium Mobile.Brian (19:48):That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I could definitely see that being an important and necessary piece for when you're launching this network to have a reliable fallback in the cracks there for continuous coverage.(19:59):One additional partnership you guys mentioned more recently was actually a breakpoint that you guys are going to be powering the Saga phone when it launches. So, Solana Labs initiative to showcase what they call SMS, the Solana Mobile Stack, where they're trying to push Web3 mobile. Why is this a big deal and how might Saga phone users benefit from something like Helium Mobile?Boris (20:20):So first of all, we are quite excited about the Saga partnership. The specific thing that I think is going to be the direct benefits to any Saga users is that all the Saga phones that are sold in the US will come with the 30 days of free Helium Mobile service. So people will get to actually experience the people's carrier on their Saga phones. But I think that there's also a tremendous benefit from the technical side.(20:54):So Saga phones, unlike any devices in a cellular space, have been designed top down to support everything required from a security standpoint for people to basically use them for performing different crypto-related operations, starting with the basic ones such as having a wallet on the phone that is also secure.(21:21):Now the concept of the people's carrier, like I said, around multiple parties collaborating to build this new type of carrier does not exclusively involve folks deploying small cells contributing to the network.(21:37):It also, equally importantly, involves the users of the network as the important building pillars. So I've explained how we have this concept of the macro network that is T-Mobile and The People's Network that is providing this non-contiguous supplemental coverage to the macro network.(21:59):Now, for this network to continue growing, it's extremely important for the builders to understand where it's important to deploy additional coverage. Because in some locations you might already have three people, like maybe your neighbor and your neighbor's neighbor already has a Helium 5G cell deployed, so there isn't additional value from you deploying yet another cell. But that information needs to be continuously fed into the blockchain and everybody needs to be aware of that information. So to that effect, the users of the people's carrier, they are not just exclusively the users, they're also contributors of that information of where is it that the coverage is needed.(22:47):And our approach to making it happen is basically the users are able, on an opt-in basis, to effectively share the information, share information about the experience on the network, share information about where they're using, what type of coverage, and then we use that information to ultimately feed into the community and have them build the network around it.(23:12):Now for sharing this information as a user of Helium Mobile, I get rewarded via mobile tokens, but this makes your cellular phone effectively into a cryptocurrency miner. And with that, it creates all of the same challenges around securing, making sure that people don't game it, et cetera, that you would see with any typical mining situation. So being able to securely store your keys to be able to perform these operations with the blockchain using a phone, so that we can know exactly based on your specific phone, how many tokens you should receive based on what information, et cetera. All of the security around that requires a different type of device.(24:06):And Saga and the work that has been done on the Saga phones is actually unique in that it's basically one of the few, if not the only device on the market that enables one to do it today.Brian (24:18):That's awesome. Well I pre-ordered Saga phones, so I look forward to playing around with the network on day one when it launches.(24:24):You hit on how essentially the phone becomes a bit of a cryptocurrency miner. Right now at the time of this recording, it's quite obvious the cryptocurrency market isn't a bit of a bear market. How has it been for Helium to be building during a bear, and what is on your guys' roadmap upcoming?Boris (24:41):Well, I mean this bear cycle is fairly recent, but I think that all of the Helium community historically was born out of a bear market. So the Laura based IOT network, that the Helium community has successfully built, originally was launched immediately after the recent downturn. And all of the building happened during the bear market.(25:10):At the time when the original Helium miner was launched, nobody wanted to touch crypto at all. That was a completely toxic concept. But then ultimately the team has focused on building through the bear market and then on another upswing, this is where Helium became the popular Helium that everybody knows it today.(25:30):Now, today we're just going for this other cycle again and we're just following the company culture mantra of just continuing to build through it and not focusing on the macro environment. And that's really the only way to do it.(25:48):So this is not like anything magically new, but it's actually oftentimes harder to do than to say. I think that in our case it's a little bit easier in that just the whole community culture and the culture of the folks at Nova is such that it's nothing new and people are just basically used to building through the bear cycles.(26:13):As far as the roadmap, I think I touched a little bit on it, but when it comes to Helium Mobile, what's extremely important to us is building the tooling to enable the community to actually create useful coverage. And it's particularly relevant to the cellular network versus a little bit less so for the lower network because of the properties of how the cellular network works, because the signal doesn't propagate very far, it's very hard to build a network that'll just blanket Earth using cellular small cells.(26:54):You can only sort of augment the existing network such as that of T-Mobile. And for that, you need to have intelligence in the system and tooling for the community to be able to understand where to place the radios, and you need to have the proper tuning within the reward mechanisms such that only useful coverage is rewarded. And I think that there's a whole bunch of work that needs to be done beyond what has already been created for the lower network to make that work for the cellular space. And I think that a lot of this is what we're focusing on.(27:37):Another pillar is about making wireless coverage hotspots more affordable for the community. So the CBRS space, the CBRS spectrum is relatively new. The CBRS small cells are relatively new. I would argue that the Helium CBRS network today is probably one of the biggest in the US, so we are leading the way, but because it's new, it's still fairly complicated and clunky and expensive to deploy a CBRS cell. So it's a lot easier than it was two years ago where it was near impossible.(28:15):But it's still a long way away from the simplicity of what you'd experience with, for instance, a wifi access point. And truly making a very large people-powered network requires that there's a lot more simplification for deploying the cellular hotspot, so that's another vector of engineering investment I think that we are spending our cycles on.Brian (28:42):Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. I guess as this network continues to improve, and you guys get feedback coming back, and you're fine tuning the crypto economic rewards, how do you see this whole space playing out? I guess both the crypto side of things, but also just how does this as The Peoples Network play out and challenge existing carriers, and what are you personally most excited about seeing?Boris (29:05):I am excited about the work that we are doing with other carriers that we have announced actually culminating in them formally joining via mobile DAO and becoming another operator on the network. So I think it's an interesting trend in that if you look at mobile space at large, there's been this push towards disaggregation and decentralization in the mobile carrier space in general. So when cellular communication became first possible, everything revolved around basically a carrier that sells you a phone that only works on that carrier and you have a cell number that only works on that phone on that carrier. And that was V1 of cellular communication, the complete lock end around a single entity. And over time, I think during the last, what, 25 years, 30 years of the industry existing, there's been this continuous push towards disaggregation.(30:15):So V2 was that you could have different phones and then you have different phones working on different networks and then people said, "Hey, my phone number is my property, and I want to be able to switch my phone number and carry it with me if I switch carriers." And the new thing now is, that's particularly becoming pronounced is carriers using multiple networks under the hood. So instead of just having one set of radios that work on the spectrum assets that you as a carrier have purchased, you also have relationships maybe with some of the other operators or some of the people that have built infill coverage certain locations, or maybe you operate with the wifi networks, Boingo that people have probably have seen. So this concept of carrier becoming less of the monolithic one macro network, but carrier becoming more of an aggregator of many networks.(31:15):And this is this next wave that we're seeing, and this is not related to specific layer crypto, blockchain, or Helium Mobile. This is just a thing that's happening by itself. And the reason why it's happening is because as more and more data finds its way onto your phone, you need to build networks that have bigger and bigger capacity. And the physics of it is such that the only way to do that is that you need to build networks that operate on higher frequency bands. And the higher the frequency band, the worst this band goes for walls and trees, so be short of the range. And because of that you need to have a lot of density. So if 20 years ago you could put one tower and cover a whole city of it, today you need to have many towers. And the more and more data is on the cellular network, the more and more of the cells you need.(32:09):And because of that, it's no longer economically viable to have a network where just one entity is basically building it. And because of that you need to have multiple networks working together. So I think that what we're doing with people's carrier and applying the blockchain to coordinating economic activity between many network creators and aggregating that into one network is a natural extension of where the entire cellular industry is headed.(32:41):So obviously we are super excited about eating our own dog food and launching the first people's carrier in the form of Helium Mobile, but I feel that we are just leading the way, and we're hopeful that additional carriers in the context of this trend that's already happening will start joining in the freight.Brian (33:03):That's great. Yeah, I mean there's a lot of tailwinds there that you described it. It's a really exciting time to be where you guys are in bailing this network to the world. Well Boris, this has been a really awesome discussion. I really look forward to using The Peoples Network on my Saga phone when it arrives.(33:18):One closing question that we asked to all our guests here on this podcast, and I'd love to hear it from you as well. Having been a normie entering the Web3 space is, who is a builder that you admire in the Solana ecosystem?Boris (33:31):Yeah, it's a good question. As a normie. So as a normie, I really liked the StepIn app to be honest, that I still continue to play with. And I don't even care so much about the rewards or making tokens with it, but just the fact that it's really well built and it allows me to, it just almost forces me to get off the chair and walk around. Doesn't matter if I make money for it or not, but the user experience is quite amazing.(34:03):And this is just an everyday example of it, but at large what really makes me excited about the Solana ecosystem is the really quality of talent and the dedication of the different groups building on Solana at large. And one important thing that we haven't really discussed much about today is that all of Helium community is moving to Solana.(34:35):And I think that's part of the reason why that move's happening is because we are seeing tremendous amount of support from the Solana builder ecosystem and have gotten to interact with a lot of folks that are building for Solana. Even trying to do POCs, figuring out what it is like, what would the incarnation of Helium look like on the Solana L1 gave us a peek into what the quality of the talent and the passion of the community of top Solano looks like.(35:08):So I think that it's exciting to see. It's exciting to see so many smart people building and whenever you have a congregation of smart, passionate people building, there's always good things that come out on the other end. So maybe, I'll conclude on that note.Brian (35:26):Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more from where I sit, develop a relationship. It's invigorating energy here. Anyone who is at Break Point, you probably didn't even sleep, because there's just so many people who are just in the builder mentality who love this space. And it's really awesome to see you guys leading the charge on the mobile front in this space as well.(35:45):Well Boris, this is really great. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Where can people go to learn more about The Peoples Network?Boris (35:52):HelloHelium.comBrian (35:53):HelloHelium.com. All right. Well thanks again for coming on. Boris Renski, the GM of Cellular Wireless at Nova Labs.Boris (36:00):Thanks Brian.

Welcome to Chain Reaction, where we unpack and explain the latest in crypto news, drama and trends, breaking things down block by block for the crypto curious.For our Tuesday episode where we interview an expert in the web3 space, we sat down with Fable founder Edward Saatchi, who also previously co-founded Oculus Story Story. We talked about how emerging technologies can enable new forms of storytelling and how sectors like crypto and AI are changing what the metaverse might look like. We also discussed:The challenges facing DAOs, which are being forced to streamline operations and missions amid the bear market. How the intertwining of metaverse and crypto boosterism is leading to a very narrow popular view on the future of online social interaction.ICYMI, you can use the promo code REACT for 15% off tickets to TechCrunch Disrupt this October (excluding online and expo) where we'll be chatting with industry experts such as a16z's Chris Dixon and Solana Labs' Anatoly Yakovenko.We'll also be hosting our first dedicated crypto event in Miami for just one day on November 17th — you can use the same promo code, REACT, for 15% off a General Admission ticket.And even if you can't join us in person, you can use the promo code REACT to get 25% off an annual subscription to TechCrunch+.Chain Reaction comes out every Tuesday and Thursday at 12:00 p.m. PT, so be sure to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite pod platform to keep up with the action.

Interview with Andrew Watson, Senior Android Developer, Solana Labs. Topics include how Blockchain benefits the smartphone, challenges for developers, APIs for the smartphone. Paradise at the Crypto Arcade: Inside the Web3 Revolution. Android 13 arrives for Pixel phones starting today. 50 features in Android 13 you should know about. Pixel 6 owners who upgrade to Android 13 can never go back. Android 12 is running on 13.3% of all devices ahead of Android 13 launch. How Google is backporting Android 13's Photo Picker. Review of the Pixel Buds Pro. Everything Samsung Announced at Galaxy Unpacked. Samsung's first foldable tablet might be coming in just six months. JR's tip of the week: Magic Eraser for all! Magic Eraser - The Web App! RCS perspective from the Philippines. Apple has no incentive to support RCS. RCS doesn't work all the time. Read our show notes here: https://bit.ly/3dy1ukw Hosts: Jason Howell, Ron Richards, and Huyen Tue Dao Co-Host: JR Raphael Guest: Andrew Watson Subscribe to All About Android at https://twit.tv/shows/all-about-android. Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: Secureworks.com/twit wealthfront.com/twit newrelic.com/aaa

Interview with Andrew Watson, Senior Android Developer, Solana Labs. Topics include how Blockchain benefits the smartphone, challenges for developers, APIs for the smartphone. Paradise at the Crypto Arcade: Inside the Web3 Revolution. Android 13 arrives for Pixel phones starting today. 50 features in Android 13 you should know about. Pixel 6 owners who upgrade to Android 13 can never go back. Android 12 is running on 13.3% of all devices ahead of Android 13 launch. How Google is backporting Android 13's Photo Picker. Review of the Pixel Buds Pro. Everything Samsung Announced at Galaxy Unpacked. Samsung's first foldable tablet might be coming in just six months. JR's tip of the week: Magic Eraser for all! Magic Eraser - The Web App! RCS perspective from the Philippines. Apple has no incentive to support RCS. RCS doesn't work all the time. Read our show notes here: https://bit.ly/3dy1ukw Hosts: Jason Howell, Ron Richards, and Huyen Tue Dao Co-Host: JR Raphael Guest: Andrew Watson Subscribe to All About Android at https://twit.tv/shows/all-about-android. Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: Secureworks.com/twit wealthfront.com/twit newrelic.com/aaa

In this episode of The Scoop, Solana Labs co-founder and COO Raj Gokal discusses his early impression of Solana Spaces, as well as the innovation and experimentation that is occurring across the Solana ecosystem at a "breakneck pace." As Gokal explains, some people who visit Solana Spaces' first location in Manhattan are discovering that web3 might not be as daunting as it seems: "There's hundreds of people coming through — just starting their first Phantom wallet, sending their first USDC, and learning, 'okay, using crypto is like not that complicated.'"In addition to the inroads Solana is making in the physical world, Solana is currently hosting a virtual hackathon called 'Summer Camp' — the largest Solana hackathon to date, according to Gokal:  "The hackathon that's going right now has almost 14,000 developers. This is the most participation from a hackathon that we've ever seen… and it's now — in the depths of the bear market."Although the price of SOL has fallen approximately 85% since last November's highs, the Solana Network has seen accelerated adoption over the same period, as data from The Block shows. Episode 72 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block's Frank Chaparro and Solana Labs Co-Founder and COO, Raj Gokal. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen About Chainalysis Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com. About IWC Schaffhausen IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot's Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com

Matty Taylor, Head of Growth at Solana Labs, joins Joe and Justin to discuss all things Solana! What problem Solana was created to solve, why he joined the team, the Solana phone, and the future of Solana. We dig into his role of nurturing the next wave of Solana devs and apps, hackathons, his favorite current apps, and where Solana's future efforts are focussed.   You can find Solana at https://solana.com/ And you can also follow Solana on Twitter @solana   Subscribe to Robert Ventures: https://robertventures.com/   *DISCLAIMER: The information provided is not legal, accounting, tax, or investment advice

Today's blockchain and cryptocurrency news Brought to you by web3 with a16z (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/web3-with-a16z/id1622312549) Bitcoin is up .5% at $21,129 Ethereum is up 2% at $1195 and Binance Coin is up slightly at $236 Polygon up 16% Frax up 22% Solana Labs is launching a mobile phone. Cristiano Ronaldo signs multi-year NFT deal with Binance Bitcoin miner Aspen Creek Digital opens facility in Colorado Harmony's cross-chain bridge exploited for $100M Funds from AnubisDAO exploit on the move for the first time in 8 months.

If Web2 is a freight train, Web3 is the hyperloop in terms of the pace and speed of development. Is this the future of work we should all be prepared for? As Sacca begins investing in Solana NFT's, we take you behind the scenes at Solana Labs with their Head of Design, Joshua Taylor. He describes what it's like to work on an L1 blockchain inside their Web3 incubation lab. *** This episode is brought to you by: Sendinblue: Visit https://www.sendinblue.com/rocketship/ and use promo code ROCKETSHIP for 50% off your first three months on a premium account Hawke Media: Get a free consultation on your business when you visit hawkemedia.com/podcast and use the promo code ROCKET. Vidyard: The Top Video Tool for SaaS Marketing and Sales http://vidyard.com/rocketship Canva: Go to canva.me/rocketship to get your free 45-day extended trial Carnegie Mellon MIIPS Program: Learn more about how your ideas could change the world at https://www.cmu.edu/iii/degrees/miips NetSuite: NetSuite by Oracle is a scalable solution to run all of your key back office operations. Go to netsuite.com/rocketship today. Issuu: Get 50% off a premium account at issuu.com/podcast with promo code ROCKETSHIP Justworks: Find out how Justworks can help your business by going to justworks.com Indeed: Indeed is the job site that makes hiring as easy as 1-2-3. Get started with a free $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/rocketship. BetterHelp: Unlimited Professional Counseling via Online Chat, Video or Phone Anytime, Anywhere. Get 10% off when you visit betterhelp.com/rocketship. Fundrise: Fundrise makes investing in private real estate as easy as investing in stocks, bonds, or mutual funds. Go to fundrise.com/rocketship today. *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy.  Since you're listening to Rocketship, we'd like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows surrounding entrepreneurship, business, and careers like Creative Elements and Freelance to Founder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices