Podcasts about why solana

Joseph Onorati, CEO of the Defi Development Corporation, joined me to discuss the company's Solana treasury strategy.Topics: - DeFi Development Corp overview - Choosing Solana as a treasury reserve asset - Cantor Fitzgerald coverage of Solana treasury companies - Trend of companies using Crypto as a treasury reserve asset - Risks that come with a bear marketShow Sponsor -

Public crypto treasury companies are in the news right now. Just this week, Sharplink Gaming announced a $425 million raise to create an Ethereum treasury vehicle, backed by Consensys. Meanwhile, Trump Media said it will buy $2.5 billion worth of bitcoin. And in a headline grab, GameStop revealed a $500 million Bitcoin purchase. There's even a newly launched XRP treasury company backed by Saudi royal capital. But why are these vehicles suddenly the structure of choice for accessing crypto exposure? What kinds of assets are best suited for them? And are they safe or a ticking time bomb? Pantera Capital's Cosmo Jiang joins Unchained to unpack: The structures and strategies behind these companies Why Solana is appearing more than Ethereum (and what that says) How XRP's brand power could matter more than its adoption The risks these vehicles pose to investors and to markets Visit our website for breaking news, analysis, op-eds, articles to learn about crypto, and much more: unchainedcrypto.com Thank you to our sponsors! Bitkey: Use code UNCHAINED for 20% off Focal by FalconX Guest Cosmo Jiang, General Partner and Portfolio Manager for Liquid Strategies at Pantera Capital Links Previous coverage of Unchained on bitcoin treasury companies: Why Twenty One Capital Is More About Volatility Than Bitcoin Twenty One Aims to Buy as Much Bitcoin as Possible. Can It Succeed? Unchained:  Trump Media Confirms $2.5B Capital Raise to Buy Bitcoin Consensys Leads $425M Raise for SharpLink Gaming's ETH Treasury Plans The Block: GameStop buys 4,710 bitcoin for corporate treasury: filing CoinDesk: VivoPower Raises $121M to Launch XRP Treasury Strategy With Saudi Royal Backing Bloomberg:  Cantor's $2 Billion Bitcoin-Backed Lending Arm Makes First Deals The Stock Market Loves Bitcoin Timestamps:

Public crypto treasury companies are in the news right now. Just this week, Sharplink Gaming announced a $425 million raise to create an Ethereum treasury vehicle, backed by Consensys. Meanwhile, Trump Media said it will buy $2.5 billion worth of bitcoin. And in a headline grab, GameStop revealed a $500 million Bitcoin purchase. There's even a newly launched XRP treasury company backed by Saudi royal capital. But why are these vehicles suddenly the structure of choice for accessing crypto exposure? What kinds of assets are best suited for them? And are they safe or a ticking time bomb? Pantera Capital's Cosmo Jiang joins Unchained to unpack: The structures and strategies behind these companies Why Solana is appearing more than Ethereum (and what that says) How XRP's brand power could matter more than its adoption The risks these vehicles pose to investors and to markets Visit our website for breaking news, analysis, op-eds, articles to learn about crypto, and much more: unchainedcrypto.com Thank you to our sponsors! Bitkey: Use code UNCHAINED for 20% off Focal by FalconX Guest Cosmo Jiang, General Partner and Portfolio Manager for Liquid Strategies at Pantera Capital Links Previous coverage of Unchained on bitcoin treasury companies: Why Twenty One Capital Is More About Volatility Than Bitcoin Twenty One Aims to Buy as Much Bitcoin as Possible. Can It Succeed? Unchained:  Trump Media Confirms $2.5B Capital Raise to Buy Bitcoin Consensys Leads $425M Raise for SharpLink Gaming's ETH Treasury Plans The Block: GameStop buys 4,710 bitcoin for corporate treasury: filing CoinDesk: VivoPower Raises $121M to Launch XRP Treasury Strategy With Saudi Royal Backing Bloomberg:  Cantor's $2 Billion Bitcoin-Backed Lending Arm Makes First Deals The Stock Market Loves Bitcoin Timestamps:

A debate has been heating up on crypto Twitter about Real Economic Value (REV) — a metric meant to measure the value blockchains accrue from user activity. REV includes transaction fees and MEV tips, but excludes issuance — the inflationary rewards paid to validators. Some say it's the clearest window into genuine usage. Others argue it's a flawed and misleading proxy. So we brought the argument to Unchained. Tom Dunleavy, Head of Venture at Varys Capital, says fees are headed to zero, and blockchains shouldn't be valued like companies. Meanwhile, Austin Federa, Co-founder of DoubleZero, believes REV offers a real lens on activity, maturity, and demand. The conversation covers: Whether REV is a meaningful metric (and how to game it) Whether L2 tokens are fundamentally broken What happens to security when fees (and MEV) go to zero If high REV signals product-market fit or just economic noise How to value blockchains, if not with REV Visit our website for breaking news, analysis, op-eds, articles to learn about crypto, and much more: unchainedcrypto.com Thank you to our sponsors! Bitwise Guests: Tom Dunleavy, Head of Venture at Varys Capital Austin Federa, Co-founder of DoubleZero Timestamps:

A debate has been heating up on crypto Twitter about Real Economic Value (REV) — a metric meant to measure the value blockchains accrue from user activity. REV includes transaction fees and MEV tips, but excludes issuance — the inflationary rewards paid to validators. Some say it's the clearest window into genuine usage. Others argue it's a flawed and misleading proxy. So we brought the argument to Unchained. Tom Dunleavy, Head of Venture at Varys Capital, says fees are headed to zero, and blockchains shouldn't be valued like companies. Meanwhile, Austin Federa, Co-founder of DoubleZero, believes REV offers a real lens on activity, maturity, and demand. The conversation covers: Whether REV is a meaningful metric (and how to game it) Whether L2 tokens are fundamentally broken What happens to security when fees (and MEV) go to zero If high REV signals product-market fit or just economic noise How to value blockchains, if not with REV Visit our website for breaking news, analysis, op-eds, articles to learn about crypto, and much more: unchainedcrypto.com Thank you to our sponsors! Bitwise Guests: Tom Dunleavy, Head of Venture at Varys Capital Austin Federa, Co-founder of DoubleZero Timestamps:

The Solana ecosystem just completed a critical governance vote. SIMD-228, a proposal to tie Solana's inflation rate to its staking participation rate, was put forward by Multicoin Capital and Anza, but despite a majority voting in favor, it failed to meet the required supermajority to pass. Tushar Jain, co-founder and managing partner at Multicoin Capital, who co-authored the proposal, joins the show to discuss: Why he believes the proposal was necessary Whether inflation is too high for Solana's long-term health If some validators voted against their own interests The silver lining of the governance process Why a smaller proposal focused fee sharing did pass Whether Multicoin Capital will resubmit a revised proposal Visit our website for breaking news, analysis, op-eds, articles to learn about crypto, and much more: unchainedcrypto.com Thank you to our sponsors! BitKey: Use code UNCHAINED for 20% off Mantle Guest Tushar Jain, Co-founder and Managing Partner at Multicoin Capital Links Unchained: Proposal to Cut SOL Inflation by 80% Fails After ‘Close Call' SIMD Vote Status Kayuza's tweet  Timestamps:

The Solana ecosystem just completed a critical governance vote. SIMD-228, a proposal to tie Solana's inflation rate to its staking participation rate, was put forward by Multicoin Capital and Anza, but despite a majority voting in favor, it failed to meet the required supermajority to pass. Tushar Jain, co-founder and managing partner at Multicoin Capital, who co-authored the proposal, joins the show to discuss: Why he believes the proposal was necessary Whether inflation is too high for Solana's long-term health If some validators voted against their own interests The silver lining of the governance process Why a smaller proposal focused on fee sharing did pass Whether Multicoin Capital will resubmit a revised proposal Visit our website for breaking news, analysis, op-eds, articles to learn about crypto, and much more: unchainedcrypto.com Thank you to our sponsors! BitKey: Use code UNCHAINED for 20% off Mantle Guest Tushar Jain, Co-founder and Managing Partner at Multicoin Capital Links Unchained: Proposal to Cut SOL Inflation by 80% Fails After ‘Close Call' SIMD Vote Status Kayuza's tweet  Timestamps:

Alejandro Gutierrez joins me once again to dive into some of the biggest conversations in crypto right now, including:The fallout from Operation Chokepoint 2.0 and the debanking of crypto startups—what it means for the industry and how regulatory shifts in the U.S. and Europe could reshape the future of digital assets.Why Solana is having its moment—how Solana's DEX volume is outpacing Ethereum's and what this means for the long-term viability of the network.The rise of decentralized exchanges (DEXs) and why Uniswap launching its own Layer 2, Unichain, could be a game changer.Institutionalization of crypto—how Solana ETFs and BitGo's rumored IPO are bringing more traditional finance players into the space.The evolving regulatory landscape—what the SEC's new stance on crypto, led by Commissioner Hester Peirce, could mean for the industry's future.Plus, we share the details on an exciting new event—Techstars and CryptoMondays Ireland are teaming up for a first-of-its-kind gathering in Dublin on March 10th (register here).Alejandro Gutierrez is a leading figure in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space and an early adopter of real-world asset tokenization. Alejandro has contributed to the growth of DeFi through his work with MakerDAO, Tokeny, Securitize, and Centrifuge, as well as his co-founding of Consolfreight, Defactor, and ETH Dublin.EPISODE LINKS:Operation Chokepoint 2.0 / DebankingCoinbase - the facts are the facts FDIC (X, 6-Feb-25)Operation Chokepoint 2.0 - Nic Carter, Castle Island Ventures (Pirate Wires, 8-Feb-23) Marc Andreessen on Joe Rogan (Joe Rogan Experience, 27-Nov-24)Fed's Powell Says He's Also Worried About Debanking (Coindesk, 11-Feb-25)Graham Rodford from Archax on the UK situation (Linkedin, recently)New Era in the SEC with CryptoThe Journey Begins - SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce (SEC, 4-Feb-25)Other TopicsSolana DEX Volume Tops $60M as It Looks to Extend 4-Month Winning Streak Over Ethereum (Coindesk, 11-Feb-25)BitGo Mulling IPO This Year (Coindesk, 11-Feb-25)Uniswap Labs Officially Launches Layer-2 ‘Unichain' (Coindesk, 10-Feb-25)Keywords:  #OperationChokepoint2 #debanking #SolanaDEXvolume #UniswapLayer2 #Cryptoregulation2025 #DeFI #Institutionalcryptoadoption #SolanaETFs #seccryptopolicyLeave a review and subscribe onApple PodcastsSpotifyMoneyNeverSleeps (website)Follow our guest co-host Alejandro Gutierrez:X(Twitter):  https://twitter.com/A_gutierroLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alejandro-gutierrez-98979b43/Email us: info@norioventures.comFollow us on X(Twitter):Pete Townsend: https://twitter.com/petetownsendnvMoneyNeverSleeps: https://twitter.com/MNSshowFollow us on LinkedIn:Pete Townsend: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pete-townsend-1b18301a/MoneyNeverSleeps: https://www.linkedin.com/company/28661903/MoneyNeverSleeps newsletter: https://moneyneversleeps.substack.com/

In this episode of Web3 with Sam Kamani, I speak with Chris Chung, co-founder of TitanDex, a DEX aggregator built on Solana. TitanDex aims to provide traders with the best swap prices by aggregating liquidity from multiple DEXs, reducing slippage, front-running, and MEV attacks.

Mert Mumtaz is the co-founder of Helius Labs, a leading Solana Infrastructure provider company backed by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund. Mert is one of the biggest personalities in the Solana ecosystem and one of the few voices who was hyper bullish and supporting Solana since the $8 SOL low in November 2022 after the FTX collapse. In this episode, Mert shares his unfiltered insights on why Solana is set for explosive growth, despite market doubts. We dive into how Helius is helping developers build faster and more efficiently on Solana, the $1 Trillion opportunity within the ecosystem, and why Mert believes Solana will hit over $1,000. In this conversation, we discuss: - Why Solana is the blockchain to watch. - The critical role Helius is playing in Solana's growth. - Why the collapse of FTX is actually a win for Solana. - The $1 Trillion billion opportunity most people miss. - Mert's mission to accelerate Solana's growth. - How Solana will reach $1,000. - How Mert turned Baldness into a superpower - Stoicism and risk taking - How losing his mum at a young age impacted Mert's hunger for life And much more! __________________________________ FOLLOW MERT & HELIUS • Twitter: https://x.com/0xMert_ • Twitter: https://x.com/heliuslabs • Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mertmumtaz • Website: https://www.helius.dev/ FOLLOW KEVIN & WHEN SHIFT HAPPENS

Ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes of a giant like PayPal? Join us on today's episode of The Milk Road Show as we sit down with Neil Desilva, former CFO of PayPal Digital Currencies & Remittances, and one of the masterminds behind PayPal's Stablecoin, PYUSD. You'll learn: •⁠ ⁠A refresh on PayPal's stated crypto strategy •⁠ ⁠Why did PayPal decide to launch a stablecoin, and what's the reason behind their choice of Solana? •⁠ ⁠How is regulation shaping PayPal's approach, and what's needed to unlock the full potential of their stablecoin? •⁠ ⁠Where is the industry headed, and what role will players like PayPal, Mastercard, BlackRock, and Stripe play in shaping its future?

In this episode, we dive deep into decentralized internet with Neil Chatterjee, the founder of DAWN. Neil explains the current state of internet infrastructure, the hidden costs behind ISP pricing, and how Dawn aims to disrupt this model using crypto. We explore the concept of Decentralized Autonomous Wireless Networks (DAWNs), discussing its potential to dramatically reduce internet costs for consumers while empowering households to become part of the network. The conversation also touches on the challenges of building a decentralized internet infrastructure, the role of Solana in Dawn's ecosystem, and the broader vision for the future of deepin projects. Thanks for tuning in! - - Start your day with crypto news, analysis and data from Katherine Ross and David Canellis. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire?utm_source=podcasts Follow Neil: https://x.com/neilc_dawn 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/mv4frfv7ww 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/ - - The 6th edition of Meridian, a web3 conference hosted by the Stellar Development Foundation is happening in London, England October 15-17, 2024. Learn more and get your early-bird priced tickets now at meridian.stellar.org by using the code BLOCKWORKSPOD. - - Cronos zkEVM has launched its Pioneer Program,offering early users loyalty points for engaging with Cronos zkEVM & its dapps. Join the first quest by depositing CRO in the Cronos zkEVM bridge to receive zkCRO & loyalty points at mainnet launch, as well as a chance to win a part of a $30,000 zkCRO giveaway by depositing in the bridge. Visit zkevm.cronos.org/bridge for more info - - Harpie sets the standard in on-chain security, actively monitoring and safeguarding your crypto wallet against theft in real time. It detects, blocks, and recovers stolen assets from risky transactions before they execute, shielding you from even the most advanced hacks and scams. Harpie is free to use and compatible with all Ethereum, Base, Polygon, and Arbitrum wallets. Protect your crypto today at harpie.io. - - Polygon Labs is developing the next generation of open source zero-knowledge tech to aggregate crypto liquidity and user bases with the AggLayer. To support the aggregated future, the Polygon Community Grants Program was launched with 1 billion tokens — all for Polygon builders. Season One of the community grants program is live now, and features 35 million in MATIC to support the next generation of Polygon projects! Join the aggregated future today by applying at https://polygon.technology/grants - - Timestamps: (00:00) intro (02:23) Internet Infra of Today (06:12) Whats Wrong with Internet Today? (10:44) Andrena Business Model (13:01) Unique Unit Economics of Internet (23:28) Why Crypto? (36:58) Stellar Ad (37:48) Cronos Ad (38:46) Polygon Ad (39:54) Harpie Ad (41:09) Scale of Dawn & Adoption (48:23) Biggest Risks? (54:07) Token Incentives & Design (59:40) Vision of Internet & Broadband (01:07:19) Why Solana? - - 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.

In this episode, we dive deep into GRASS, a revolutionary decentralized network for web scraping and data collection. Andrej, from GRASS, explains how their platform is democratizing access to web data for AI development. We explore the technical aspects of the GRASS network, its innovative approach to data collection, and its potential impact on the AI industry. The conversation covers topics ranging from data poisoning prevention to the intersection of crypto and AI, concluding with insights into GRASS's future plans and expansion into mobile platforms. -- Follow Andrej: https://x.com/0xdrej Follow Ryan: https://x.com/_RyanRConnor Follow Boccaccio: https://twitter.com/tripleboccaccio Follow Blockworks Research: https://twitter.com/blockworksres Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3foDS38 Subscribe on Apple: https://apple.co/3SNhUEt Subscribe on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3NlP1hA Get top market insights and the latest in crypto news. Subscribe to Blockworks Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/ -- Polygon Labs is developing the next generation of open source zero-knowledge tech to aggregate crypto liquidity and user bases with the AggLayer. To support the aggregated future, the Polygon Community Grants Program was launched with 1 billion tokens — all for Polygon builders. Season One of the community grants program is live now, and features 35 million in MATIC to support the next generation of Polygon projects! Join the aggregated future today by applying at https://polygon.technology/grants -- Timestamps (0:00) Introduction (2:11) Global Web Resource Problem (16:50) Permissionless III Ad (18:04) Polygon Ad (18:55) Live Context Retrieval (25:15) Data Labeling & RLHF Program (32:59) Crypto & AI Intersection (39:43) Why Solana & Business Future -- Check out Blockworks Research today! Research, data, governance, tokenomics, and models – now, all in one place Blockworks Research: https://www.blockworksresearch.com/ Free Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter -- Disclaimer: Nothing said on 0xResearch 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. Dan, Sam, and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.

In this episode, Anil from Rome Protocol unpacks using Solana's infrastructure for Ethereum L2 sequencing. The discussion covers the challenges of centralized sequencers, the importance of MEV in the L2 ecosystem, and the potential for crosschain atomic transactions. The conversation delves into how combining elements from different blockchains might address scalability issues without sacrificing decentralization or security. The episode also touches on the broader implications of this approach for blockchain interoperability and the future of modular blockchain architecture.scalability. - - Start your day with crypto news, analysis and data from Katherine Ross and David Canellis. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire?utm_source=podcasts Follow Anil: https://x.com/anilkumar827/ 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/ - - The 6th edition of Meridian, a web3 conference hosted by the Stellar Development Foundation is happening in London, England October 15-17, 2024. Learn more and get your early-bird priced tickets now at meridian.stellar.org by using the code BLOCKWORKSPOD. - - Avalanche is a smart contracts platform that scales infinitely and regularly finalizes transactions in less than one second. Its novel consensus protocol, Subnet infrastructure, and HyperSDK toolkit enable Web3 developers to easily launch powerful, custom blockchain solutions. Build anything you want, any way you want, on the eco-friendly blockchain designed for Web3 devs. Start building today at https://www.avax.network/ - - Harpie sets the standard in on-chain security, actively monitoring and safeguarding your crypto wallet against theft in real time. It detects, blocks, and recovers stolen assets from risky transactions before they execute, shielding you from even the most advanced hacks and scams. Harpie is free to use and compatible with all Ethereum, Base, Polygon, and Arbitrum wallets. Protect your crypto today at harpie.io. - - Renaud Partners has built the most elite network of native crypto marketers globally. They create custom, expert teams to support founders with transformative strategy work. If you're a founder or a VC looking for support for your teams, head on over to RenaudPartners.com or give their co-founder Geoff a follow on x at https://x.com/ReoffGenaud - - Timestamps: (00:00) Introduction (01:55) Modularization of Solana (12:37) Why Solana? (17:55) Why Offer Sequencing to a 3rd Party (25:56) Future of Blockchain Architecture (28:41) Stellar Ad (29:32) Invisible North Ad (30:27) Ava Labs Ad (31:25) Harpie Ad (32:40) Is MEV the Most Valuable? (39:29) L2 Decision Making (47:19) Why Build in Crypto? - - 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.

In this episode of Bits + Bips, hosts James Seyffart, Alex Kruger, and Joe McCann, joined by guest Jack Platts, dive into the market's reaction to the recent assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, looking at how this event will influence the 2024 U.S. presidential election—and the crypto markets. They also cover potential rate cuts: Could there be a cut this July? How big might the rate cut be in September? Could the decision ever be influenced by the upcoming election? They also give their predictions for what percentage of the BTC ETF inflows the ETH ETFs will reach, and James talks about what he's expecting for Grayscale's ETHE (hint: his view would be positive for ETH). Finally, they delve into what's next for Bitcoin as the German government runs out of BTC and Mt. Gox distributions begin. Is it up only now? Show highlights: 00:00 Intro 01:18 Whether the Trump shooting has settled the election and whether the event caused a “flight to safety” 11:23 How election markets are becoming a place to watch election odds and whether crypto “leans right” 20:16 Whether rate cuts are coming in July or September and how much they'll cut: 25bps or 50bps 29:06 How Joe views the relationship between global liquidity cycles, rate cuts, and Bitcoin's potential rise 34:41 What new updates there are about the Ethereum ETFs and their expected launch 42:08 Why Solana hasn't outperformed significantly since the Trump news 43:25 What market breadth indicates about the current market rally and the impact of rates in small caps 49:01 Everyone's predictions of ETH ETF inflows and how much outflows we'll see on Grayscale's ETHE 53:04 What's next for BTC after the German government is out of bitcoin, and with Mt. Gox distributions starting this week Hosts: James Seyffart, Research Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence Alex Kruger, Founder of Asgard Joe McCann, Founder, CEO, and CIO of Asymmetric Guest: Jack Platts, Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Hypersphere Ventures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of Bits + Bips, hosts James Seyffart, Alex Kruger, and Joe McCann, joined by guest Jack Platts, dive into the market's reaction to the recent assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, looking at how this event will influence the 2024 U.S. presidential election—and the crypto markets. They also cover potential rate cuts: Could there be a cut this July? How big might the rate cut be in September? Could the decision ever be influenced by the upcoming election? They also give their predictions for what percentage of the BTC ETF inflows the ETH ETFs will reach, and James talks about what he's expecting for Grayscale's ETHE (hint: his view would be positive for ETH). Finally, they delve into what's next for Bitcoin as the German government runs out of BTC and Mt. Gox distributions begin. Is it up only now? Show highlights: 00:00 Intro 01:18 Whether the Trump shooting has settled the election and whether the event caused a “flight to safety” 11:23 How election markets are becoming a place to watch election odds and whether crypto “leans right” 20:16 Whether rate cuts are coming in July or September and how much they'll cut: 25bps or 50bps 29:06 How Joe views the relationship between global liquidity cycles, rate cuts, and Bitcoin's potential rise 34:41 What new updates there are about the Ethereum ETFs and their expected launch 42:08 Why Solana hasn't outperformed significantly since the Trump news 43:25 What market breadth indicates about the current market rally and the impact of rates in small caps 49:01 Everyone's predictions of ETH ETF inflows and how much outflows we'll see on Grayscale's ETHE 53:04 What's next for BTC after the German government is out of bitcoin, and with Mt. Gox distributions starting this week Hosts: James Seyffart, Research Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence Alex Kruger, Founder of Asgard Joe McCann, Founder, CEO, and CIO of Asymmetric Guest: Jack Platts, Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Hypersphere Ventures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Armani, the founder of Backpack, dives into the technical and regulatory hurdles of running an exchange, the vision behind Backpack's product offerings, and the valuable lessons learned from the rise and fall of FTX. He discusses the importance of focusing on the Solana ecosystem, the challenges of expanding into Japan, and the keys to long-term success in crypto. Thanks for tuning in! - - Follow Armani: https://x.com/armaniferrante 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 Start your day with crypto news, analysis and data from Katherine Ross and David Canellis. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire?utm_source=podcasts Get top market insights and the latest in crypto news. Subscribe to Blockworks Daily Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/ - - Sei Labs believes the EVM is here to stay. By providing the fastest time to finality of any chain, thousands of transactions per second and full backwards compatibility with the EVM, Ethereum developers can try out a brand new design space for their applications. Try out sei v2 devnet - visit the new sei.io to find out more. - - Avalanche is a smart contracts platform that scales infinitely and regularly finalizes transactions in less than one second. Its novel consensus protocol, Subnet infrastructure, and HyperSDK toolkit enable Web3 developers to easily launch powerful, custom blockchain solutions. Build anything you want, any way you want, on the eco-friendly blockchain designed for Web3 devs. Start building today at https://www.avax.network/ - - Mantle recently launched their airdrop program "Rewards Station" to holders of its native token, $MNT. The Rewards Station program distributes pre-sale token allocations or listed token to $MNT holders who stake their $MNT. Check out the rewards station: https://www.mantle.xyz/rewards-station - - This episode is brought to you by Aura, the AI-powered digital security protection app that keeps your personal information, passwords, online activity, and tech safe from digital threats. It's all-in-one protection from identity theft, financial fraud, malware, scams, and more. For a limited time, Aura is offering our listeners a 14-day FREE trial plus up to 55% off an Aura subscription. Visit aura.com/blockworks to sign up for your free trial. - - Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (01:51) Anchor, MadLads, and Backpack (04:04) Backpack's Exchange Thesis (16:130 Exchanges in Japan (31:08) Sei Ad (32:06) Aura Ad (32:54) Avalanche ad (33:51) Mantle Ad (34:51) The Future of Exchanges (55:36) Why Solana (01:04:15) Lessons Learned from Building (01:17:23) Marker - - 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.

io.net Cloud is a state-of-the-art decentralized computing network that allows machine learning engineers to access distributed Cloud clusters at a small fraction of the cost of comparable centralized services. io.net solves this problem by aggregating GPUs from underutilized sources such as independent data centres, crypto miners, and crypto projects like Filecoin, Render and others. Guest: Ahmad Shadid Founder - CEO io.net IO.NET Website ➜ https://bit.ly/IONET00:00 intro00:33 IO.Net vs GPU Shortage04:24 Growth & Scaling06:24 Simple Onboarding07:12 $IO Token Coming09:07 Filecoin 12:09 Render Network13:36 Theta Edge Cloud15:15 DePIN Explosion17:44 DePIN Meeting with White House18:43 Why Solana?19:59 Bitcoin Miner Transition22:06 outro#Solana #GPU #AI~Largest A.I. GPU DePIN Powered by Render, Solana, & Filecoin

Decimated is a 3rd person survival role playing game where players can choose to play a variety of roles as a human or cyborg. Players can choose to fight against or team up with other players, scavenge loot, transport cargo or VIP's to other locations, collect resources and trade them.Guest: Stephen Arnold - CEO & Creative Director , DecimatedDecimated Website ➜ https://decimated.net/00:00 intro00:15 DayZ 10 Year Growth00:24 Stephen Arnold Web3 Journey02:34 Raising Capital in NFT Gaming05:44 Cross-Platform Releases10:34 Why Solana?12:41 In-Game Assets13:49 High Stakes Survival16:13 Cross-Chain Interoperability18:08 Star Atlas Integration?20:37 $DIO Token21:06 outro#NFT #Crypto #Solana~Decimated | Cross-Platform NFT Survival Game

In today's show, we take a close look at WHY Solana is pumping as Bitcoin ETF buys continue and what Altcoins to watch for the next BIG move! Follow our Special Guest -British HODL- https://twitter.com/BritishHodl Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjemQfjaXAzA-95RKoy9n_g/join Come trade with us on Blofin, where whales are made:  https://partner.blofin.com/d/DiscoverCrypto  ➡️Level up your crypto tax game with Decrypted Tax. Get 25% OFF expert guidance & personalized care - https://www.decrypted.tax/hit

Honeyland, a mobile-first Solana blockchain strategy game that blends traditional web2 gaming fundamentals with a seamless web3 onboarding experience. The collaboration aims to simplify the adoption of web3 gaming, highlighted by the direct installation of the Magic Eden marketplace into Honeyland, available on both iOS and Android.Guest: Corey Wright, CEO of Honeyland Download Honeyland!Google Play ➜ https://bit.ly/GoogleHoneyApple iOS ➜ https://bit.ly/AppleHoneylandNFT Marketplace ➜ https://bit.ly/MagicEdenHoney00:00 intro00:19 Mobile Gaming $100 Billion01:19 Mobile Game Demographics01:59 Honeyland growth02:39 NFT Game Checklist03:45 Corey Wright04:37 Why Honeyland is Different06:22 Why Solana?07:17 Solana Transactions Off-Chain08:35 Active Player Growth09:20 Web2 Business Model10:27 Magic Eden Integration11:56 Casual Game Demographics13:05 NFT Volume Explosion13:34 Solana Saga Phone14:56 Apple Tax vs. NFTs18:58 Sustainable Game Economy20:45 1 Million Players?22:16 In-Game Ad Revenue24:09 Star Atlas x Honeyland25:42 Ethereum Integrations27:04 Q1 Roadmap28:36 NFT Gaming Success30:15 outro#Solana #Crypto #NFT~The BEST Solana Mobile Game!

Corey Wright is CEO and Co-Founder of Honeyland a casual strategy game where players lead swarms to bees to gather rewards, increase their swarm, battle other players all to amass the ultimate Honey ($HXD) stash for their hive. ================ All Episodes can be found at www.thecryptopodcast.org   Podcast Coaching + All Social Media + Donations link https://bio.link/podcaster   Our Facebook Group can be found at https://www.facebook.com/thecryptopodcast   ======= Thanks to my Sponsors for Helping Support me: If you or know some body you know is struggling with anxiety and want to know how to be 100% anxiety free, in 6 weeks, without therapy or drugs, fully guaranteed - then let me tell you about our sponsor Daniel Packard. His research company spent 8 years testing to develop an innovative process that solves your anxiety permanently in just 6 weeks - with an astounding 90% success rate.  Because their program is so effective, people who join their program only pay at the end, once they have clear, measurable results. If you're interested in solving your anxiety in 6 weeks - fully guaranteed  - and you want to learn more and have a free consultation with Daniel, go to https://anxietysolutionprogram.com/ -------------------------- Do you have High Blood Pressure and/ or want to get off the Meds Doctors are amazed at what the Zona Plus can do $50 Discount with my Code ROY https://www.zona.com/discount/ROY     Speaking Podcast Social Media / Coaching My Other Podcasts ⁠https://bio.link/podcaster⁠   ======================== Bio of Corey Wright: Corey is a lifelong entrepreneur. He launched his first business in college, nearly 20 years ago and has launched, scaled, and sold more than a half dozen businesses since. At the age of 25, he became a part-time MBA professor at PLNU in San Diego. In 2019 Corey transitioned into executive leadership team coaching and helped scale more than 20 businesses in a short span. In 2021 Corey was called back into the entrepreneur world to launch Hexagon Studios, a web3 gaming studio. Their first title Honeyland is in major app stores and is the top mobile game on Solana. Corey is located in Southern California. What we Discussed:   - Who is Corey Wright ( 2 mins)   - Selling Funny Political Gifts ( 6 mins) - Working with your Brother and other Co-Founders ( 8 mins)   - A Fair system buyout ( 10:30 mins) - INC Mag awards ( 12 mins) - Corey's own Crypto journey ( 13 mins) - Picking the Roles in a Company ( 15 mins) - What Honeyland is all about ( 21 mins) - Why Solana ( 27:30 mins) - Navigating Apple, Android & Web ( 30 mins) - If problem with Bots ( 36 mins) - Interoperability ( 41 mins) and more     How to Contact Corey Wright :   https://honey.land https://youtube.com/@PlayHoneyland Discord: https://discord.gg/honeyland Twitter: https://twitter.com/playhoneyland --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/roy-coughlan8/message

Ariel Seidman, CEO of Hivemapper, joins us to discuss how Hivemapper has built the most successful DePIN product in crypto. In just twelve months, Hivemapper has mapped over 6M unique road kilometers (10% of the world's roads!) and has over 25,000 contributors. In this episode, we discuss Hivemapper's origin story, how Hivemapper maps the world, Hivemapper's killer feature, what DePIN projects get wrong, founder lessons 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 - - Timestamps (00:00) Introduction (01:12) Hivemapper's Origin Story: From Drones to Dash Cams (12:32) How Hivemapper Maps the World (21:25) DAS London Plug (22:23) Where Will Demand Come From? (29:13) Why Solana and the DePIN Network Effect (35:23) Hivemapper's Main KPI (37:10) The Biggest Challenges (39:33) Costs and Potential Filecoin Integration (42:52) Ariel's Thoughts On Crypto Today (45:30) Attracting Top Talent and Crypto's Unlock (51:12) Founder Lessons: Tolerance for Pain (57:28) Rapid Fire - - Follow Ariel: https://twitter.com/aseidman 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 Hivemapper https://twitter.com/Hivemapper

Paul Bohm is the Founder of Teleport The Download Link: https://app.teleport.xyz/rider/refer/... Paul's Twitter: https://twitter.com/paulbohm Teleport's Twitter: https://twitter.com/TeleportXYZ Teleport's Website: https://www.teleport.xyz/ Logan Jastremski's Twitter: @LoganJastremski Frictionless's Twitter: @_Frictionless_ Frictionless's Website: ⁠https://frictionless.fund/⁠ ___ Timecodes: 0:00 - Intro 4:20 - The Meme of decentralized Uber & Why it is possible now 14:15 - The coordination problem and bootstrapping supply and demand 22:30 - Why early blockchains were not sufficient 30:00 - Breaking the Economics of Ridesharing 38:45 - Teleport breaking the Ridesharing monopolies 48:55 - Go to Market and going live! 56:45 - How to drive for Teleport? 58:50 - What does the future of Ridesharing look like? 1:02:00 - Why Solana?

This week on Bell Curve you're going to be hearing an episode of Lightspeed interviewing Jon Charbonneau on how integrated and modular chains are on an inevitable path toward the same endgame. Jon is an investor and the most prolific researcher in the space who understands the nuances and tradeoffs of the Solana and Ethereum ecosystems. In this episode, we cover what SVM adoption means for Solana, if rollups scale Ethereum, why Jon is spending more time in Solana and the SVM, the convergence of the integrated and modular roadmap, how rollups will leverage Solana and more! - - Timestamps (00:00) Introduction (01:13) The Rollup Debate (10:31) Modular vs Integrated: The Great Convergence (18:06) The Appchain Thesis (26:31) What SVM Adoption Means for Solana (29:54) DAS London Promo (32:53) Why Solana? (34:02) What Ethereum & Solana Can Learn From Each Other (37:49) The Value of End-User Verification (40:45) Lido's Dominance, Nakamoto Coefficients & Social Pressure (46:14) Ethereum Aligned (50:07) What Keeps You Here & The State of Crypto (55:35) Solana as a Settlement and Sequencing Layer (58:47) Why You Should Write - - Follow Jon: https://twitter.com/jon_charb 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 DBA's Website https://dba.xyz/ Do Rollups Inherit Security by Jon https://dba.xyz/do-rollups-inherit-security/ Jon's Substack https://joncharbonneau.substack.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.

Jon Charbonneau joins us to discuss how integrated and modular chains are on an inevitable path toward the same endgame. Jon is an investor and the most prolific researcher in the space who understands the nuances and tradeoffs of the Solana and Ethereum ecosystems. In this episode, we cover what SVM adoption means for Solana, if rollups scale Ethereum, why Jon is spending more time in Solana and the SVM, the convergence of the integrated and modular roadmap, how rollups will leverage Solana and more! - - Timestamps (00:00) Introduction (01:13) The Rollup Debate (10:31) Modular vs Integrated: The Great Convergence (18:06) The Appchain Thesis (26:31) What SVM Adoption Means for Solana (29:54) DAS London Promo (32:53) Why Solana? (34:02) What Ethereum & Solana Can Learn From Each Other (37:49) The Value of End-User Verification (40:45) Lido's Dominance, Nakamoto Coefficients & Social Pressure (46:14) Ethereum Aligned (50:07) What Keeps You Here & The State of Crypto (55:35) Solana as a Settlement and Sequencing Layer (58:47) Why You Should Write - - Follow Jon: https://twitter.com/jon_charb 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 DBA's Website https://dba.xyz/ Do Rollups Inherit Security by Jon https://dba.xyz/do-rollups-inherit-security/ Jon's Substack https://joncharbonneau.substack.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.

Kevin (@zen_llama) is a former Apple (AirPods) and Solana Labs (Core) engineer. Kevin joins Sal & Dave in bringing his unique insight as a protocol engineer with experience across multiple blockchain ecosystems (ETH, Solana, Monad, and others) to provide a concrete explanation into why these different approaches exist and how they differ. Some interesting topics we discuss include: the key components of a blockchain, why multithreading matters for scalability in blockchains, Ethereum vs EVM Chain vs non-EVM Chain (like Solana), the advantages of scaling the EVM, how L2s differ from monolithic EVM chains (like Monad), and how Ethereum could one day be a multithreaded execution environment. While this is a longer and more technical episode than usual, there are tons of nuggets throughout our interview from the perspective of an engineer who's been “chewing glass” for years.  (1:16) - The issues with the scalability trilemma (6:53) - Blockchains from first principles (15:17) - The value add of blockchains (22:03) - The flywheel effect (26:40) - Design choices for blockchains (29:57) - Storing blockchain history (42:06) - Bandwidth as a bottleneck (45:52) - Consensus and time to finality (1:02:04) - Separation of state and data (1:11:02) - Solana's Runtime V2 (1:16:03) - Where Monad sits on the spectrum (1:21:00) - Modular Vs Monolithic (1:30:56) - Competition of a modular stack (1:35:57) - Which chain will win (1:42:53) - Why Solana posts votes on-chain -    - Podcast Resources Follow Sal: https://twitter.com/sal_coin Follow Dave: https://twitter.com/SolBeachBum Follow Unlayered: https://twitter.com/UnlayeredPod Subscribe on Apple: http://apple.co/3VyBSWI Subscribe on Spotify: http://spoti.fi/42q03J2 Subscribe on Google: https://tinyurl.com/5dwn2476 -    - Episode Resources Follow Kevin : https://twitter.com/Zen_Llama Vitalik's Endgame Blogpost : https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/12/06/endgame.html

Timestamps: 0:00 - Intro 3:04 - Why Solana decided to niche her coaching business towards female powerlifters 10:34 - Differences coaching beginner vs intermediate vs advanced powerlifters & how the coaching process evolves the longer you work with an athlete 29:43 - Finding your own optimal level of psychological arousal for peak performance and progress in training (arousal curve) 36:49 - Nutrition for powerlifting, how it impacts your results & general principles every powerlifter should follow 55:00 - Where people can find Solana Solana's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/solana_lifts/ Hire Solana - https://www.strengthsolutionsinc.com/Work_with_me Solana's Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-power-in-lifting/id1564951337 Apply For Coaching - https://adampeeler1.typeform.com/to/elvzT31W My Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/adamdpeeler/ MacroFactor Diet Tracking App (Use code PEELER for a 2-Week FREE Trial!) - https://macrofactorapp.com/?fbclid=IwAR1nWSMgA6aaao72V40gYRnOGNl_N40XhTy7ze_Tv6qaN2bpVUVZrXUh6WYLeviathan Nutrition (Code: ADAM10) - https://leviathan-nutrition.com/ Built Bar (code PEELER for 10% off) - https://builtbar.com/

Our guests this week are Trevor Bacon and Kellan Grenier, co-founders of Parcl. Parcl is a blockchain-native platform that allows users to trade real estate on Solana, democratizing access to the world's largest asset class. Parcl offers a unique architecture that enables users to make perpetual predictions on the median price per square foot of real estate in different markets across the US. Parcl also allows users to take long or short positions and provides a novel architecture that is purpose-built for low volatility assets without a liquid spot market.  Show Notes:01:00 - Background / Origin Story04:33 - Why Solana?                    06:20 - Who is Parcl built for?08:29 -  How does Parcl work?10:59 - How can Parcl help more traditional real estate users?13:28 - Permission-less and composable14:50 - Spinning up a new market17:38 -  Real estate royale.19:13 - What's next for Parcel?20:56 - A builder they admire in the Solana ecosystem Full Transcript:Brian Friel (00:00):Hey everyone, and welcome to The Zeitgeist, the show where we highlight the founders, developers, and designers who are pushing the web three space forward. I'm Brian Friel, developer relations at Phantom. I'm super excited to introduce our guest, Trevor Bacon and Kellan Grenier, the co-founders of Parcl. Parcl is a synthetic asset protocol built on Solana, that allows users to invest in a digital square foot of real estate in neighborhoods worldwide. Trevor and Kellan, welcome to the show. Trevor Bacon (00:33):Thanks for having us. Appreciate it. Kellan Grenier (00:35):Great to be here, Brian. Brian Friel (00:36):Super excited to talk to you guys today. I just checked out Parcl app, and seeing all the feeds across the US, New York, Brooklyn, all these really awesome areas where you can trade. I think it makes perfect sense with what Solana was built for, has totally [inaudible 00:00:51] NASDAQ at blockchain speed. Before we dive into everything about Parcl, I'd love to learn a little bit about you guys. Who are you guys, and what made you start Parcl? Trevor Bacon (01:00):Thanks, again, for having us, Brian. I'll start. I'll pass it to Kellan. So prior to starting Parcl, Kellan and I worked together at a hedge fund focused on technology equities, internet software payments, semiconductors. And during COVID, there was a lot of real estate volatility, and there was, really, no way to trade real estate like we were trading stocks. And so we started to look into ways in which we could do that. There were options, like fractionalized real estate, or tokenized real estate, but they're limited by scale, because you need capital to buy properties that are fractionalized, and you need time to close those deals. (01:36):So we took a different approach, which is a top-down approach. We have created indexes that track the price per square foot, based on public real estate information and real estate transactions, basically, listings and sales. Those go into a database, and outcomes... A price per square foot, or a market price for neighborhoods and cities across the country today, in the US. Over time, we are going to be expanding into international geographies. And so that price goes out to the blockchain, and traders can, long or short, see these, based on their view of various locations. Kellan Grenier (02:11):I'll quickly give my background, Trevor covered most of it, but... Traditional finance background, most recently, at a hedge fund, before that, at a Japanese bank, and then at a market research firm before that, always covering tech hardware. That's how I got indoctrinated into blockchain, was modeling, how many, GPUs... The networks we're going to consume. And then, around COVID, with all the real estate volatility, and volatility across all assets, and no way to express a trade, that's what led to Parcl. It seems so obvious. Missing from the structure of markets was a liquidity venue for residential real estate. Brian Friel (02:46):Yeah, I think, myself and many others can resonate with that, especially with the amount of capital involved to get involved with real estate as a young person. It's very prohibitive. Trevor, maybe starting with you guys, you mentioned that you were at a hedge fund before this. Had either of you guys interacted with crypto before this? And was crypto one of the first things that came to mind? Kellan, you just said, this was obvious in hindsight, but was crypto the first tool that you reached for, or did you actually attempt... To be able to trade this with other methods? Trevor Bacon (03:15):Yeah. As Kellan mentioned, he had been indoctrinating the crypto for about five years, I as well. When you're on Wall Street, and there's trends, the banks, typically, showcase the companies that are prevalent in those trends. So I got early access to the management teams of consensus, and Ripple, amongst others. That's how it worked, but that's... When I got introduced to blockchain, that was the 2017 timeframe. So we refer to ourselves as using blockchain rails. The primary collateral on the Parcl protocol is USDC. And so it's, basically, dollars versus real estate prices. (03:51):For us, blockchain introduces an efficient exchange layer, and a settlement layer, that is scalable, and you can create a product like ours, with relatively, substantially, less resources than you would a traditional centralized exchange. And so at the same time we were starting this, DeFi was becoming much more prevalent, on the heels of DeFi Summer, which led us to start to explore the various ways in which you can pull capital in a distributed fashion. For us, it made sense. I think that's the main point of technology, is to drive efficiency. And blockchain really does that, for our use case, in particular. Brian Friel (04:29):On that note, was there anything in particular about Solana... Bright start on Solana? Trevor Bacon (04:33):Yeah. The technology thesis on Solana, which, I think, still holds true today is, it's fast, it's cheap, it's scalable. And we viewed that as something that would persist into the future. And so that fit well in this model, especially for real estate, given... It has lower volatility, and therefore, a lower return profile. So at the time, there weren't many viable EVM scaling solutions in the market. So this was in summer of 2021, arbitrary and optimism weren't quite there yet. And so that's why we decided to go on Solana. Brian Friel (05:08):That's awesome. Kellan Grenier (05:09):One thing I want to add there is, real estate is lower volatility, and therefore, has a lower return profile, but we've ran and done all sorts of analysis. It's sharp ratio, which is a measure of risk adjusted returns, is through the roof, in any given year, especially over the past two decades, it's just blowing everything else away. And it's really interesting, because residential real estate is the only asset that the majority of the population... Nearly everyone has access to a 5X leverage, through a mortgage. That's the gate to participate in the market, but you need the down payment, still. That's a pretty big gate. So introduce Parcl, basically, create the exact same return profile, tracking these underlying price feeds, the prices in these markets that are transactions in real world homes, and offer that to the masses. It's a pretty powerful product. Brian Friel (05:53):Yeah, let's dig into that a little more. That's a really great point you raised, Kellan. You have this background on Wall Street, you know what pro traders are looking for, you talk about sharp ratios of how sophisticated investors are looking access to this. But really, at the end of the day, I would argue that it's the little guy, it's young people, probably a lot of people who are interested in crypto too, who just want access to these markets, don't have the capital. You guys have clearly built a lot, but is there a particular type of user that you guys are looking to serve at Parcl? Kellan Grenier (06:20):Yes and no. There's a curve in terms of who would be interested in using this product. And obviously, it's fairly blockchain native today, especially in how it's delivered. You have a Phantom wallet, you have assets on Solana's blockchain, you connect to the dApp, and you interact with a smart contract. So small pool of people, but growing, hopefully, growing a lot over the next couple of years. But over time, this is a product that can onboard millions, and hundreds of millions, and maybe, eventually, billions of people into this ecosystem, because it's such a compelling offering. Everyone has a relationship with real estate, everyone's off sides, either they're too long, if they own their home, or they're too underexposed, if they rent. I think that opens up the aperture to who the core user is, right? Today, it's blockchain-native folks that have an interest in trading anything, but many of them in trading real estate, specifically. (07:07):Over time, it's going to be, very, much more like a tailored offering for people that are seeking this exact exposure, that, maybe, this is the first time they've ever interacted with a blockchain. And I think that that is what has everyone so excited, whether it's folks on Solana's team... You mentioned that you just started digging in, and as... You pretty excited, Brian. So it's truly like a killer app, consumer app for blockchain. And then eventually, institutions will use it, right? Because there's no venue for liquidity, in any scale, in residential real estate, it's just... There's definitely no short-side or sell-side liquidity. All the liquidity is long, and it takes forever, and high barriers to entry. So if you play that all out, there's a very large group of users in capital that is interacting with this product. Brian Friel (07:50):That's great. Yeah, let's go through that user journey there. You mentioned... Someone shows up for the first time, they have a Phantom wallet, maybe they're a longtime crypto user, and they're excited to participate in their first form of real estate, or maybe, this is, really, just a means to an end, they get a Phantom wallet just to purely go through this. What are some of the particular intricacies of the Parcl model? So you mentioned, this is a lot different from REITs, or fractional ownership. When a user connects a wallet, and they hit "Buy," and say they want to purchase real estate, essentially, in New York, or in the Brooklyn area, they think that area is going up, what are the terms of that purchase? What does the liquidity look like there? What do they need to know after they've decided to hit "Buy?" Kellan Grenier (08:29):It's a perpetual prediction, Brian. So these pools, every day, the prices update. And the price that you are trading is the median price per square foot in... I'll use New York as an example. What does that composed of? All five boroughs, every transaction, every sale that hits the county records, and then all listings, which represent the asking price, and that... All converges on this median, which is meant to be the market price. Every day, that price updates. There's a new price based on all the transactions that happened yesterday, and over the trailing couple weeks. And now, you have a new price. What you've noticed is that real estate, actually, moves on a daily basis, and perhaps, even hour by hour. An agent closes a home, they tell their other agent, now there's a new market price. So when people go to trade, that's what they're trading. And they're effectively making a perpetual prediction. (09:16):I believe I'm getting long New York at 600 and whatever dollars. And maybe I put in exactly 600, and whatever USDC. So now, I own one square foot of New York. And I can leave that open as long as I want. I could close it tomorrow, I could close it in a week. I'm effectively trading, investing, betting, however you want to define it, that that price will rise. On the other side, there's someone taking the other side of that. There's someone that's short. And what we found is that these markets, over time, generally, balance out. There's people that have different views on real estate. Sometimes, they tilt very long, and others, they tilt short. Everyone's short San Francisco right now, and it's tilted fairly short since this product launch. Brian Friel (09:53):I need to sign up for Parcl now, as I'm recording this from San Francisco. You guys are the ones in New York. Kellan Grenier (09:59):And Boston and Chicago, which have performed really well over the past couple months, are the two most long right now. And then, the rest of the markets are fairly balanced, but that can change overnight. The market reacts pretty quickly to changes in price, and changes in sentiment and news, and whatnot. So it's a really cool product. And in the simplest terms, you are effectively predicting that price will either rise or fall, and placing your wager accordingly. Brian Friel (10:23):That's an awesome picture you paint. And yeah, to that point, I'm going to need to load up my wallet here, and protect myself a little bit, from being in San Francisco. But you mentioned the idea of, prices are updating on a 24-hour basis here. Part of Solana's key advantages are that... It actually allows a product like this to exist, but there's another type of user that you alluded to a little bit prior, someone who's, maybe, already long real estate in the form of a big mortgage, and they're afraid that, maybe, they bid off a little more than they can chew, and they lever it up on a place in SF, before the tech crash, and they want to protect that. How can Parcl help a user like that? Trevor Bacon (10:58):That's a great question. I forgot the one other reason why we chose Solana with the wallet infrastructure. So shout out to Phantom, the plug, but it's actually true. What Parcl offers is native short exposure, if one so chooses. And today, there really aren't many ways in which... The short specific geographies. REITs are a common example of a real estate investment. However, REITs are usually types of assets spread across the country, think of data centers or apartment buildings. There's no geographic specificity. And so what Parcl offers is the ability for people to have specific geographies that they'd like to invest in, long or short. And therefore, you can make much more targeted investments, either for or against. Kellan Grenier (11:43):I would just add, this is so composable, and it's in the eye of the beholder, what this product can do. If you own a home, like we said earlier, and you just said, Brian, you're way overweight real estate, as a percentage of your net assets, most likely, and you have a big mortgage, it's your largest asset, it also is your largest liability. What if you wanted to hedge? How would you do that? You really cannot. There's really no way to do that without touching your loan structure, and that wouldn't be a perfect hedge anyway. So this is a product where you can get that short exposure whenever you feel like... You're offsides more than you want to be, you can come to this product, assuming you're eligible to use it, connect your wallet, place that short bet, lock in your paper gains, or protect yourself on the downside. (12:25):We talk to a lot of people, and they hear that, and they say, "Well, isn't this also like a synthetic insurance?" Say that there's a hurricane bearing down on Miami, no insurer would write you a policy in that situation. You could short Miami real estate to protect yourself. Obviously, you probably won't be alone. And the market's going to skew. And you might have to pay some funding fees, but it's available to you as a product. So there's so many novel elements that introduces... Like exposure that you just can't get anywhere else, whether it's protecting the gains that you've realized in your home, you don't want to sell it and move, or as an insurance product. It's limitless, how you can use it. Brian Friel (13:04):Kellan, you bring up a good point there, about the composable nature of this. And earlier, you guys mentioned, for every buyer, there's a seller. And obviously, this is a provision marketplace, anyone come up with a wallet, and connect wallet, and get started. So under the hood, how is that facilitated? I believe you guys are using an AMM. And some part of this... Because I see a section on your site about providing liquidity. Can you speak a little bit more of the mechanics behind that? Trevor Bacon (13:29):We permission the pools ourselves, Parcl, as the development company permissions the pools. And so we have the authority to launch pools. Over time, we see a potential path, where it's more permissionless, and people can use the AMM to spin up their own pools, have their own front ends, and have their own products. So I think one of the beautiful things about the protocol is that it can facilitate a lot of different types of products that we can't, or don't have the interest in creating, such as structured products options, as Kellan mentioned, insurance. So there's a whole ecosystem here, to be built. And I think it's incumbent upon us to facilitate developers over time, and once we think that the product's ready to release into a more permissionless environment, to facilitate that developer ecosystem, that we can underpin. Brian Friel (14:16):Yeah. I could see this whole world, where... It's already on chain, like you said, Solana is this giant, composable state machine. And it'd be really awesome to plug this, also, just into existing DeFi protocols, I'm thinking. You're on a drift, or you're on Jupiter, and you want to be making multiple swaps at once, you can, basically, bundle these into the existing DeFi activities you're already making on Solana. Maybe talk a little bit about that process of... What it's like today, to spin up a new market. What are all the pieces that are involved, both from a technical side... But I'm sure there's also, probably, a lot on the operational side as well. Maybe, Trevor, can you speak to that? Trevor Bacon (14:51):So now that we have the infrastructure in place, it's not terribly hard to spin up a new market. One thing to consider is that the data comes from a entity called Parcl Labs. And Parcl Labs has an API that has all the price feeds available to the public, and also for the Parcl protocols, Oracle, to consume. So if we were going to, let's say, launch a Paris price feed, so the price feed gets enabled in the API, on the Parcl lab side, the API connects to the Oracle, the Oracle connects to the smart contract, and there's the pool for traders to trade. So it's relatively simple. It's not without work, but we have the infrastructure in place to spin up. Currently, we have 15 markets we're launching, Austin, and then, I think we'll be in the international realm later this month. Kellan Grenier (15:39):This is a novel architecture. It is purpose-built for a low volatility asset without a liquid spot market. That defines real estate, that create redeem... Arbitrage isn't explicitly there. You could create a new house, I guess, and then come and hedge it on Parcl, like we just discussed, but that's a pretty elaborate process, way more complex than buying Solana on Jupiter, and then hedging the purp, or whatever. So what's great about the structure is that every participant in the pool is a liquidity provider. So you come in, and you make a trade, you're getting long. What happens is that, atomically, you're depositing USDC into the pool, and you're minting a liquidity token that represents your ownership interest in that pool. And then, simultaneously that notional value is getting locked into a smart contract, a decentralized smart contract, and that, effectively, recognizes where you entered the trade, what your price was, how much leverage you used, all of the elements of the trade that's relevant. And it stays locked in that contract until you, as the authority, comes in and closes the position effectively. (16:36):So that's how it works. And what's cool about that is that a new pool could be launched tomorrow, and start from zero. And then, Brian, you could come in and be the first trade. You could be a liquidity provider, or you could get long, you could get short. And you would be skewing that pool 100%, right? So unless someone else came in, you would, effectively, be paying yourself funding, perpetually, such that there was no gains to recognize or lose. But as soon as someone else comes in, that calculus changes, and now, you have a market. Now, it's a perpetual prediction market, a perpetual prediction AMM. And now, you have longs and shorts, effectively, paying each other. That's not exactly how it works, technically, but to the late person, that would be how it would work. So the beauty of that is, you can have a new pool every minute. And the main constraint is liquidity, but it's not, actually, a constraint, technically. So it's a really neat architecture. Brian Friel (17:21):The possibilities here are really exciting. And you mentioned one of the main constraints, not technically a constraint, but it is, is liquidity. So let's talk about some of the initiatives that we have, going on, to improve that. So I see that there's a new initiative here, called Real Estate Royale. Trevor, can you speak a little bit to what that is? Trevor Bacon (17:38):Yeah, so the Real Estate Royale is a contest series that we have, to familiarize people with the asset class, which is real estate, getting them to understand the product, how to use it. Every week, we have various prizes. And then, we have a monthly prize at the end, which is... USDC paid out to the winners. We've seen some pretty substantial gains with respect to monthly return percentages. I think last month, the winner, I think he was up 30%, which is pretty impressive, given that it's a relatively low volatility asset class. It's a way for us... Because it's a novel product, and it doesn't have, really, an analog in the real world, or something that's existing, it's a way for us to reach out to our users, get them excited and engaged, and then hear their feedback. So we conduct user interviews all the time, understand what folks need to get better educated, with tools they need to make their investment decisions. And our product team, which is excellent, is listening to that feedback and building for the user. Brian Friel (18:34):That's awesome. And I think now's a great time, on that note of the contest that are going on, to announce that. By the time that this episode's going to be going live, we have a special promotion with Parcl, which we're really excited to share. For the rest of the month, the first 500 new traders to Parcl, so you got to use a new address on Phantom when signing up, will receive a 10% discount for their first trade. You can learn more about that at parcl.cc/phantom. Trevor and Kellan, what's next for Parcl? You got, potentially, all these new markets coming out. Trevor, you mentioned Austin's coming live soon, potentially international. Where is your guys' focus? Maybe starting with you, Kellan. What's on the horizon? Kellan Grenier (19:13):Yeah. I think there are the three main things, is new users and opening up the access to as many people as possible, and helping them understand that this is something that's available to them, except for a couple jurisdictions around the world, unfortunately, the US being one of them. Hopefully, that changes much sooner rather than later. Yeah. New users, top of funnel, just introducing people to this product, letting them know that this is available, and that they can trade real estate just like they would trade anything else. (19:38):The other thing is expanding the offering. Trevor was teasing a couple new cities, new metros, some globally recognizable names, you can think, Paris, France, eventually, the United Kingdom, London, and then developed Asia. Eventually, it'll blanket the world, right? There will be a Parcl market wherever you live. So that's another thing that's super exciting. Trevor can touch on this, but how many different chains are, potentially, able to use this product as well? We started on Solana, for all the obvious reasons that we noted, but much larger crypto ecosystem in total, that can be addressed. So I'll pass it to Trevor to talk on that. Trevor Bacon (20:13):Yeah. I think, expanding geographically, because you have the ability and the capability to offer products that are dispersed globally, and then expanding the user base in terms of... Stepping into other ecosystems, such as EBM, which have their own pool of people and capital that are native there. So that's what's on the roadmap for the rest of the year. Brian Friel (20:35):All exciting things. As I said, we got a special promotion going, so it's a perfect time to check it out. I'll be signing up, protecting myself against the doll drums of living in SF here. Trevor and Kellan, one question I ask all of our guests, I'd love to hear this from each of you, and maybe starting with you, Trevor, is, who is a builder that you admire in the Solana ecosystem? Trevor Bacon (20:56):First, I'd like to shout out our team. The team is operating at an exceptionally high level, and they continue to execute against any bar, despite any macro hiccups that we may have, either globally, or in the idiosyncratic crypto space. One builder that... It's not the Solana ecosystem, per se, but I think, given all the scrutiny, Brian Armstrong has stepped up, and has largely become the future of crypto. He hasn't backed down. He's shown a lot of fortitude against the government, which he's asked to be regulated many, many, many times. And it's a tough fight, but he's standing strong. And it's admirable, in my opinion. Kellan Grenier (21:33):Yeah, I would totally second that. Coinbase is like the flag carrier right now, and setting the tone for the rest of the industry. And I salute them, and wish them all the luck in the world. Two quick ones that are top of mind, just because we were on a panel, actually, last week with them, the Home Base DAO team, and it's in the real world assets category, which is one that we care about a ton. Alex and Rodrigo, what they're doing is pretty interesting. They're looking at it more from the fractionalized side, and actually tokenizing real world homes, and putting them on chain, on Solana specifically, but they're doing great work, really talented team. And then, Tom at Credics. What Credics has done is really inspiring. They've been at it for a while now, really institutional friendly offering that can help onboard billions and billions of dollars into the ecosystem. So hats off to both of those teams. And there's infinitely more beyond that. And then, obviously, Parcl's development team, we think, is best in class. Brian Friel (22:23):Couldn't agree more. Home Base DAO was, actually, just on the podcast just before you guys, so shout out to them, Credics as well. I always see them building. I think we can all say, we're very lucky to have Coinbase representing our industry, and not giving up the good point. Trevor and Kellan, this has been an awesome conversation. Where can people go to learn more about Parcl? Kellan Grenier (22:41):You said it, Brian. Running a promotion for Phantom users, and launching that alongside this podcast, the first 500 new traders receive 10% discount on their first trade. There's a unique URL, be sure to use that. It's "Parcl," P-A-R-C-L, ".cc/phantom." And it's "Parcl" without an "E." So P-A-R-C-L.cc/phantom. That's the best place to go, because you'll get 10% off your first trade. Otherwise, just go to parcl.co, P-A-R-C-L.C-O, or follow us on Twitter, @Parcl. Brian Friel (23:11):That's awesome. Trevor and Kellan, the co-founders of Parcl, thank you so much for your time, for coming on The Zeitgeist. Trevor Bacon (23:15):Thanks a lot, Brian. Thanks for having us. Kellan Grenier (23:17):Thanks, Brian.    

Join Sal and Connor as they interview Cornelius Greyling, CEO of VulaCoin. VulaCoin (www.vulacoin.com) and its sister company Isizwe (www.isizwe.com) are connecting the next billion unconnected by providing low-cost, high-quality internet access to underserved communities, beginning in South Africa. We discuss: how Isizwe's operating model was determined by their sole focus on the end user experience, the unique challenges of building a network in underserved communities, how VulaCoin is enabling an ecosystem of small hyper-local businesses, and the current state of crypto regulation in South Africa. Show Notes 0:00 Intro 03:39 Cornelius' Background and Isizwe's Origin 09:20 Isizwe's Mission and Design around the End User 15:56 How VulaCoin lowers transaction costs and facilitates an ecosystem of small businesses 28:40 How Isizwe differs from other mobile money businesses 34:10 Improving the Crypto User Experience   38:17 Why Solana? 39:37 South Africa's Crypto Regulatory Environment 42:48 The Future of Isizwe and VulaCoin

Our guest this week is Andrew Pelekis, CEO of Claynosaurz. Claynosaurz is more than an NFT project, it's a 3D production studio full of artists from Sony, Disney, Dreamworks, Ubisoft, Netflix, Warner Bros, Marvel, Industrial Light & Magic focusing on developing quality entertainment IP in Web3.Andrew sits down with Brian Friel to discuss the entire Claynosaurz ecosystem, building entertainment IP in Web3, the importance of quality in NFT projects, and the future of Claynosaurz which includes collectibles, toys, and content. Show Notes:0:50 - Background / starting in Web3 and a little bit about your background                        3:30 - How did Claynosaurz start?5:47 - Web3 vs.Web2 entertainment                        12:03 - Why Solana?14:10 - Engaging with the community18:34 - Learning how to build strong IP native to the internet20:03 - Who will be spearheading the future NFTs?  22:44 - Future projects for Claynosaurz25:04 - A builder he admires in the Solana ecosystem Full Transcript:Brian Friel (00:05):Hey everyone and welcome to The Zeitgeist, the show where 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, Andrew Pelekis, the CEO at Claynosaurz. Claynosaurz is a 3D production studio, building original IP in Web3. Andrew, welcome to the show. Andrew Pelekis (00:27):Hey, Brian. Thanks for having me. Brian Friel (00:29):Really excited to talk to you today. I'm a huge fan of what you guys have built. I know that there's a lot of listeners that are obsessed with the dinosaur NFTs you guys have created, and they are a clear winner of the cutest NFTs on Solana right now. We have a lot to jump into, but before we get into everything related to Claynosaurz, I'd love to know a little bit about you. Tell us where you got started in Web3 and a little bit about your background. Andrew Pelekis (00:50):Sure. So my background is probably a little bit more different than anyone else on our team, which is all geared towards creative and creating the cute characters that you're so familiar with. I come from a background in front office investments, so that's hedge funds and private equity style investment. I've done that for a little over 10 years. Most recently, two partners and I raised $250 million under a private equity umbrella fund and invested that over four years twice, so did a little under $500 million of business. We left that job, or I left that job in 2021 to pursue my own endeavors. Part of that and part of what I was doing earlier that is Web3 geared was working on attaching inventory and collateralized assets using NFTs or tokenizing those types of assets. And I had been working on that loosely in Eastern Europe, but we did a lot of work and a lot of background work on Web3 and all the different aspects of smart contracts, blockchain, and applying those things to real assets. (01:55):And in that pursuit, recognized there's a ton of opportunity here, a ton of great use cases. And along that path, I was advising Claynosaurz from afar for about a year before they got to mint. And realized that once they minted, they needed some help on the stuff that I'm an expert in. And I thought there was a lot of opportunity in that, especially when you consider how early on we are in the life cycle, thinking on about what I was doing in my previous job, that is to say attaching real assets via tokens. I think we're going to get there, but there's a great opportunity in the low-hanging fruit that exists in digital assets where the use case is much more applicable for the time being, and therefore a ton of use cases in the entertainment sector in particular. So jumped onto Claynosaurz late 2022, literally hours after the mint I was talking to those guys, and then the very next week, jumping in headfirst. Brian Friel (02:50):Oh, that's awesome. It's a unique perspective too. I think you're the first NFT CEO I should say, who comes from a professional investment, more institutional side background. I actually, myself used to work at a [inaudible 00:03:02] before I joined Phantom, and I know that that world doesn't always mesh super well with the NFT world. So you bring a pretty unique perspective to how this whole industry is shaping. But going a little bit back in time, you said you joined the team November, 2022, right around the mint. How did the Clayno team originally start? What was the vision that they got set out to do and who did they build this team with? You guys have some incredible assets. I imagine that you guys have quite a wealth of experience to have put all that stuff together. Andrew Pelekis (03:31):Yeah, there's actually somewhere around a dozen founders because of the amount of work it takes to develop this 3D quality asset that we're developing. So it starts though with Nick and Dan, who are our two founders who began developing the IP with, I wouldn't say no objective in mind, but they didn't necessarily solve for distribution, right? This is a creative team who had a ton of great ideas and just said, "Hey, let's start developing them. Let's just start building IP. And people do that, they develop IP and they maybe curate and sell it to a big studio. And this is in a world in which there's no opportunity in NFTs or Web3, right? So that's a traditional path and it's quite long and laborious and a lot of late nights working with no real idea of how you're succeeding or if you're succeeding at all. And along that path, a few months later, NFTs started to blow up. (04:22):So this is early 2022, late 2021, the news starts picking up on NFTs. I mean, I think everyone listening will be familiar with that news cycle, and they picked up on that. Some close friends of theirs who were well acquainted with business development and marketing and Web3, basically approached them and said, "Hey, this is a great project. Why don't you test that product you're building in Web3? Why don't you curate this to be an NFT collection? And you can still build the IP beyond that once you've done that, but at least you can test early on in the life cycle. You can monetize the product before you normally would be able to and get all this active feedback." (05:00):And so in early 2022, I believe February, they brought on this business development team, expanded the creative team to get to this objective, which was a mint, and built from there. And eventually minted in November 2022. Brian Friel (05:15):That's awesome. I think a lot of people might not be familiar with that grind. The traditional, you're a creative team, you're coming from the works of Sony, Disney, Dreamworks, you want to set out on your own adventure and how do you actually take the creative ideas you have and get distribution, like you say, turn that into reality? Can you talk a little bit more about the approach that you guys are doing, building entertainment IP in Web3 and just how that differs from those traditional approaches, what those cycles are like and some of your guys' strategy in Web3 in particular? Andrew Pelekis (05:46):Yeah, for sure. So I think the main thing is sort of what I just touched on, which is that typically you would have to build a product to a minimum point at which you could sell it to someone. And in that environment, that minimum point with a team of, by example, our team of 12 to 14 people, if you include contractors, it's a little bit bigger, but it's a small team compared to a studio that might have hundreds or thousands of people, it takes a while to get there. And then if you've got success, if you've built something that's worthwhile to these studios, then they'll participate, right? They'll say, "Okay, well..." But that deal does not look very good because you haven't proven the product beyond this one meeting, and getting that meeting might be tough in the first place. So you sort of get taken to the bank, if you will. (06:30):In the environment that Web3 offers, you can test the product early on in the lifecycle. So by example, we had, like I said, a dozen or so people working on our product for about a year to get to this MVP that was in November 2022, and you're testing the product, right? Because that mint tells you, are people interested? What's the feedback like? Are we able to sell this product? So you have all this great testing environment. And then of course, as you know, crypto Twitter is very active in telling you what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong, and you get this great feedback loop. And so you get all of these things that are going on that typically would never arise at all in a traditional environment. And the only time at which it would arise would be long after you've given up the ability to creatively control your own product. You'd have given it up to a studio at some point and struck a deal and been put to the side. Brian Friel (07:26):Yeah, it almost seems like a total win-win because it's like you're getting these faster product development cycles. Like you said, you're getting in the hands of the users, you're figuring out really fast if this is worth investing in long term or not, but you're also getting more control of your own destiny. You don't have to grind for years and then take whatever deal comes your way. You're cutting out some of these middle men just going directly to these consumers. It's pretty cool. (07:47):So let's change a little bit and talk about the ecosystem that you guys have built out today. So like I said at the start, everyone remembers, I think, the mint that happened in November 2022. It was a time that I think working at Phantom, you would see a ton of these profile picture collection NFTs, where it's these static images, looking the same. And then all of a sudden, it was like a breath of fresh air seeing these fully animated, smiling dinosaurs, wacky craziness. I think you guys definitely stood out. Talk a little bit about everything that exists in the Claynosaurz ecosystem today. Andrew Pelekis (08:20):So there's a lot that exists today, but I would say that everything is complimentary. These are not supplementary things. So the first and most important thing is our Genesis collection. So that is the Claynosaurz collection, that is the characters we're describing. There's six species inside of that collection, and I think everyone understands those. Beyond that, we've also got a few items that exist. And so these are things that we did as a guerilla marketing effect at a number of Web3 events over the last six, seven months. Actually, the first one took place before our mint, which was the Sardinhas, which we dropped in Breakpoint Lisbon in early November 2022. And those turned into Pterodactyls now. And so those holders who were sort of pro-Clayno before we minted, they got rewarded with this very unique species that is only a set of 222. Actually, we've got that mechanism now, that kind of is a good way to explain some of the other items, which is the Claymaker and the clay, which we airdropped to all the holders I believe December and January. (09:21):And the Claymaker and the clay are again parts of our world that we would use to develop the product further. So the Claynosaur is the character, the Claymaker is something of a transmuter. So just like a kid playing with clay, you've got different toys that you can use to mold your clay. So the Claymaker is this all-encompassing molder, if you will. And then the clay is the stuff you mold. It's the resource which we use to mold things. To get from the Sardinha to the Pterodactyl. We have on our website, you burn the Sardinha with the Claymaker and the clay to create an egg. And then again, you take the egg and you burn that into the Pterodactyl. And so that explains the Claymaker and the clay, and those items will be used in perpetuity in our world. (10:05):Clay is going to be a resource that continues to be used, and the Claymaker will be something that is required to transmute these different objects or to mold these different items in our game. And then you've got other similar drops that we did. In Paris, we did the croissant, NFT Paris. In LA, we did the taco. And most recently, in New York we've done the pizza slice. And all of these things are going to be items or companions that accompany your character. So the croissant will be an item that you can put on top of your Claynosaur. The taco will similarly be an item with a similar utility. And the pizza slice is going to be a companion that will sort of follow your Claynosaur around. So all of these things are different ways to make your Claynosaur ever more unique for the user, to make it more of your own. And so they're complimentary, right? They're not supplementary. (10:58):Lastly, and I know I'm going through a lot of things here, we've got the most recent collection, which is the Call of Saga collection. Brian Friel (11:05):That's right. Andrew Pelekis (11:05):That's being minted on the new Solana Mobile Phone, and that's a really cool initiative. That will be a collection of Claynos. It's not part of the Genesis collection. Think of it as an expansion pack. New collection, two new species. And that's going to be exclusive to the Solana Mobile Phone. Obviously, once you mint it on the phone, you can then trade it and everyone can participate. Brian Friel (11:28):Yeah, I'm excited for that. I personally just got my Saga, I think two days ago, right before we're recording this in May 2023. So I got my Genesis sticker, now I'm in line for the mint. I can't wait for that. I'll be a lot of fun. Andrew Pelekis (11:40):Very cool. Brian Friel (11:40):That might be a good segue too, to talk a little bit about Solana more broadly. You kicked all this off November 2022. At that time, it was probably not the most mainstream bet to bet on Solana as an NFT ecosystem, but I think you and I both know that Solana has a lot of upside that I think a lot of people maybe aren't aware of. What in particular drew you guys to Solana? Andrew Pelekis (12:03):I think it's two things. The two main things are that you have to have a good transaction time, like reliable transaction time, so that when you click a button, something happens right away. I think there's research that shows that even more than one second, the user can kind of feel this lag. And the second one is a reliable transaction cost, so that there isn't an immense amount of cost to the user, so that they can freely click on things as they participate in our world. (12:29):And all of that goes layer backwards, which is that we're building IP. Part of building IP is building an experience that people enjoy. And for us it was very important that if we're going to expand in this web three direction. And if you're bullish on Web3 in general, you've got to be on a chain or on this platform that offers this resource in such a way that allows the entertainment not to feel laborious, right? It's got to feel seamless. (12:57):And so that decision was made actually before my time, which I absolutely support and I think is the correct decision, to be on Solana because you need to have that seamless entertainment experience. And I think that's where it comes from. That's the most important thing for us. And keeping in mind that we're trying to build an IP that is built on Web3, continues to build on this Web3 channel, but permeates into all of these other traditional distribution channels. And if you fast-forward 3, 4, 5 years from now, you'll probably find that the chains that succeed are the ones that are able to bring the most frictionless experience to the users, right? Brian Friel (13:31):Absolutely. And I think a lot of that also kind of dovetails to what you were mentioning earlier about these in-person events. You guys are giving these activations to your community live and they can use these complimentary NFTs, the croissants, the tacos that you mentioned, interact with them. It probably builds deeper relationships with these collectibles that they have. Can you talk a little bit about that strategy? I think you guys are doing a lot of unique things both on the in-person event side, but also on your guys' social media presence. Like you said, crypto Twitter, it's very active. I think you guys have a pretty amazing social media presence there. Does this all tie in together into a broader strategy? And if so, what are you guys working towards when engaging with a community like that? Andrew Pelekis (14:11):Yeah, this does definitely tie into a broader strategy. To talk about that strategy very quickly. Our view is that in 2023, and probably for the last five to 10 years, entertainment has shifted so drastically onto so many different formats and so many different places, where I'm sitting in front of a few screens right now, I've got my phone, I used to have two or three phones actually, and I'm sure people still have that today, and then you've got your TV and people watch all kinds of different things. And then on these computer screens, you've also got all kinds of platforms on which you can participate in. (14:44):So our view is an entertainment experience in 2023 and going forward has to have a very holistic approach, such that the user is able to see you in all these different places. And Twitter is one of those places, especially if you're in Web3, I think Twitter is definitely the right place to start. And so our approach to Twitter was, well, instead of just being this microphone to announce the big things that the traditional studio PR team would do, we can make this an engaging form of entertainment that speaks to our brand, that speaks to Web3, and is able to also engage the community on an ongoing basis. (15:23):And so we have a team that works on Twitter, headed by one of our founders, and he does most of the Twitter posting over the last year, year and a half, but it's a dedicated job for us. We take it very seriously. Similarly, we spoke about all these different items and things like that that go inside of this gamified experience. That's a whole other tangent that we think is a great place to distribute, where we think that there's a whole opportunity in building that out. And then across the content strategy, you've got, again, a lot of distribution channels in that there's micro short form if you will. We call those the two to five-second little vignettes you see on TikTok or YouTube Shorts or Instagram Reels. There's a big market in that. (16:03):Then you've got short-form, call it trailer-length video, which is one to two minutes, and you could tell a story in that time, but it's not a whole story. And I think a lot of that stuff often lives on YouTube and there's other platforms that are similar to that. And then you've got what's more traditional, you've got 20 plus minute shows or a movie at length, and there's a whole slug of opportunities in there as well. So our content strategy is to permeate across all these different avenues, such that a user can enjoy and sort of familiarize themselves with Claynosaurz regardless of where they are. (16:38):And now the last bridge to cross, which is interesting because you would think it's the most obvious one, is the one you touched on with the booster packs and all these activations in-person at these different events. And our view is that there is going to be, and I think we're working on it and trying to push the boundaries on this as much as we can with the resources that we have, especially those that are on Solana, is to bridge the gap between the physical and the digital. So the packs that we were doing in LA and York were sort of an homage to those Yu-Gi-Oh or Pokemon packs where you rip it open, you don't know what you're going to get, and there's this real sense of excitement in that. So we wanted to bring that feeling to these events in-person, and we also wanted to use that as a onboarding for people who aren't familiar with Claynosaurz yet. (17:22):So now, you've got this feeling of excitement and now you have a simple interaction with your phone, where you tap the card on your phone and you have these NFTs. And so what we were trying to do is physically onboard people, bridge this physical digital gap, and we're going to continue pushing in that direction on the physical side as well. So that's one of many legs to this larger content strategy. Brian Friel (17:43):I think you're painting this really awesome picture of the future. Because I keep going back to this tweet in my mind where Annatoli tweeted where he said, "Claynosaurz is building the next Disney." And in my head, I think of the early days of Disney, like Mickey Mouse on his steamboat, and how it was just this total game of distribution. You had movies going out, the whole country would watch the same movie, and everyone saw the same experience. And this world you're painting here is almost turning everything on its head. It's like now you guys can go out, strike your own destiny without having to set up these massive distribution lines. And it permeates everything. It's Twitter, it's YouTube, it's in-person events as well, these activations. It's an exciting world and it seems like it could go a lot of different directions from here. (18:23):If you had to speak to other NFT projects right now, with everything that you guys have learned so far, what kind of learnings would you share about building strong IP that's native to the internet? Andrew Pelekis (18:35):Quality has to come first. I think that's the most important thing. And what's important about that is that we're at a point where Web3, and NFT products in particular, get a lot of slack. Regular media, traditional media, whether that be the newspaper or just on other platforms, they're not taking us seriously. And I think a lot of that has to do with quality. Because you can say things like you're going to be the next Disney, but if you put up a picture of one NFT and then a Disney product and the two are obviously different, you're really making a tough argument because this is a product that goes to consumers. We're all consumers, so everybody can understand this. There's nobody that doesn't understand this. The quality speaks for itself. (19:17):So the most important thing I think at this stage, now that we're past the early days of NFTs, I'd say, where you're just sort of testing how this will work, and perhaps you're not going to invest time or money in developing and curating IP at this level, I think we're past that. And I think it's important now that focus on quality is of the utmost importance, right? Because you've got to get there and be able to compare Web3 entertainment products to traditional or Web2 entertainment products, because otherwise you're never going to onboard anybody. Brian Friel (19:50):Do you see a world where these traditional players, like a Disney, make their own NFT collection in the short term? Or do you think it will be mostly spearheaded by projects like Claynosaurz that are really pushing the envelope? How much do you see that those [inaudible 00:20:02] going in the next couple of years? Andrew Pelekis (20:03):I think Disney probably has a lot on his plate. I think a lot of studios are probably stuck in traditional models, but let's not be silly either. These are massive institutions that have been here for, in some cases, dozens and dozens of years. They've got the brand power and they've got the resources to make a good push into Web3 when and if they wanted to. And I think what they're lacking perhaps is an understanding of the community that exists in Web3 and how to interact and market in Web3. And so you sort of touched on it earlier, where you mentioned Disney back in the early days, everyone went and watched Disney because they had solved for distribution. (20:45):And that was a world in which distribution was super expensive. You could not distribute anything yourself as an artist, whether that was music or a movie or whatever the case may be. And so a big company like Disney is able to distribute and the consumer eats it because there's no competition. And I would say even up until maybe 15 years ago, streaming was not at the level it's at today, and distribution had just been solved in the last 10 to 15 years. Where 15 years ago, we weren't going through all these different streaming channels trying to find things, and there wasn't all these different opportunities for the consumer to look at things. (21:24):So I think that a lot of these big studios are stuck where they're like, "Well, our oligopolistic framework in which we control distribution no longer exists." And now they're sort of lost in this world where everyone can distribute. You and I are doing a podcast right now, this was not possible 30 years ago. And they don't know how to market in that environment, but they do have the resources to do this quickly if they wanted to. But it's that understanding of marketing and that holistic experience that I think they haven't solved for yet. Brian Friel (21:53):Yeah, I agree. It's crazy to think back too, like you said, the streaming is a great example. You're watching your favorite TV show this week. You take it for granted that you can just peruse Netflix or Hulu or Amazon Prime Video and all this stuff, but it was not that long ago where you didn't have any of those options. And like you said, you just consume whatever was given to you. You didn't have that choice. It's pretty cool to see that playing out in Web3 now too, or you can kind of sense that it's coming. And I'm hopeful that we'll have that same sort of aha moment in the future where we look back and say, "I can't believe that this was the way things were." (22:24):We talked a lot about crypto Twitter in this episode. I think crypto Twitter would kill me if I didn't ask this question, so I have to ask it. But now that we've covered everything that Claynosaurz is up to, looking ahead, is there anything you can share with the fans in particular? Anything that maybe you guys haven't discussed publicly or things that your fans can be looking forward to from the Claynosaurz ecosystem? Andrew Pelekis (22:44):Yeah, absolutely. So we're working on all these different tangents, and so all of those things are active. I would say one of the things we're doing first and foremost is developing our website. We need this to be a repository of all the things I've just described to you. So for those who are already active in the Claynosaurz community, there won't be anything new there necessarily. However, there will be this repository of information to onboard people and to bring people into the ecosystem. That's probably the least interesting of the things I'm going to say. (23:10):So going beyond that, we're working on entertainment experience, which will also live on the website. This will be a gamified experience, where people can engage with their Claynosaurz, discover part of the Claynotopia land, figure out the lore as we develop into these different regions. And also, begin to accrue drops and different things in the game that they'll be able to itemize and make those Claynosaurz more unique. That's going to be, I think, a really fun addition to our Web3 track. (23:39):I think on the other tracks, it's very important to note that we're starting to permeate into TikTok and into Instagram and into YouTube Shorts. That's low-hanging fruit for us, so we're going to get movement on that very soon, so look out for that. And I think probably the most exciting thing, at least for me the most exciting thing, is we're working on a few things in the merchandise realm. And if I go back to the very foundation of this company, the guys who developed this IP, their instinct from day one was, "These are going to be toys. These need to be toys." That's how they developed the IP, and that's what we've been working on for literally since day one, for over a year now, a year and a half. (24:18):So we are now in talks with a number of different partners to help us develop collectibles, so think high-value collectibles that we will also integrate with a digital NFT angle. We are also working on toys, generally speaking, and then a whole merchandise store as well. So there's a whole bunch of physical additions coming to the Claynosaurz world. Brian Friel (24:42):That's awesome. Keeping with the theme of pushing the boundaries both on the digital and in the in-person and the physical. I love it. Well, Andrew, this has been an awesome discussion, really exciting to talk to you and to hear your vision for how internet native IP is going to play out and everything that Claynosaurz is up to. One closing question that we ask all our guests, and I'd love to hear this from you, is who is a builder that you admire in the Solana ecosystem? Andrew Pelekis (25:04):When I first got on, and this is going to sound perhaps odd, but I really admired what the guys are doing at Backpack. I think that they're solving for a lot of friction that currently exists between Web3 and everyone else. I think if that product develops in a way that they envision, it'll be a really big step forward for the entire Web3 community. So I admire them very much. And then I also have to give a big shout-out to Aurory because these guys are... They're Montreal native like we are. They're developing what I think to be a very high quality game on the Solana ecosystem, and I believe that it's a really good showcase of what's possible on Solana that may not necessarily be possible on other L1 chains. Brian Friel (25:51):I love it. Two great answers. I agree. Great builders in the space, and I think you're not the first to shout out some of those people as well, so you're in good company there. (25:59):Well, Andrew, this has been really awesome. Thanks so much for your time, for sharing your vision of Claynosaurz. Where can people go to learn more about Claynosaurz? Andrew Pelekis (26:06):I would say right now you can go to @Claynosaurz on Twitter, you can go from there into our Discord where a lot of the particular information is, and we've got great mods who will help you out. And lastly, I would continue to go look at www.claynosaurz.com, where we will soon have a great website up and running, with all the information at your fingertips. Brian Friel (26:28):Love it. Andrew Pelekis, the CEO of Claynosaurz. Thanks so much for your time. Andrew Pelekis (26:32):Thank you, Brian. Thanks for having me.    

Steven Laver is a core engineer building the Solana Mobile Stack & Saga. Saga Website: https://solanamobile.com/hardware Logan Jastremski's Twitter: @LoganJastremski Frictionless's Twitter: @_Frictionless_ Frictionless's Website: https://frictionless.fund/ Timecodes: 0:00 - Steven's background and intro to Saga 6:00 - How Saga came to be 10:25 - Seed Fault & private key management 17:30 - Apple and Android 19:40 - Mobile Wallet adapter 27:00 - DApp Store 32:30 - Open Source 35:00 - Shipping Saga 39:15 - Notifications 45:00 - Saga & SMS Grants 48:30 - Why Solana & Crypto _______ This Podcast was sponsored by Squads. https://squads.so/ Squads Protocol: the multisig standard you were looking for on Solana Securely manage your treasury, program upgrades and tokens with your Squad. - Multi-signature - A multisig requires multiple digital signatures in order to approve transactions. This is opposed to individual web3 wallets, which only require one signature. - Security - Multisigs spread the attack vector necessary for your assets to be compromised. By requiring confirmations from multiple private keys, a single point of failure is eliminated. - Collective Ownership - Multisigs allow teams to own and manage their on-chain assets together. You get to choose who is on your multisig. - Self-Custody - Your on-chain assets are always in your team's control. By securing them in a multisig, you forego the risk of centralized entities losing your funds.

This week's guest is Domingo Valadez, Co-founder & CEO of Homebase, a platform that lets people invest in tokenized residential real estate for as little as $100. As real estate prices continue to get more and more unaffordable for people, Homebase aims to be the destination for US renters to invest in the US residential real estate market via fractionalizing NFTs. Show Notes:0:50 - What is Homebase?2:05 - Why Solana?4:06 - How does it work?7:09  - Benefits using web3 and Solana9:17 - Us vs International11:11 - How things can evolve for Homebase?  14:18 - Regulatory landscape in the US / next US markets to expand to17:04 - User journey from first wallet to being a homeowner20:04 - Voting  21:14 -  Retaining people in Crypto    22:57 -  Exciting things in on-chain residential real estate.24:38 -  A builder Domingo admires in the Solana ecosystem Full Transcript:Brian Friel (00:05):Hey, everyone, and welcome to The Zeitgeist, the show where 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 my guest, Domingo Valadez, the co-founder of Homebase, a digital platform for fractionalizing residential real estate via NFTs. Domingo, welcome to the show. Domingo Valadez (00:28):Thanks so much for having me, Brian. Super excited to be here. Brian Friel (00:30):Yeah, super excited to have you on as well. You guys are a hotly anticipated recent launch. I've seen you guys on Twitter. It's one of the most, I'd say, unique and more pragmatic applications I've seen most recently launch on Solana. Can you give us a quick overview of what is Homebase and how can users start using it today? Domingo Valadez (00:51):Yeah. Homebase is a platform that lets people invest in tokenized residential real estate for as little as $100. The main value property right people is just getting exposure to an actual physical rental property and starting to get some of that passive income, starting to get that appreciation over time in terms of how you can participate and invest, you can just go to our website, make an account, we do force you to put a KYC and that's just to follow us regulations. So right now we're limited to just US investors unfortunately, but have plans to make it international as we continue to grow. But right now it's a matter of KYCing. You also have to set up a 15-minute call with one of my co-founders, Alex, and that's just to make sure that you're a sophisticated investor so you get to know us a little bit. So we're very transparent with our team and what we're doing, but we had 38 people participate in our very first home and now have 1500 that want to participate in our next one. Brian Friel (01:41):That's awesome. So residential real estate investing, that's something that I'd say a lot of the demographic with Solana maybe skews potentially on the younger side. This is something that people think is interesting but have historically been left out of this world of investing. What made you guys decide to do something in a purely digital way that's different than traditional residential real estate investing and what made you guys choose to launch this on Solana? Domingo Valadez (02:05):I grew up in a family that has always seen real estate as a great way building wealth over time and just growing up I've very quickly seen it become unaffordable for most people in my generation. So I was working at Google for five years, still couldn't afford anything in the Bay Area and I was like, "This is absurd." And so it was like how can we make this affordable for people where they can actually get some skin in the game with the properties they're living in? And so that was really a big culmination for why Homebase and so then I've invested in my own residential property, myself and my hometown of McAllen just going into that flow, so many third parties, how to work with a bank, took literally three months to buy the property and that was just awful as well. So it's kind of like what can we do that's completely digital that just makes the experience really, really easy for people? (02:49):And so that's where the idea around Homebase came from. We're making it where people can invest in properties for as little as a hundred dollars. And so real estate's also a industry that loves silo data. You have big players that really hold their data near and dear to their heart and don't want to share it, and that's the complete opposite of public blockchains, right? It's like, "Let's just get data. Everyone should have a fair shot at understanding what's going on and if you know how to utilize that data, you can make some great decisions with it." A big piece of it came from the mission as well of I've been following Bitcoin since 2017, love the decentralization aspect of it and so wanted to see how we could get real estate in a very transparent open source way. That was a big culmination about why even build in a digital space using blockchain to do this. Brian Friel (03:33):Love it. I think that story resonates with a lot of listeners potentially I myself in Bay Area. Similar story there, so it's similar frustrations. I guess I'm a little curious how does this at a high level work under the hood? Kind of back to my earlier question, a lot of folks maybe don't know much about real estate investing. There's a lot of paperwork involved. What role is Homebase playing? What parts of this are done on chain? How do I go from, "I'm just a normal crypto user with NFTs." To now, I can say, "I'm a part of this homeownership project." How does that all work under the hood? Domingo Valadez (04:07):I'll share the Homebase side, then I'll share the user experience side. So it's actually quite complex to make it work. It took us seven months to build out the legal frameworks to how to do this and then building out the software for tokenization took about two months for us to do. But just to walk you through this first home, how we did it effectively, we found a property that was suitable. We put it under an exclusive buyer seller agreement, so Homebase had full rights to sell the house on behalf of the owner. We then spun up a special purpose vehicle that was sole intent was to purchase that property, and so then we created NFTs that represent ownership in that special purpose vehicle and we had a mint date on that mint date. It was basically like the day we started selling the property. (04:45):And so people could literally go to our website, these are people that have already KYC accredited, non-accredited, could then buy tokens with USDC and they would mint them directly on our platform. And so they would get those tokens immediately to their account and then in tandem they would get DocuSign documentation sent to them. So they have to sign a legal LLC operating agreement, they need to sign a security token purchase agreement, all this legal documentation that basically says like I am buying tokens using USDC and I'm now a member of this LLC that was created. So once we acquired all the money that was necessary, we then closed up the SPV and then actually completed the transaction. And so the owner received the amount of money that they were trying to sell on his first property, and then once that was closed, we then filed with the local title companies to basically transition the title from the owner into this new SPV we created. (05:40):So the piece that's truly on chain are the NFTs we created to represent ownership, but we're pretty much a Web 2.5 company where we do need to know who exactly owns what tokens, and we only whitelisted wallets can effectively trade them between themselves. So we file these as Reg D 506, security, private placement offerings, and in that regulation you have to hold the investment for at least a year. You can't trade it for that initial year, and then after that you can sell it through our platform either back to us or eventually want to allow for peer-to-peer trading, but we need an alternative trading system license for that, which we don't have yet. So the majority of it's going to be people selling it back to us and then us reselling it to the next person. Brian Friel (06:23):That makes a lot of sense. That was going to be one of my follow-up questions because given the permissionless nature of most tokens by default on chains, I was wondering how that works within a legal framework. You mentioned this first home that you guys tokenized from what I saw, it sold out within the first two weeks. It was a great success, but you guys basically just proved a use case that, "Hey, within the legal framework of how this exists today, this actually works." I think we could get into in this podcast talking a lot about where you guys see this going in the future and how this whole process is going to evolve. But can you talk a little bit about even just this first home that you guys tokenized and sold, what were some of the immediate benefits that you saw using Solana or blockchains in particular that might be different than the normal process? Domingo Valadez (07:09):I think a lot of the benefits are for users, not for us as the company doing it. So there was still a lot of complexity when it came to structuring all this and every single home we tokenize and sell on the platform has a lot of complexity behind the scenes, but for the end user, people could literally invest in this first home within five minutes. That's how long it took some of our users to purchase these tokens. And then they're just relying on us to do all the paperwork on the backend. Moving forward, we're going to be distributing out all funds using USDC, we're actually partnering with Circle. They're our money transmitter. They're the ones basically sending out all the funds to every single holder and we're going to be doing that monthly. (07:46):So as an end user, you just became a fractional owner in this property. You don't need to deal with any sort of property management headaches. You get your passive income and when you're ready to sell, you can just sell it back to us. We're going to be partnering with blockchain home registry to showcase the value of the properties monthly, and so you'll be able to sell it at true fair market value as dictated by five different data points of trusted institutions saying, "This is what the value of that property should be." Brian Friel (08:11):That's pretty awesome. One thing I want to hit on too is you mentioned that there's accredited investor checks, but is this also open to non-accredited investors as well? Domingo Valadez (08:19):We can have up to 35 non-accredited investors participate per home offering. It's limited to that just by the Reg D 506 B offering that we do, but we can have unlimited accredited. So moving forward, we think the 35 non-accredited spots will be taken pretty quickly because of course that's the main use case for people where they see the main value in what we're doing. But yeah, we plan to switch to Reg A offerings in the future and that'll allow anyone to participate. No limitations whether accredited or non-accredited. Brian Friel (08:47):These terms, accredited investor, unaccredited, Reg A, they're very, I would say US-centric. There's a lot of particular nuances to US investing laws that maybe contribute to why folks like us are interested in these kind of products. We can't always afford residential real estate in areas that we live and work. Is Homebase exclusively focused on the US Do you guys also see this problem internationally and can you talk a little bit about maybe how the US differs from some other major markets internationally? Domingo Valadez (09:17):The US probably has the toughest regulation when it comes to this. So for us, we very much wanted to tackle one of the hardest markets and also two of the three co-founders are US based, are three co-founders in Canada and both markets so similar, very, very expensive real estate in any sort of big city all feel priced out. So we really all align in the mission behind this. Our initial launch market was in McAllen, Texas, so that's where I'm originally from. So it was very near and dear to my heart to launch there and see properties that I grew up with actually get access to the internet and get tokenized in that capacity. But we'll stay likely in the US for the near medium term, but we do want to allow international investors to participate as well. So we've already been reached out to by a few big players internationally that want to be LPs in our future properties and then they can sell it to some of their customers as well, and that's how we'll open it up and expand the pie to international investors as well. Brian Friel (10:12):I love that. So you mentioned when you did the high level overview of how this process works, essentially onboarding people one by one, taking video calls with them, making sure they understand the process, having to give them tokens that there's restrictions on how they can actually be sent to different people if they want to resell. It oftentimes having to go through you guys that whole process and then I'm sure even just the whole process of you setting up these legal entities as Homebase and your Web 2.5 company right now, there's a lot of legwork that you guys are doing on the back end, abstracting this out. (10:45):I think listeners of this could imagine a world where one day this is all pushed more to the edges, to the actual token holders and owners themselves. How do you guys think about how this is going to evolve over time? Which pieces of this do you think potentially in the next couple years could be more evolve, looking in areas where you guys maybe at Homebase aren't doing as much legwork and which areas do you think are going to be a little bit slower to evolve over time? Domingo Valadez (11:12):US real estate's very locally driven. Not only do you have to follow federal regulation, you also have to follow state regulation. You also have to follow local regulation all the way down to the county level. And so understanding each of those three layers of regulation is really important. And so that drove a lot of where we first launched. So Texas is very pro landlord, they're pro tendency in common, so it was very easy to fractionize the property there and they don't have any sort of transfer taxes. So if I sold my tokens to you, other states or other cities would charge a tax on that, Texas doesn't. So that was a big piece that kind of decided where we even launched on the piece about where we're going and what do I think is going to get better over time. One of the big reasons we even did this on chains, we've had a lot of people say, "Why don't you just fractionize this without blockchain that's so complex, you're making your process harder." (12:00):It's really about the secondary financial implications of what it means to have things decentralized and on an open platform. So for example, we're already in discussions with an on chain lender to allow people to collateralize their tokens to actually take on chain debt. No bank, no credit score required, literally just you collateralizing your tokens to take on debt and that to me is a beautiful thing. You cannot own any piece of a home without a mortgage under your name or a bank, someone getting involved and checking out your credit score. So that to me is really, really exciting and something we can already do with the first home moving forward. Another piece would be as regulation gets looser, having more clarity around allowing peer-to-peer trading. So alternative training license is what we're going to be going for relatively soon, and that's going to allow for people to trade within themselves so they don't have to sell it back to Homebase, but actually allow for peer-to-peer trading. (12:55):To me, it's really just like all of the applications that then could get built on top of having real estate completely tokenized on chain is what gets me excited about the Web3 space. I think the pieces on the regulation that's going to push back is making sure everyone's KYC, making sure you know who your users are, making sure they didn't launder any of their money. But yeah, I think that's one of the biggest benefits of Web3 and creating liquidity in a market that's historically been pretty illiquid and at a very, very high prices. Brian Friel (13:23):Yeah, I think you're right. There's this element of composability that comes with this when this is native to the internet, it's online and there's a token, anyone can [inaudible 00:13:34]. Then like you said, build a lending market around that. And there's a world where one day you guys aren't even involved with that decision, it's just someone can just sole end or another project can say, "Hey, we already have this lending market and we accept these tokens now as collateral." My gut tells me that you guys are doing this by the book. That regulation is going to be the rate limiting step in all of this as it starts to go. How do you guys see the current regulatory landscape in the US and you mentioned that there's some differences not just federally, but on state levels and on county levels. Can you talk a little bit about that and why maybe you guys are choosing to start in Texas and where you guys, I mean maybe foresee the next markets that you guys are expanding to as well? Domingo Valadez (14:18):You're absolutely right. Regulation's going to be the inhibitor on doing a lot of Web3 related transactions for properties. I think Coinbase getting sued by the FCC is going to provide a ton of clarity around... Or that's my hope at least a lot of clarity around how Web3 companies should be operating. I think there's been a lot of confusion around what's legal, what's not legal. So just to keep our users safe, we chose the web2 legal approach where we tried being as closely to the book as we can in case things go wrong or awry. Our users are completely fine and we feel very confident with that. But of course as we continue scaling the company and getting bigger, we love for these secondary applications like a Solend. To just say, "Hey, we just created this lending platform, we actually don't need your permission to do it. We can just trade." (15:05):That to me would be amazing because that means we're succeeding in actually bringing homes on chain and tokenizing them and letting people do what they want with their assets. But the regulation's really going to kick in until then. Texas was great because it was very landlord friendly, very easy to fractionize the property and no taxes associated with that. We'll likely continue to stay in Texas for the near to medium term, we're in McAllen now, plan to go to Austin later this year. (15:31):Other markets we'd likely open it in would be Colorado is also pretty open to this. So is Florida, specifically Miami is pretty pro Web3 and pro tokenization. It would be very, very city state dependent on what laws they have in place and how we can make this work. For example, even us opening it up to international investors, that requires us to redo some of the legal structures we have to allow for international investors to even invest. So we're going to very much rely on partners that say... There's a lot of demand in Latin America, for example, specifically from this country, "Okay, that's going to be the first country we allow to invest internationally just because of the regulatory piece of that." And we don't want any of our users to worry about that. So we're trying to remove all that complexity for end users while Homebase deals are all the complexities around that. Brian Friel (16:19):That makes a lot of sense. Miami, Florida doesn't sound like the worst place to be a homeowner as well, so that aligns pretty nicely. Taking a step back as an end user who's thinking about this, let's say that somebody has a Phantom wallet, they've experimented with sending some crypto to their friends, they maybe have a few NFTs. What would they need to know to feel confident in taking this next step and being an owner of residential real estate? Is it as simple as just showing up to your guys' website, hitting connect wallet, filling out a couple forms in a Zoom call? Is there anything that they need to do after they've already completed the purchase or other things that they should be aware of? Essentially, could you walk us through the user journey from getting their first wallet to actually being a homeowner? Domingo Valadez (17:05):Yeah, absolutely. So funny enough, for our very first property, we actually had a lot of new to Web3 users participate. So plug for you guys, we had Phantom as the preferred wallet for people to create and effectively onboard into the Solana ecosystem. And I think something that was very beautiful about this was people could upload their money into Coinbase, send Solana or USDC and Solana to their Phantom wallet and see it happen in two seconds within the call that we were helping them do it. So I don't think it's the same thing for other chains, but that's something that Solana does really, really well. So once you have a loaded wallet, you as you mentioned, have to make an account on our website, you do need a KYC, you set up a quick call with us, just it's your way of understanding who we are as founders and you can ask us questions directly. (17:50):It's really just to build trust with people. But once we have a home that's live, you literally just go to the property page, you connect your wallet that we've already whitelisted preemptively, and then you can just buy however many tokens you like. So every single token is denominated in a hundred dollars, so everything's transacted in USDC and you can just buy however many tokens you like, they immediately get minted to your wallet and then you get sent DocuSign links to sign that'll make you truly a fractional owner of the legal entity we spun up to acquire that property. So once you purchase it and everything closes, you don't need to worry about anything. We know exactly whose wallets hold what tokens, and we just start sending you your proportional amount of net rent every month and then you can decide to sell whenever you'd like. Brian Friel (18:35):So there's no upkeep. Part of the joys of being a landlord is things break in houses, there's taxes, property taxes to pay, all this kind of stuff. All of that is abstracted away from an end user. Domingo Valadez (18:47):So any home we list on our platform, we charge an extra 5% fee and that's really just to have a capital reserve pool. So if anything breaks, like we as Homebase have a property manager, they'll go out and fix it and then we refill that reserve pool with rent. So the goal is to never ask people that purchased it for money, we can refill it ourselves with the rent we collect, which is what's beautiful about real estate, it's cash generating and in terms of property taxes, we handle everything from that end. We do distribute K1s to everyone at the end of the year because everyone has their own personal income taxes they need to pay. So we can't force you to pay them, but we can give you all the information you need to pay them on your behalf. Brian Friel (19:25):That makes a lot of sense. I was also thinking when we talked earlier about the layers of this that could be abstracted away and evolved over time, that's potentially one of them, but I'm not sure if people actually at the end of the day want that. Is there a world where there's Homebase down people are voting on how do we pay for fixing the plumbing leak? I have a feeling that that's a service that all owners here are pretty glad that you guys are handling on behalf of them. Domingo Valadez (19:50):Yeah, one thing that is true though is people can vote us out. So we're the default manager of the property, but if you're not happy with the job we're doing, you can absolutely vote us out. Brian Friel (19:58):Oh, that's interesting. How does that vote happen? Is that an on chain vote with tokens or how did you guys set that up? Domingo Valadez (20:05):Yeah, so not on chain right now, but theoretically you're truly an owner of the LLC and you have voting rights in that LLC. So if people just came together and said like, "Hey, we want to vote them out." There's a meeting set up, people say like, "Yay, we want to remove Homebase." We won't be the manager anymore. It'll be up to the owners to pick a new manager and then that's how they can start facilitating the management of that property. Brian Friel (20:28):Wow, that's fascinating. Domingo Valadez (20:30):Yeah, we truly want people to be owners. Brian Friel (20:32):Oh, that's really cool. So I guess I have a couple questions here to kind of wrap up, but you mentioned that you guys are onboarding a lot of net new users to Web3, essentially people getting their wallet for the first time, maybe they don't fully understand how to use these wallets or the gravity of sending things on chain and the irreversibility of a lot of this. Do you guys have any particular insights from getting on calls with these people and walking them through this process? Do these users stay in crypto in your view? Do they stay engaged with it? Is it a steep learning curve for them? Basically, how as an industry are we doing at onboarding these people who maybe find crypto not because of crypto but because of a use case Homebase where they're just, it's a solution to their problem. Domingo Valadez (21:15):So very transparently, I'd say some people do have difficulty and it's a 30-minute call, and other people it's very easy. So I think something a lot of users asked for was like, "How can we abstract the complexities of wallets even further?" We're thinking about potentially having noncustodial wallets on our website where we partner with someone that basically just showcases the wallets directly there and then for an end user, it doesn't matter if it's crypto, you just know you own tokens in a property, you didn't have to create any wallet, it was automatically created for you. But for the people that do know Web3 and have their own Phantom wallets, have their own personal wallet, they can do what they like with those tokens and use on chain, that sort of piece. So I think for the industry to continue to expand, we need to continue to make it easier for people to onboard, abstracting away a lot of the complexity is something that'll continue to be key to keep widening the pie for everyone. Brian Friel (22:09):Totally. I can't imagine the call where someone buys a bunch of shares in a residential property and then forgets their seed phrase so, these are things that we're thinking about as well. I mean, I liked that framing of essentially giving users the easy option to start and the optionality to eject from that and really take control if you really know what you're doing. I think that's awesome. Domingo Valadez (22:31):Absolutely. Brian Friel (22:32):Well, this has been an awesome discussion, Domingo. Before we wrap up with one closing question, I always ask everyone I want to know for you too, what excites you the most right now from where you guys sit in this new field of on chain residential real estate, where are you guys heading next and what do you think is the most exciting next frontier? Is it new markets? Is it improvements in the way this is happening on chain? Is it in regulation? Or maybe it's something completely different that you guys are seeing? Domingo Valadez (22:57):I'd say one of the biggest drivers for me for building Homebase, we want to redefine home ownership and what that even means, I think we'll continue to see real estate prices keep getting more and more unaffordable for folks. And I think being a homeowner's going to start being a privilege, which is a really sad reality. Unless we have true government intervention come in and add more housing supply, I think it's going to get worse. And so with that reality, it's like it's up to private markets to figure out how do we actually make more people homeowners? So something we care a lot about at Homebase and something we're very mission driven about is making the tenants that live in these properties, also fractional owners of them. And so getting people comfortable with the idea of only owning 10, 20, 30% of their property, but still feeling like an owner of that property. (23:42):And so for this very first home, for example, Homebase bought an extra piece of it so that we can offer it to the tenant to actually buy it from us so that they can also be a fractional owner of the apartment they're living in. And so in 10 years we want Homebase to be the destination for renters. When you're moving to a new city, you use a Homebase platform, you find an apartment, you move in, you buy 30% of the value, and now you're a fractional owner of that property. So that's why Web3 excites me. You can completely do this in an open liquid market and we're trying to facilitate that through Homebase. Brian Friel (24:14):Yeah, that's putting skin in the game too, right there, you're a renter and you actually have upside if you treat the place well. That's pretty cool, and I think that's kind of spinning the model on its head in a really crypto native and interesting way. And I love that framing. Well, Domingo, this has been an awesome discussion. One question we ask all of our guests, and I want to know this for you as well, is who is a builder that you admire in the [inaudible 00:24:38]. Ecosystem? Domingo Valadez (24:38):Okay, this is going to be a total cop out, so I'll give you two. My first one's [inaudible 00:24:44]. I love that man's Twitter content. I feel like the way he speaks, he's clearly very, very technical, but also very good at bringing things to a high level and explaining things. And it's no secret that Solano ecosystems gotten a lot of heat from a lot of third parties where the day FTX went down, someone from the Binance blockchain basically told me I was dumb to continue building on Solana and was really trying to pull us to build on their chain. (25:09):And I was like, "I think the leaders of Solana are taking this very well and are being very, very thoughtful about how they're moving things forward." So that's the first piece really, really like [inaudible 00:25:19]. The second one's [inaudible 00:25:21]. I love his content. He's been a champion for Solana and you can always rely on that guy to call out people that are spewing fake news about the chain and really showcase his technical know-how of how things truly work behind the scenes. So I think those are probably my two biggest, I fanboy over both of them a good amount. Brian Friel (25:43):I think those are both great choices. And a sneak peak, you mentioned that the [inaudible 00:25:47]. Recording was just before this, but [inaudible 00:25:49]. Also mentioned [inaudible 00:25:50]. As his choice. So you're in good company there. Part of what [inaudible 00:25:55]. Was saying too is he loves people that are building pragmatic applications that can "Only be done on Solana TM." And I think Homebase is a really awesome shiny example of that. So thank you so much for taking the time to walk us through it. I'm super excited. I'm going to have to check it out, bring my Panama to it. I know nothing about residential real estate, but I think you've given me the confidence to give it a try today. For folks who want to check it out, where can they go to learn more about Homebase? Domingo Valadez (26:22):Yeah, you can go directly to our website, which is Homebasedao.io. Brian Friel (26:26):I love it. Domingo Valadez (26:27):Everything's completely transparent on our website, we even have a white paper that goes into all the technical pieces, whether it's the legal side, whether it's all the technical side on the blockchain component piece. So we're very, very transparent and we also have a discord where we answer questions as people have them. Brian Friel (26:42):That sounds great. Domingo the co-founder of Homebase, thank you so much for coming on. Domingo Valadez (26:48):Absolutely. Thanks so much, Brian, for having me.   

Imran and Qiao bring on Mohamed Fouda to talk L2s.No BS crypto insight for founders.Timestamps(00:00) Intro(00:34) Welcome to Good Game! (00:48) Welcome Mohamed Fouda (03:01) What is a rollup? (08:51) Difference between optimistic rollups and ZK rollups (09:24) Optimistic rollup explained (10:29) ZK rollup explained (11:09) Validium explained (13:21) The different Zero Knowledge proving systems (17:41) Why choose zk-STARK or zk-Snarks? (20:26) What is a trusted setup? (21:25) What is a ZK circuit? 24:24 What happens during a ZK rollup transaction (29:33) Current state of ZK rollups and tradeoffs they're making (32:24) TVL growth of Arbitrum, Optimism, zkSync Era, Polygon zkEVM (38:00) How Solana out-executed its competitors (40:59) What is recursion? (44:34) What is EVM compatibility? (48:14) Comparing L2 fees (50:58) Why Solana is cheaper (53:10) What AllianceDAO is seeing in developer activity (56:13) What is Rollups as a Service? (58:49) How do new founders choose? (1:02:45) What is a sequencer? (1:08:37) What is data availability? (1:14:27) Future vision of ZK rollup specializationMohamed Twitter: @mohamedffoudaGood Game Podcast: A podcast for crypto natives. Find us at goodgamepod.xyz and follow us on Twitter @goodgamepodxyDISCLAIMER: The views expressed herein are personal to the speaker(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or entity. Discussions and answers to questions are intended as generalized, non-personalized information. Nothing herein should be construed or relied upon as investment, legal, tax, or other advice.

Our guest this week is Mike Solana, founder and editor-in-chief of Pirate Wires (Piratewires.com). We discuss the broken local politics of San Francisco, tech and media fights, how we should handle Tik Tok,and why AI enthusiasts are losing. We record our interviews with Riverside. Go to https://bit.ly/Riverside_MoZ + use code ZEN for 20%.  RECOMMENDED PODCAST: The HR industry is at a crossroads. What will it take to construct the next generation of incredible businesses – and where can people leaders have the most business impact? Hosts Nolan Church and Kelli Dragovich have been through it all, the highs and the lows – IPOs, layoffs, executive turnover, board meetings, culture changes, and more. With a lineup of industry vets and experts, Nolan and Kelli break down the nitty-gritty details, trade offs, and dynamics of constructing high performing companies. Through unfiltered conversations that can only happen between seasoned practitioners, Kelli and Nolan dive deep into the kind of leadership-level strategy that often happens behind closed doors. Check out the first episode with the architect of Netflix's culture deck Patty McCord. https://link.chtbl.com/hrheretics TIMESTAMPS: (0:00) Antonio's EA rant (2:12) Local SF politics is changing (18:10) Tech vs. Media (26:30) Sponsors: Secureframe and Riverside (28:00 )Why does SF hate tech? (31:00) How to win over California (38:00) Institutionalist vs. anti-institutionalist (55:50) Taylor Lorenz (1:01:30) Tik Tok (1:03:40) Why Solana isn't a libertarian anymore (1:07:55) Why is the onus on billionaires instead of government (1:14:20) Dan swears off Peter Zeihan (1:16:00) Anti-tech tech podcasts (1:18:20) AI criticism is coming from within tech (1:19:50) Aella (1:21:30) AI safety debate (1:32:00) What Solana is motivated by TWITTER: @MOZ_Podcast @micsolana (Mike) @eriktorenberg (Erik) @dwr (Dan) @antoniogm (Antonio) More shownotes and reading material released in our Substack: https://momentofzen.substack.com/  Thank you to Secureframe for sponsoring (Use "Moment of Zen" for 20% discount) and Graham Bessellieu for production.

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.

A discussion with founders and foundation members of Solana and Helium about HIP 70, the radical proposal to scale the Helium network. I moderate the panel and ask the community's most burning questions about what will change.This is the most honest and compelling talk about HIP 70 yet, going deep into the root causes of why the Nova team thinks this proposal needs to happen.00:00:00 Start00:01:15 Intro & community recap00:03:44 HIP 70 brief explanation00:05:46 The road to HIP 7000:12:52 Helium community skepticism about updates00:16:35 Advantages of switching to a new L100:21:14 Difficulty of building L100:23:29 Importance of laser focus00:26:41 Is Helium forfeiting its sovereignty?00:30:33 Exploding community dev engagement00:34:14 How long HIP 70 will take00:42:17 How oracles affect decentralization00:46:46 Validators unstaking timeline00:57:04 IOT genesis snapshot timeline00:58:00 IOT token launch timeline00:58:54 Could HIP 70 be compromised?01:00:16 Pros/cons of community governance01:01:43 Why Solana, if it's unstable?01:10:57 Better hotspot remote diagnostics?01:14:23 How does veHNT work?01:17:09 Impact on IOT/LoRaWAN routers?01:21:51 Broken data packet accounting01:22:50 Detailed breakdown of the L1 choice?01:26:00 Closing thoughtsCheck out the latest TL;DR on HIP 70 by Frank Mong: https://blog.helium.com/tl-dr-on-hip-70-hnt-ecosystem-would-expand-on-solana-abb123501765And don't forget to join the #hip-70-scaling-the-helium-network channel on Helium's Discord server at https://discord.gg/heliumMore episodes of The Hotspot are available on your favorite podcast app: https://link.chtbl.com/thehotspotHosted by Arman Dezfuli-ArjomandiResources:Learn more about Helium: https://www.helium.com/Follow me: https://twitter.com/rawrmaanFollow Amir: https://twitter.com/amirhaleemFollow Anatoly: https://twitter.com/aeyakovenkoFollow Austin: https://twitter.com/Austin_FederaFollow Abhay: https://twitter.com/abhayFollow Joey: https://twitter.com/jhillerFollow Helium: https://twitter.com/heliumFollow Nova Labs: https://twitter.com/novalabs_Intro song: Lakey Inspired - Arcade

We love the Sneaky Devils here at the Peepshow and offer some of their tools inside The VIP Room even. Shady was super fun to converse with and we learned a lot during this chat.Timestamps1:03 - VIP Room Information3:34 - What is The Sneaky Devils?5:11 - Shady Da Dev's Computer Science and NASA grant background6:36 - Shady is a full time Software Engineer on top of his work with The Sneaky Devils6:36 - Shady's history in crypto8:02 - When was mint and how did it go?9:33 - Sneaky Devils just surpassed 2000 SOL volume10:09 - Why Solana?11:16 - The Sneady Devils' many tools11:36 - The sniper and sweeper12:10 - The auto-minter13:05 - Open source Discord URL validator10:55 - Whitelist tracker (one of my favs)18:48 - Daily mint calendar20:08 - Whitelist giveaway bot22:17 - The signals bot (which is amazing)24:52 - Twitter sentiment tool27:19 - The stop-loss lister29:46 - Staking and raffles with royalties (Shady doesn't pocket any royalties)31:16 - Future plans for $HELL token32:20 - Has Shady considered providing utility to only those who stake?33:52 - How many servers are using Sneaky Devils tools?34:58 - Shady needs to drink Goat Crack36:02 - What types of payment/holder tiers are there for the tools?36:58 - Is Shady considering a Solana based subscription model again in the future?38:47 - Is Shady considering hiring anyone onto the team?40:02 - What has been the biggest challenge for The Sneaky Devils?41:07 - What inspired The Sneaky Devils theme?42:18 - Sometimes people turn him down for marketing opportunities because they don't like the devil theme (dumb)42:49 - The Sneaky Devils art upgrade49:33 - Where does the revenue come from in Sneaky Devils?51:51 - What was Rugify and is it still a thing?54:34 - Has Shady considered raising venture capital?56:48 - Zilla v. Kong partnership59:49 - Some very sneaky collab alpha01:01:13 - What values do The Sneaky Devils hold?01:03:43 - Shady's cool manga desk he's working on01:04:41 - How the fuck is Louisville pronounced?01:05:41 - What is burgoo? (no one knows)01:07:46 - Shady loved our AMA and is impressed that we are sneaky devils too01:08:43 - Where can you find more info about The Sneaky Devils?The Sneaky Devils DiscordThe Sneaky Devils GithubThe Sneaky Devils TwitterShady's TwitterIf you'd like to support what I'm doing, buy me a coffee:ETH: KatherineJenkins.ethSOL: KatherineJenkins.solKatherine is a crypto and NFT trader, marketer, creative, and aspiring programmer. She's founder of the trading community, Kat's Crypto Peepshow. When she's not cracking jokes, she's making clicky noises with a computer mouse.Connect with Katherine here.DISCLAIMER: Nothing posted on any of the groups/channels/pages associated with Kat's Crypto Peepshow should be considered professional financial advice. Katherine is very smart, savvy (and hilarious), but she is not a licensed financial advisor. Crypto is highly volatile and risky investment avenue, so never trade or invest with more than you can afford to lose, and always do your own research on projects, and/or seek licensed professional guidance before making your own investment decisions. Kat always looks into projects and attempts to only share ones that look the safest to her, but even she gets fooled sometimes. Please know that Kat will not be responsible for any losses you incur. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit katherinejenkins.substack.com

Enjoy a panel of adult industry veterans including Katherine, the CEO and Co-founder of Proof of Peach, Joseline Kavaski and Vickie Jay as they discuss Proof of Peach's on-chain adult content platform, payment processor and NFT asset which is launching on September 1st, 2022. National Eat a Peach Day was the perfect day for such a juicy AMA.Timestamps:3:27- Kat's Crypto Peepshow VIP Room and Peepshow Welfare Information. Audition for VIP here. 4:34 - Proof of Peach CEO/Co-founder's history in the adult industry9:20 - CEO's life mission to give sex workers a censorship free means of being paid and publishing content10:39 - How did the team celebrate National Eat a Peach Day?11:44 - What exactly is Proof of Peach?13:06 - "Proof of Peach is a solution."14:21 - What is "adult content"?15:55 - Proof of Peach may add written, up-loadable, content capability.17:28 - Payment processing for the adult industry sucks because of credit card companies18:15 - What does US law consider "obscene"?21:14 - Proof of Peach's on-chain age verification solution25:21 - Proof of Peach will be handling creators' 2257 compliance recordkeeping for them26:01 - What is a Soulbound token?26:50 - Why Solana?28:26 - Proof of Peach is covering all transaction fees29:48 - How do payouts work for models and creators?31:02 - How does the referral program work for models and creators?32:27 - Will Proof of Peach have internal paid messaging?34:35 - Introduction of Joseline Kavaski and Vickie Jay35:15 - How has outreach to potential models and creators gone?35:34 - Proof of Peach approves everyone that is over 18. All types of people of age are welcome37:55 - Models will be paid in USDC, which is pegged to the US dollar, almost instantly38:19 - What has been the biggest challenge in creating Proof of Peach39:58 - Proof of Peach owns the fact that they will be shadow banned on Twitter in order to support their creators41:06 - What does the Solana Foundation think of Proof of Peach?42:05 - Where does the revenue come from in Proof of Peach?44:29 - Info on the developers of Proof of Peach45:26 - Info on the extended team47:00 - Will any aspects of Proof of Peach be open sourced?48:03 - Wil Proof of Peach be launching on a launchpad and why is i a free unlimited mint?49:27 - How does the paid content NFT side of Proof of Peach work?51:33 - Proof of Peach is not a typical NFT investment, but maybe a possible collectors item52:15 - Charge whatever you think your customers will pay. Proof of Peach has no cap on pricing52:59 - Will Proof of Peach have a Discord community?53:38 - Creators creating gated communities and more with their hash lists54:56 - What are the funniest things the adult industry vets on the panel have seen or experienced in the business?59:14 - Jose's butt candles and ass licking surprise1:01:04 - How can you get more info on Proof of Peach? Proof of Peach websiteProof of Peach TwitterIf you'd like to support what I'm doing, buy me a coffee:ETH: KatherineJenkins.ethSOL: KatherineJenkins.solKatherine is a crypto and NFT trader, marketer, creative, and aspiring programmer. She's founder of the trading community, Kat's Crypto Peepshow. When she's not cracking jokes, she's making clicky noises with a computer mouse.Connect with Katherine here.DISCLAIMER: Nothing posted on any of the groups/channels/pages associated with Kat's Crypto Peepshow should be considered professional financial advice. Katherine is very smart, savvy (and hilarious), but she is not a licensed financial advisor. Crypto is highly volatile and risky investment avenue, so never trade or invest with more than you can afford to lose, and always do your own research on projects, and/or seek licensed professional guidance before making your own investment decisions. Kat always looks into projects and attempts to only share ones that look the safest to her, but even she gets fooled sometimes. Please know that Kat will not be responsible for any losses you incur. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit katherinejenkins.substack.com

This was the first ever AMA conducted by Kat's Crypto Peepshow and boy was it a doozy! Divide, the project lead of Sentries, agreed. Sentries is a validator and RPC as a service project that just launched on the Solana blockchain.Timetamps01:29- Kat's Crypto Peepshow VIP Room information. Audition for VIP here today.3:08 - What is Sentries?5:53 - How Divide became the co-founder of an NFT project8:25 - The frontman of a blockchain band8:45 - Why Solana?12:11 - Sentries open source tools on Solana17:03 - Are there rust devs in-house?20:09 - 0xNalloK the amazing developooor21:03 - Why did Sentries use Bifrost as a launchpad?23:22 - Struggles along the way25:06 - "I'm a failed attorney but I'm a successful marketer"25:49 - The three components of the Sentries business model28:58 - Has Sentries began acquiring customers?30:49 - Why should project owners be running a validator on Solana?34:39 - Is Sentries obtaining venture capital?36:51 - How much runway does Sentries have without VC money?38:36 - What is Sentries' relationship with The Solana Foundation?39:54 - How will Sentries foster their community? 45:39 - What values does Sentries hold as a business and community?48:28 - Will Sentries bring back movie night?48:56 - How degen is Divide? And his amazing Arbitrum Gary Vee story51:36 - Divide is a sleep maxi51:56 - WTF is cup pepperoni?53:30 - Divide freestyle raps54:14 - Divide is very bullish on Kat and Bhattman55:38 - Divide is an egomaniac and his wife left him (temporarily)Find out more about Sentries on there website here.If you'd like to support what I'm doing, buy me a coffee:ETH: KatherineJenkins.ethSOL: KatherineJenkins.solKatherine is a crypto and NFT trader, marketer, creative, and aspiring programmer. She's founder of the trading community, Kat's Crypto Peepshow. When she's not cracking jokes, she's making clicky noises with a computer mouse.Connect with Katherine here.DISCLAIMER: Nothing posted on any of the groups/channels/pages associated with Kat's Crypto Peepshow should be considered professional financial advice. Katherine is very smart, savvy (and hilarious), but she is not a licensed financial advisor. Crypto is highly volatile and risky investment avenue, so never trade or invest with more than you can afford to lose, and always do your own research on projects, and/or seek licensed professional guidance before making your own investment decisions. Kat always looks into projects and attempts to only share ones that look the safest to her, but even she gets fooled sometimes. Please know that Kat will not be responsible for any losses you incur. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit katherinejenkins.substack.com

Welcome to The Chopping Block! Crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, and Tarun Chitra chop it up about the latest news in the digital asset industry. In this episode, Anatoly Yakovenko, Tsar of Solana, joins the show to discuss the use cases of Solana, whether it's actually a blockchain, how Solana scales, and much more!    Show topics: What Anatoly thinks of Andre Conje's opinion that Solana is not a blockchain Why Solana has had so many instances of downtime Whether Solana is the NASDAQ of blockchains What Solana changed its approach to fee markets and how it is different from other blockchains Why Anatoly is bearish on generic Layer2s How to prevent a mempool to blow up Whether Anatoly is pro app-chains Why Anatoly would have had Solana build a fee model from the start What proof of history is and what its problems are  How vertical scaling and horizontal scaling differ What the use cases of Solana are  Why Solana decided to build the SAGA phone How a web3 phone enables new ways of innovation Why Solana doesn't see Avalanche or BSC or other EVM chains as competitors but Mysten and Aptos Why the execution environment is where all innovation happens Why Tarun thinks rollups on Solana is a good idea Whether EVM could work on Solana and why Anatoly cares less about EVM on Solana than Solidity What Anatoly's biggest lessons from building Solana are Why Haseeb admires Anatoly and what the similarities are between him and Vitalik What Anatoly advises people who are building in crypto       Hosts Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly Capital https://twitter.com/hosseeb Tom Schmidt, general partner at Dragonfly Capital https://twitter.com/tomhschmidt Tarun Chitra, managing partner at Robot Ventures https://twitter.com/tarunchitra  Robert Leshner, founder of Compound  https://twitter.com/rleshner    Guest: Anatoly Yakovenko Twitter: https://twitter.com/aeyakovenko   Episode Links   Solana Serum: https://www.projectserum.com/ Some of the Solana outages and consequences:  September 2021: https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2021/09/14/solana-validators-ready-potential-restart-amid-blockchain-outage/ January 2022: https://www.theblock.co/post/131278/traders-are-complaining-about-solanas-performance-raising-questions-about-its-status-as-a-wall-street-darling  May 2022: https://www.theblock.co/linked/144639/solana-restarted-after-seven-hour-outage-caused-by-surge-of-transactions  Solana's blockchain clock 30 minutes behind: https://www.theblock.co/post/149112/solanas-blockchain-clock-loses-track-of-time-now-running-30-minutes-behind  June 2022: https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/06/02/solana-halted-by-bug-linked-to-certain-cold-storage-transactions/ Popularity of NFTs on Solana: https://www.theblock.co/post/153214/magic-eden-raises-series-b-funding-solana-nft-unicorn Solana phone https://solana.com/news/saga-reveal https://dune.com/queries/952048/1656567 https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/06/23/solana-labs-is-building-a-web3-mobile-phone/  Fee market: https://www.reddit.com/r/solana/comments/u3p8xc/eli3_solana_fee_market/ Aptos/Mysten:  https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/07/11/web-3-startup-mysten-labs-aiming-for-2b-valuation-in-latest-funding-report/ https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/05/31/paypal-ventures-invested-in-team-reviving-diem-blockchain/ Paper on Proof of History: https://www.shoup.net/papers/poh.pdf Previous Coverage: Why Solana's Frequent Downtime Doesn't Bother Kyle Samani- Ep. 362: https://unchainedpodcast.com/the-chopping-block-why-solanas-frequent-downtime-doesnt-bother-kyle-samani-ep-362/ Did Andre Cronje Pull an Epic Crypto Rug Pull?: https://unchainedpodcast.com/the-chopping-block-did-andre-cronje-pull-an-epic-crypto-rug-pull/ Will Solana Be the Execution Layer and Ethereum the Settlement Layer? https://unchainedpodcast.com/will-solana-be-the-execution-layer-and-ethereum-the-settlement-layer/  Neon Labs: https://www.coindesk.com/business/2021/11/09/neon-labs-raises-40m-to-bring-evm-functionality-to-solana/

Welcome to The Chopping Block! Crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, and Tarun Chitra chop it up about the latest news in the digital asset industry. In this episode, Anatoly Yakovenko, Tsar of Solana, joins the show to discuss the use cases of Solana, whether it's actually a blockchain, how Solana scales, and much more!    Show topics: What Anatoly thinks of Andre Cronje's opinion that Solana is not a blockchain Why Solana has had so many instances of downtime Whether Solana is the NASDAQ of blockchains Why Solana changed its approach to fee markets and how it is different from other blockchains Why Anatoly is bearish on generic Layer2s How to prevent a mempool to blow up Whether Anatoly is pro app-chains Why Anatoly would have had Solana build a fee model from the start What proof of history is and what its problems are  How vertical scaling and horizontal scaling differ What the use cases of Solana are  Why Solana decided to build the SAGA phone How a web3 phone enables new ways of innovation Why Solana doesn't see Avalanche or BSC or other EVM chains as competitors but Mysten and Aptos Why the execution environment is where all innovation happens Why Tarun thinks rollups on Solana is a good idea Whether EVM could work on Solana and why Anatoly cares less about EVM on Solana than Solidity What Anatoly's biggest lessons from building Solana are Why Haseeb admires Anatoly and what the similarities are between him and Vitalik What Anatoly advises people who are building in crypto       Hosts Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly Capital https://twitter.com/hosseeb Tom Schmidt, general partner at Dragonfly Capital https://twitter.com/tomhschmidt Tarun Chitra, managing partner at Robot Ventures https://twitter.com/tarunchitra  Robert Leshner, founder of Compound  https://twitter.com/rleshner    Guest: Anatoly Yakovenko Twitter: https://twitter.com/aeyakovenko   Episode Links   Solana Serum: https://www.projectserum.com/ Some of the Solana outages and consequences:  September 2021: https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2021/09/14/solana-validators-ready-potential-restart-amid-blockchain-outage/ January 2022: https://www.theblock.co/post/131278/traders-are-complaining-about-solanas-performance-raising-questions-about-its-status-as-a-wall-street-darling  May 2022: https://www.theblock.co/linked/144639/solana-restarted-after-seven-hour-outage-caused-by-surge-of-transactions  Solana's blockchain clock 30 minutes behind: https://www.theblock.co/post/149112/solanas-blockchain-clock-loses-track-of-time-now-running-30-minutes-behind  June 2022: https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/06/02/solana-halted-by-bug-linked-to-certain-cold-storage-transactions/ Popularity of NFTs on Solana: https://www.theblock.co/post/153214/magic-eden-raises-series-b-funding-solana-nft-unicorn Solana phone https://solana.com/news/saga-reveal https://dune.com/queries/952048/1656567 https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/06/23/solana-labs-is-building-a-web3-mobile-phone/  Fee market: https://www.reddit.com/r/solana/comments/u3p8xc/eli3_solana_fee_market/ Aptos/Mysten:  https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/07/11/web-3-startup-mysten-labs-aiming-for-2b-valuation-in-latest-funding-report/ https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/05/31/paypal-ventures-invested-in-team-reviving-diem-blockchain/ Paper on Proof of History: https://www.shoup.net/papers/poh.pdf Previous Coverage: Why Solana's Frequent Downtime Doesn't Bother Kyle Samani- Ep. 362: https://unchainedpodcast.com/the-chopping-block-why-solanas-frequent-downtime-doesnt-bother-kyle-samani-ep-362/ Did Andre Cronje Pull an Epic Crypto Rug Pull?: https://unchainedpodcast.com/the-chopping-block-did-andre-cronje-pull-an-epic-crypto-rug-pull/ Will Solana Be the Execution Layer and Ethereum the Settlement Layer? https://unchainedpodcast.com/will-solana-be-the-execution-layer-and-ethereum-the-settlement-layer/  Neon Labs: https://www.coindesk.com/business/2021/11/09/neon-labs-raises-40m-to-bring-evm-functionality-to-solana/

Chris Osborn is the Founder and CEO of Dialect, a smart messaging protocol that powers seamless, on-chain messaging experiences, starting with wallet-to-wallet chat and dapp notifications. Joe McCann guest hosts. 00:49 - Origin Story02:06 - What is Dialect?05:59 - What are the blockers in Web 3.0?07:46 - Why Solana?11:11 - Looked into other ecosystems?13:52 - What is the process to use Dialect?22:31 - Using Solana Pay with Dialect27:22 - In-game messaging28:36 - Dialect's operations and current projects31:03 - Exciting projects in web 3.034:53 - NFTs and Messaging DISCLAIMERThe information on this podcast is provided for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, without any express or implied warranty of any kind, including warranties of accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose.The information contained in or provided from or through this podcast is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, investment advice, trading advice, or any other advice.The information on this podcast is 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 on this podcast without undertaking independent due diligence and consultation with a professional broker or financial advisor. Joe (00:10):Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Solana Podcast. It is Joe McCann here again as your guest host, and today we have a very special guest, founder and CEO of Dialect, Chris Osborn.Chris (00:23):Hey Joe, it's great to be here.Joe (00:25):It's great to have you. So I'm really excited about today's episode because what you are doing at Dialect, I think, unlocks a lot of really interesting use cases in the Solana ecosystem, but first I think it might be useful for the listeners to kind of get a sense of who you are, your background and frankly, how you even got started with Dialect.Chris (00:49):So my background is actually in physics. I did my PhD in Atomic Physics at Columbia University. So this WAs like laser cooling and trapping of atoms, precision time measurements and quantum computing stuff. I learned pretty quickly that what I really loved to do is write software and build technology, so I knew after graduating that I wanted to move to the West Coast and work on some cool technology problems. I actually had an opportunity to split the difference and I worked at Rigetti Computing. I don't know if you're familiar, they're a quantum computing startup and got to work on almost every part of their stack, including a lot of software and technology.I helped lead one of the three teams that launched quantum cloud services, which was like AWS for quantum computing, and that helped me realize that I really love kind of like bridging the gap between hard tech and consumer problems and how do users interact with hard tech, and got the itch to build a startup. So actually I started this company outside of crypto and participated in YC. We were building a consumer investing product and pivoted the company actually last fall or early last fall full force induced Solana and started building Dialect.Joe (02:01):Yeah, that's great. I mean, can you maybe just in a few words, like what is Dialect?Chris (02:07):Yeah, so with Dialect what we're doing is we're building what we're calling a smart messaging protocol for DApp notifications and wallet-to-wallet chat. Those are the first two use cases that we're working on. And the best way to think about it is kind of like a decentralized inbox, a way to enable the messaging primitive between wallets. I personally like to think about kind of like hair on fire burning use cases, the things that people need today, and one of the major use cases here is giving DApps a way to connect directly with their users. And that's through the main mechanism that users identify themselves on the blockchain, which is with wallets.Joe (02:46):So cool. So, I mean, I remember meeting you many, many months ago last year and was really blown away because one of the kind of gaps that I was seeing in a lot of Web 3.0 Applications, irrespective of the underlying chain, was the ability to have like native notifications that are genuinely on chain and not using a service like Twilio or a Web 2.0 or cloud computing context. So the users kind of better understand what Dialect is and can enable, you can kind of walk through maybe some canonical use cases of Dialect?Chris (03:22):Yeah, absolutely. So the use case that got me into it right away like that first just really compelling use case is if you're using a collateralized lending protocol. You lend in token A and you borrow out token B and as prices move, if you become under collateral, the protocol or many protocols will end up liquidating your collateral on an underlying market. And in a world without messages and notifications, basically up until today, a lot of early DeFi users relied on just like a poll mechanism. Like I got to constantly come back to this product and refresh the browser and see how are my positions doing? And there've actually been some like kind of remarkable situations where when there were dramatic price movements, people could see that there was a wallet address on chain that was at risk of a very large liquidation and folks were like, "How do we get in touch with this user? How do we actually contact them and let them know that there's a problem?"And so there's no question that there's like a huge need here. Liquidations were the start, we're now working with projects across DeFi in various capacities, DAOs is another really big use case we can talk about in a little bit and NFTs. So alerts about really important situations, obviously those are kind of like that first use case, but the holy grail with messaging is user retention and engagement. So even if you get beyond emergency situations across whether it's like NFTs and more social, or whether it's DAOs and collaboration, there's just like infinite use cases for technology like this.Joe (04:58):That's really cool. I mean, I agree. It feels like almost every Web 3.0 project or protocol is going to need notifications in some capacity. I mean, I know myself I've been in those positions where I need to add more collateral to a position and I have to keep going back to it, or more recently using some of the structured product vaults that are out there where you can... if you want to say redeem some of your investment, maybe the interest that you've earned, you have to just kind of set a calendar invite.Chris (05:27):That's exactly right. That's right.Joe (05:28):Yeah. So to me that's some friction for end users, but it seems like a solvable problem and it sounds like that's what Dialect is doing. But I'm curious because today in like a Web 2.0 Kind of cloudy world, push notifications, email notifications, in-browser notifications, they just seem so commonplace to implement. So why is it that you think that this hasn't really been a thing yet in Web 3.0 ? What's been kind of the blocker and maybe then we can talk about why you chose Solana?Chris (06:01):Yeah, this is actually a really... This is a super cool problem. The blocker is the following, and obviously nothing's ever truly a strict blocker, it's really just a question of sort of like what are your priorities and what are you working on? So in Web 2.0if you're like a typical startup, you're already running some backend service that's got a database and it's got some synchronous and asynchronous processes. And if you're building in Web 2.0, there's tons of Web 2.0 tooling to support you. And so right into one of those backend services, you can sign up for Twilio, get your authentication keys, store them as environment variables and then anytime there's a specific process where you want to send a user a text message, you just fire it off. Same exact kind of Web 2.0 SaaS system exists for Apple push notifications, Android, SendGrid email, all that. Where things get interesting in Web 3.0 is typically, and especially with like the more really Web 3.0 native projects, whether that's in DeFi, NFTs, wherever, your backend is the blockchain.And there's some basic things that are different with most blockchains like Solana or Ethereum, and that's that most information is public. So you can't store sort of like secret credentials on chain and then in addition, you can't make HTTP requests to some other SaaS. So like the SaaS model breaks down when you start building in blockchain, so if you want to support these use cases for your users, you basically have to like expand your engineering footprint, spin up some Web 2.0 services that perform two processes. One is monitor the blockchain for the events that you care about and then number two is decide that you're going to send messages accordingly, whether that's like Twilio, email or push notifications. So that's part one and then part two, to answer your question about why Solana, and this comes back to my personal journey in crypto.So a friend told me about Bitcoin way back in like 2011. Around that time, I was first exposed to the proof of work concept. It's like easily top five most incredible things that I've learned in my life. I didn't start working in crypto until now, but that had a huge impact on me and I've been following along with everything that's been happening in crypto since then. So heard about Ethereum in 2016 when it... I think it launched in 2016. And what Bitcoin did with proof of work decentralization and then Ethereum did for generalizing compute on-chain and in a decentralized fashion, I discovered Solana in late 2020, I think early October, 2020. For me what Bitcoin and Ethereum did, Solana's proof of history and how it scales technology for ultra fast transaction settlement times, ultra low transaction fee costs, that to me was as impactful. So I see that in the direct lineage of technology.So, that was like late 2020, and DeFi Summer was in full force. I was starting to use more and more technology like more and more Web 3.0 native apps. Over the course of that year I mentioned I was working on a separate project, I saw the Solana ecosystem just absolutely explode. It was like a literal Cambrian explosion. So by the time it was like late summer of 2021, I was taking a hard look at what I was currently working on and then I was looking at Solana and saying every extra week that I'm not working on solana is just a huge missed opportunity. And pulled the trigger and moved full force into Solana. Solana's transaction costs and speed opened up an enormous new design space that is really not feasible if you want to build a truly on-chain messaging system on some other blockchains.So if you're looking at fractions of a tenth of a penny in terms of the transaction costs and then subsecond, you know 400 millisecond block times, that enables a very large new design space. So what I saw at the time was this opportunity to build a whole new SaaS layers. So with Dialect we're building developer tooling, we want to provide this end user experience for developers to build into their own DApps. And when you have any orders of magnitude improvement in performance, it just opens up a very large new space to build in, so to me it was a no brainer. There was no question in my mind. So I've been a blockchain enthusiast for over 10 years, but Solana was that threshold. That was sort of that Rubicon where I just knew this is this, it's now time to build.Joe (10:22):Yeah. I mean, I feel like in other ecosystems, something like this... I don't want to say it's not possible, it just seems like it's impractical. And I think Solana's design where it has this incredibly cheap transaction fee and speed is perfectly suited for something like Dialect and on-chain messaging, if you will. But have you dug into say other chains like maybe something in the Cosmos Ecosystem or even just Ethereum? And did you evaluate whether or not this could be done or was it just kind of like at the baseline look, Ethereum is like pretty expensive for transaction and relatively slow block times, this is just going to work for say push notifications or wallet-to-wallet messaging?Chris (11:12):Yeah, so that's a great question. I would say the following: there are some wallet-to-wallet chat and communication tools on Ethereum and with many of them, what you do is you authenticate with your wallet, but the messages may be stored off-chain somewhere else. And that's not obviously a total deal breaker. In general, I think the authentication problem... I know it's not specific to messaging, but it obviously takes really like a front seat in messaging of who's sending these messages, and the general problem of authenticating with your wallet is just a fun design space. So we're personally really excited to see messaging come online on some other blockchains. If you really want to run a fully on-chain experience where the message source of truth is on-chain, Solana really has several orders of magnitude on a lot of these competing chains.Not that that's necessarily the future that exists long term, it may actually make sense for there to be more of a data centric L1 that stores these messages. And so the choice for us coming full circle on this question is Solana presented an opportunity for us to build relatively small architectural footprint. That means let's just keep as much on Solana as possible. We're decentralized first, we're not storing any messages in say fire base or any other Web2 services, and really provide that great experience, and it's really just a question now of where go.Messaging between wallet is such an important and compelling use case, and I think we're seeing a lot more projects come online now that this problem's inevitably going to be solved in a cross chain manner. We are excited about that future, but we're a hundred percent focused on Solana for now. We also say, I didn't necessarily explicitly say this earlier, but Solana's proof of history concept and the way that it works, some of the first podcasts I listened to about that in summer and fall of 2020, just really blew my mind. So another big piece of it is go where there's just exciting technology, where the developers are extremely talented and everybody's really enthusiastic. For us, there's just a no brainer, we a blast on Solana.Joe (13:15):I hear that very, very often these days, there's been quite a bit of interest from developers; in a lot of cases, developers who have never written an Ethereum app or any sort of other Web 3.0 app or just diving into Solana and loving it. So speaking of developers, as a developer, how do I use Dialect? Can you kind of walk us through the scenario? Is there an SDK? Is there a token I need to have? What is the kind of process if I'm a protocol or a project today that wants or needs on-chain messaging or notifications for my protocol or project? How do I get started?Chris (13:54):Let me answer in two parts. Number one is what you do today. Our messaging protocol is live and audited on the Solana main net, and we have open sourced our protocol and Web 3.0 client we build with Anchor. I really love anchor, it's one of our favorite toolkits we've worked with. So you can import that Web 3.0 client directly into your web app or some other process, some other service that you're running and you can get started sending messages right away. As I mentioned, even for DApp notifications, the primitive is wallet-to-wallet messaging. So in the same way that you might receive an email from a business, some kind of notification they're sending from an email address that they manages the business, the same thing goes here; you manage a key pair that you do your messaging with. So you can import our protocol and just start sending and receiving messages.The main way that most projects interact with our tooling is two-part though, two layers on top of that core protocol. Number one is if you're a DApp and you need to send a notification to a user or a message saying that they're at risk of liquidation, let's come back to this liquidation example. You need to be monitoring the blockchain to detect that there's this event where you then programmatically send the messages. The same thing goes historically with Twilio or SendGrid, you incorporate this code into your services. So like we talked about earlier, you need to be running these off-chain services that help determine that events are happening and to write messages. And we offer open source tooling around this, it's called our monitor framework and our monitoring service, which is our opinionated way about how to host that. And you can then basically spin this up yourself, or you can host with us and you use that to write the very minimal code that's specific to your protocol.So let's say you have some way to query for the users or the wallets obligations, which is a term that lending protocols use, and you can get your collateral health or your risk of liquidation directly from that data. Our monitoring service allows you to fetch that data, basically write the code that's specific to your protocol and then that gets piped into kind of like a reactive framework that we use to determine whether or not to send messages. So this is monitoring tooling that's specifically custom built for figuring out to send a message and it can work very flexibly with other kinds of tooling. Maybe it's like you've got a Kafka messaging queue, or some other kinds of... Some projects actually have fairly sophisticated Web 2.0 infrastructure, but they're still interested in working with us because we handle the hard problem to just making sure at most one and just at least one message get fired off to a user.The second half is how do you surface these messages to users? So today what we're solving, what we're live with are what we're calling in-app notifications. So think about your favorite Web 2.0 product; you sign in, and maybe somewhere in the nav bar you see a little notification bell and it's a button and you can click to see that there are messages or something you need to know about from that product. Today, we offer basically like a single React component. We're prioritizing React, most projects, web apps are built in React, where you can drop that single component into the nav bar of your DApp and right out of the box if a user clicks that notification, they have the opportunity to fully onboard to the notification experience all within that single component. So it's like a model that pops up that allows you to say yes, I'd like to enable notifications for this app.And then once you've done that, you can kind of see what are you going to get notifications around. So it might be warnings about pending liquidations, it might be liquidations themselves, it might be actually more receipt style messages. So it might be an order filled if you're using a DEX where orders fill asynchronously, it can be things around DAO collaborations. So one of the major use cases that DAOs we've been speaking to have been interested in is engagement and retention on voting. So you might receive notifications from a DAO telling you that you have six hours left to vote on a proposal, or that there's a new proposal, or that maybe you're near a quorum on the voting threshold needed to pass or reject a proposal. So there's all these different use cases and really you get that right out of the box directly in your nav bar with this single React component. So that's in-app notifications.What's coming soon and coming back to this question of just the broader messaging thesis, we're launching support soon for email, Telegram, possibly text message, other kinds of Web 2.0 means because the reality is even if the thesis and the vision is fully on-chain messaging, we live in a world where many users rely on and really appreciate getting messages via Web 2.0. So email's a no-brainer, and a lot of projects have asked us to support that so that's coming online very soon. And then Telegram is a little more of like a Web 3.0 native messaging solution that's still off-chain, and a lot of projects have asked us for support on that. So you can think of the Dialect standard as both the on-chain messaging standard, as well as a suite of really out of the box tooling to allow DApps to reach their users however they want.Joe (19:13):What's really interesting about how you're thinking about building out your company and the protocol and kind of the suite of products is that it reminds me of kind of like early days of Twilio. So I wrote a blog post many years ago, probably 10 years ago now about how over-the-top messaging was really kind of this new platform play. We've seen through the myriad messaging apps and then kind of the power of iMessage on Apple and the blue bubble versus the green bubble. I think there's now a regulation coming out of the EU that all these messaging apps have to inter-op with each other. But that took many, many years and I think Twilio really captured a lot of the developer mind share around creating these kind of suites of messaging products and it started with SMS. And so you mentioned something like Telegram, which I think everybody in crypto lives and dies in Telegram. I can barely keep up with myself.Chris (20:17):That's right.Joe (20:17):I've written some Telegram bots and they're pretty easy if you have a fundamental understanding of how webhooks work. Is that something that Dialects will enable? Is that like maybe some arbitrary webhook could fire? Or is it something that needs to be actually he baked into the on-chain program itself?Chris (20:34):Yeah, so it's not actually for support. We want to keep the part on-chain as light and simple as possible and so you can think of these web two channels such as Telegram as really just parallel rails. So you have the detection of an event that a user wants to hear about and that's monitoring data on-chain, and then you have various channels which may purely be in one user's case, "Oh, I just want to get an email, or I just want to get a Telegram message from a bot that's managed by the project." The developer experience around Twilio and Telegram and whatnot are excellent, but what Dialect provides here, if a DApp is interested in reaching their users by these means is you just get it all out of the box right away. You write a little snippet of code that fetches the data that determines if a message needs to be sent, and then you say how you want each message to look and that's really all you have to think about.The user will choose how they want to be gotten in touch with directly through the front end tooling that we provide. I think it was actually you, Joe, who mentioned this to us, that one of the key metrics is time to success. Crypto is moving at just an absolute lightning pace and while every project that we've talked to really wants this tooling, it's never quite the first priority that they have. So what we're trying to do is really make that as simple as possible for these projects to integrate us.Joe (21:53):So let's talk about some of the categories that exist, not just broadly in Web 3.0, but I would argue is probably more suited towards Solana, particularly the payment space. So Solana Pay has launched, there's lot of people building a lot of really interesting stuff with Solana Pay from point of sale solutions to web apps and mobile apps, et cetera. Can you kind of walk me through an example of how say someone that wants to build something with Solana Pay would utilize Dialect. Chris (22:26):Yeah, this is actually a really fun topic. Ever since Solana Pay got launched, the team and I have just been super excited about the messaging use cases there. This is also a good template for talking about our smart messaging thesis, so I'm going to segue from Solana Pay into a broader discussion here, but I would start by saying the following: Solana Pay is a standard for being able to perform transactions, being able to perform transfers between wallets on-chain and there is a very compelling messaging use case here. If you think about some of the standards in Web 2.0 , whether it's Apple Pay for transferring, or Venmo or Square Cash, that kind of dynamic experience of being able to message between users and actually take action on the message. One of our key insights with Dialect is this smart messaging standard we're building toward, and you can think of that kind of like an interactive link preview.In every DApp that you use where you connect your wallet, you have signing privileges everywhere. And so where we're building and this... A few minutes ago I said, "Here's where Dialect is today and the question is where we're going." In this smart messaging future, we're allowing users to send basically interactive link previews and you can think of a transfer request as one of the simplest use cases there. So for example, if you want to send a transfer request by a Dialect message to one of your friends directly at their wallet address, you can send that and then they can take action right in the message, whether that's scanning a QR code that's rendered for them, or it's clicking a send payment message. Coming back to some of the use cases we talked a little while ago about such as liquidation, warnings or DAO proposals and voting prompts, the holy grail in user retention and engagement is being able to reach them and have them be able to take action right where you're messaging with them.In Web 2.0 beyond these app specific use cases, whether it's a Venmo transfer request or similar, most of the time if you get an email, there's a link in the email and you have to click that and go out to another app. And maybe you're not logged in on your phone so you say, "Okay, in five hours when I'm back at my computer I'll take care of this." Or similar with a text message. What's really unique about messaging in Web 3.0 is that we can build a standard where you can take action right in the message. So whether it's Solana Pay, whether it's a vote yes or a vote no on a proposal, or it's a quick deposit to top up your collateral to avoid liquidation, any of those things with Dialect and our smart messaging standard, what we're building toward is that kind of Web 3.0 native future. So the last thing I would say about this is, yes, it's true that messaging and notifications are this really critical missing piece of Web 3.0 and it's just a really known hair on fire problem. When we got started on Dialect, the question we asked ourselves is not just how we fill in that missing piece, but also how we take Web 3.0to a place that Web 2.0 can't as easily go. And this is because our thesis is Web 3.0 is going to reach mass adoption because of exciting and really compelling delightful new use cases that products are going to start to come online, whether they take advantage of universal authentication like we're talking about now, whether they take advantage of composability of sort of the global shared state of all the data existing on a single blockchain, those are the use cases that are going to make it really compelling for the first billion users to onboard to Web 3.0. This is our thesis with smart messaging and Solana Pay is a really key and interesting part of that picture.Joe (26:18):I'll be honest, that is fascinating because one of the cool things about what you're mentioning is that push notifications or in-app notifications become actionable. You can actually do something right there-Chris (26:33):That's right.Joe (26:34):... versus it being this sort of delayed or async process. And so the use cases really open up pretty dramatically because of the fact that these messages are now interactive and you can do things with them.Chris (26:50):That's right.Joe (26:50):And have you guys thought through maybe where this could potentially work in like the context of a video game or even like the metaverse? There's a lot of Web 3.0 games/metaverse type environments being created and I'm curious if sort of in-game messaging makes sense or if it's something that is slightly different?Chris (27:18):Yeah, in-game messaging I think is a fantastic use case, and we've spent a little less time talking to gaming projects. I think just because that's a little early on, as we have say, talking to DeFi, NFT, DAO projects. But one of the things I'm most excited about is sort of the universality of NFTs as assets and all of the infrastructure that's being built around the things that you achieve and the assets that you acquire in-game end up having a life and a value beyond that game. It's really compelling to us that there be interactive sort of like smart message experiences around that content, at the very least. So I think gaming is an incredibly exciting in use case.Joe (28:05):Awesome. Yeah, I could see a lot of really cool integrations being utilized there and they just kind of don't exist today. I mean, frankly, there aren't a lot of Web 3.0 games period, but I know a lot of them are coming online later this year. What about like the traction of the company and folks that you're working with today? I know since you pivoted Dialect into this smart messaging protocol business things have really started to heat up. Can you talk about maybe how many people you're kind of signing up or any projects that are currently utilizing your product today?Chris (28:38):Yeah, that's right. We're talking to a few dozen projects right now across a lot of the verticals that I mentioned earlier. We're going live with a handful of our first projects that we've publicly announced so far. So that includes Squads and meaning on the DAO tooling side, Jet Protocol on the lending side, Bridgesplit on the NFT and NFT fractionalization space. Oh, on protocol Friktion is another project, you mentioned structured products earlier and it's been a real joy working with them. One of the things that we believe is it's best to like dog food your own tooling to make it better. So we've just straight up been rolling our sleeves up to help build out with them, and that helps us get better and better at our developer tooling.Then there's just this other wave, as I mentioned, a few dozen other projects that we can't talk about quite yet, but are extremely excited to support. And to support all these projects, we've also been growing the team pretty quickly as well. So there's a lot going on right now and as we talked about earlier, it's an incredibly compelling use case. This technology has to exist, at the very least receiving an email or a text message or a Telegram message. But where things really catch and where we really have a great time with our conversations is around this smart messaging future that we're building out, and that's when I think folks get really excited about the opportunity.Joe (30:07):Yeah. I mean, I completely agree. It's really hard to imagine a scenario where an app isn't going to need some form of messaging or notifications. And given the direction and the future of the company and where you guys want to take the product and protocol, it seems inevitable that folks are going to be adopting this. So maybe talk a little bit about how you're envisioning the future. You know, you have a very specific view into what you're doing with Dialect, but by engaging with all these different projects and protocols, you can get like an interesting view into what things are happening, what things are coming out soon, and maybe where you see things heading. The space is evolving and changing so rapidly and quickly that it's hard to predict anything, but what are some things that you kind of see in the future not necessarily just for Dialect, but also you Web 3.0 in general and how maybe Dialect plays a role in that?Chris (31:05):Yeah. I think if there were a single theme and I'm not alone in saying this, it's just really what got me into crypto in the first place and it's incredible to see it beginning to happen. I would say the thesis here is composability, so any blockchain that really makes global shared state a possibility. I think it might have been Chris Dixon who said composability is like compounding interest, it just causes this exponential runaway in technology. And the things I'm most excited about and we are most excited about at Dialect is that composability. So whether it's being able to exchange information and perform financial actions between DeFi protocols or it's the financialization that's going into some gaming tools that are coming online, like you said, that rely on some DeFi infrastructure like... To me, this is why it's going to be the sort of killer consumer experiences that come of composability and global shared state that are really going to make for the next big wave in Web 3.0.Chris (32:09):And the way we're interested in that in our own small way with Dialect, and I didn't mention this earlier, is one of our visions here with smart messaging is creating a kind of decentralized inbox. So as we mentioned, our tooling today supports these on chain messages delivered directly to any given DApp where the user enables and then can consume those messages in the DApp itself. But those messages can be consumed by anyone and so there's this other half of the problem that we're working on that's coming online soon, where for example, a mobile wallet could have an entire inbox and messaging section. And now you're talking about no matter which DApps you've enabled, you're receiving a true iOS or Android push notification directly to that mobile messaging experience that you have there, and that's just yet another example of composability. And so, like I said, I'm not alone in being incredibly excited about this but it really is, I think, the kind of compounding developer experience that's just going to create a whole new set of really exciting consumer... Like a new kind of internet consumer experience.Joe (33:18):That's awesome and I agree. I think one of the areas that is no short of discussion in Web 3.0 is NFTs. I've talked about this on some Twitter spaces and other podcasts where right now we're just kind of in the infancy of what NFTs can unlock. You know, there's obviously the art aspect of it, there's in video game assets, et cetera, et cetera. But one of the things that I am interested to hear your take on, and maybe how this correlates to Dialect is NFT is in a person's wallet, it's on chain, but the person interacting with the wallet is a customer, a user, and I think a lot of companies want to be able to engage with their customers and users more directly. So is there a scenario where I have an NFT in my wallet and depending on the NFT mentor or something, maybe it's a brand, maybe it's a company, maybe it's an artist, maybe it's a musician, has a way to either via the NFT directly or utilizing Dialect, be able to kind of communicate with me directly?Joe (34:31):An example I always give is imagine Starbucks wants to airdrop, I don't know, some seasonal loyalty program thing, right? Christmas, Easter, or whatever, spring break, you name it, and it's for people that have this NFT in their wallet and they want to airdrop them something or be able to communicate with them. Is this something that Dialect would unlock or do you think this is something that's more kind of NFT specific?Chris (34:55):To be honest, I thought you'd never ask about this. This is this third part of smart messaging that we are just beyond excited about. It touches on a few different things, but maybe I'll just say briefly that another key aspect of Web 2.0 messaging that I think to many of us feels very broken is this question of sort of like cold inbound and marketing and spam. With Web 3.0's inherent financialization, there is this very natural situation where you can basically tokenize messaging and create markets around how different entities communicate with each other. And on the two extremes there, or maybe let's talk about three, two to three points on the spectrum here. If you Joe and I just want to message with each other, there's sort of mutual opt-in in the exchange of a token and we can just message with each other.Similarly, if there's a business that I really love and I want to opt-in let's say, like you mentioned, I think you said Starbucks, I'll opt into that and there may be some implicit under the hood kind of exchange of a token that allows for that messaging. There's also scenarios where businesses want to get in touch with individuals that they think are high value, and that's a cold inbound scenario. In that scenario, a business might need to actually buy one of these tokens of yours on an exchange in order to engage with you.By financializing that component of cold inbound, I think one, it creates a much more harmonious kind of like cold messaging experience in Web 3.0 that in many ways is a bit much in Web 2.0, but in the mutual opt-in scenario or the messaging is effectively like vanishingly small cost or effectively free. And powering all of this, kind of coming back to your point about NFTs, is the NFT primitive. So this is a technology in an architecture we're exploring right now and it's very likely that NFTs will serve that use case. It's a kind of technology in a use case that we're just like beyond excited about.Joe (36:59):Fascinating conversation today with you, Chris. I really appreciate it. The future's bright for Dialect, the use cases that you've outlined are kind of no brainers, but what I'm really excited about is what we unlock in a Web 3.0 native context for smart messaging. I want to thank you today for joining the Solana Podcast. How can people actually get in contact with you? Are you on Telegram or Twitter? If they want to contact Dialect and get in touch, what's the best way of doing that?Chris (37:26):Yeah, the best way to get in touch with us is on Twitter and our Twitter handle is @saydialect, that's S-A-Y D-I-A-L-E-C-T. We love engaging with the community. Developer feedback, we live and die off of that, and so if you have complaints about our technology, have feature requests, any of that, send it our way. We're also on Discord. We have a Discord community, you can join that from our bio in Twitter. And then the last thing I would say is we're hiring, and so if this technology is interesting to you, we would love, love, love to work with you.Joe (38:02):Well, you heard it here first folks. Chris Osborn, computer scientist in the quantum physics space turned smart messaging protocol engineer and architect. Chris, thanks so much for joining the Solana Podcast. Looking forward to chatting with you again soon. See ya.Chris (38:18):Thank you very much, Joe. It was my pleasure.

Ahmad & Danial Abbasi are the co-founders of Syndica, a Web 3.0 blockchain infrastructure company focused on the Solana ecosystem.00:35 - Background in Crypto02:09 - Why Solana over other platforms?04:10 - User Experience and Web 3.006:16 - What is Syndica?08:54 - Syndica and Web 3.012:33 - Syndica's focus on infrastructure14:36 - Differentiating from other providers16:55 - Syndica and the data18:29 - Their user base20:03 - Plans on offering validator services?22:05 - Best practices for building on Solana24:49 - How should new developers approach web 3.0?28:16 - Storage33:03 - Interesting projects in the ecosystem37:53 - Solana Hackathon39:19 - What would you love to see built on Solana? DISCLAIMERThe information on this podcast is provided for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, without any express or implied warranty of any kind, including warranties of accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose.The information contained in or provided from or through this podcast is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, investment advice, trading advice, or any other advice.The information on this podcast is 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 on this podcast without undertaking independent due diligence and consultation with a professional broker or financial advisor.

In this episode, Ron and Chris are joined by the co-founders of Bridgesplit, Mary and Luke, to talk about how they intend to transition the next wave of financial markets onto the digital economy.    Key Takeaways: 01:27  Mary and Luke's bio 03:48  Unlocking asset classes 05:04  Bridgesplit - the origin story 09:10  Liquidity  11:05  What about indexing? 13:31  Where does the blockchain fit into this? 15:24  Why Solana? 17:41  Web3 funding VS traditional funding 20:01  DOA on the horizon 20:56  Lessons learned  22:24  Education is key! 24:08  The foundation for the future 26:51  Stay in touch with Bridgesplit   Links: Follow Luke on Twitter Follow Mary on Twitter Learn more about Bridgesplit here! Metaversable - Website | LinkedIn | Twitter 

Hi everyone, it's Crian and I am back with a super special episode of the Inside Crypto podcast. Today we meet some of the constituents of our upcoming SOLI index token as part of the AMA we did this past week . In this episode you will listen to representatives from Solend, Mercurial and Tulip. You will also hear from James (Head of Tokens), Zoe ( a Research Associate) and Tyler ( our Marketing Manager).  This episode was recorded on December 16th 2021. In our continuing effort to engage with our community and the Solana community as a whole, we held an AMA this past week. If you missed it then this is the perfect chance to enjoy the discussion where we talked about, what exactly is Solana? Why Solana development is interesting? Why did Solend, Mercurial and Tulip choose Solana and many other questions.  Before we get started, I would like to thank my employer Amun Tokens for making podcasts like this happen. Please don't forget to check us out and our products at tokens.amun.com.  Thanks everyone for listening and don't forget to tune in next week where we interview someone else in the cryptocurrency universe and ask all those burning questions you're dying to ask. https://medium.com/amun-tokens/introducing-soli-the-solana-ecosystem-index-a111896a599 (SOLI Proposal) Follow Us On: http://www.amun.com (Website) https://twitter.com/Amun (Twitter) https://discord.gg/EDufcYpseD (Discord) https://t.me/AmunTokens (Telegram) (English) https://t.me/AmunTokensCN (Telegram (Chinese)) https://www.reddit.com/r/AmunTokens/ (Reddit) Email Protocol's Socials: https://tulip.garden/static/media/twitter.72f0aba1.svg (Tulip's Twitter) https://tulip.garden/static/media/discord.a9be9626.svg (Tulip's Discord) https://twitter.com/solendprotocol (Solend's Twitter) https://discord.gg/aGXvPNGXDT (Solend's Discord) https://twitter.com/MercurialFi (Mercurial's Twitter) https://discord.gg/WwFwsVtvpH (Mercurial's Discord) https://twitter.com/JupiterExchange (Jupiter's Twitter) https://discord.gg/jup (Jupiter's Discord)

Anatoly is the co-founder and CEO of Solana Labs, the organization behind Solana. Solana aims to be the fastest and most scalable decentralized blockchain in the world. Anatoly previously spent more than a decade at Qualcomm after graduating from The University of Illinois in 2003. Follow him on Twitter @aeyakovenko and learn more about Solana at solana.com. [2:18] - Anatoly's story and how he came to see the opportunity to build Solana [6:51] - Carrying Qualcomm's culture over to Solana [9:46] - Leveraging incremental software improvements to create the fastest blockchain [14:25] - Anatoly's solution to the "clock problem" in a distributed network [17:52] - Why Solana might not exist if not for the obscure sport of underwater hockey [19:21] - Building through a bear market and why focus matters more than funds [22:41] - The toughest trade-offs of maintaining a singular focus on Solana's performance [25:58] - The importance of censorship resistance and information symmetry [31:52] - The engineering mindset of building something useful [32:47] - What excites Anatoly about the super connected world Solana seeks to enable [36:45] - Advice for aspiring young founders on starting companies and biking uphill [41:10] - Anatoly's hope for a decentralized future --- Support the show by checking out my sponsors: Join Levels and get personalized insights to learn about your metabolic health. Go to https://levels.link/jake. --- https://homeofjake.com

In weekly Episode 25, Syed starts out with his tech and infosec update highlighted by the news of Blue Origin auctions seat on the first spaceflight with Jeff Bezos for $28 million, and Hackers being able to Exploit Samsung Pre-Installed Apps to Spy on you!!  Next,  Syed talks about Solanax, which is a DEX set to come out on the Solana blockchain.  The crew then transitions into Bitcoin vs Ethereum. Deepak highlights the taproot update for bitcoin in detail, while Syed dives deep into ETH 2.0. To end off this segment, the crew compares the BTC vs ETH charts.  Deepak transitions into the CPI reports, and what to expect from the G7 Sumit coming up this week.  The crew then go over their stock picks from this week, and give their new picks for this upcoming trading week.  Lastly,  Deepak and Syed announce the winner of the $50 IG gift card giveaway at 50:50. Time 0:00 - Intro / Agenda  1:22 - Blue Origin auctions seat of the first spaceflight with Jeff Bezos 2:11 - Branson's Virgin Orbit SPAC $3 Billion deal to go public 3:07 - Audi, Volkswagen data breach affecting 3.3. million customers   4:20 - Hackers stole Fifa 21 source code 5:05 - Crypto Attacks targeting Kubernetes clusters 5:43- Hackers can exploit Samsung pre-installed Apps to spy on you !!    7:09 - Solana DEX 8:30 - What is Solanax? 9:27 - the objective of Solana DEX 10:17 - Why Solana? 14:10 - Bitcoin vs Ethereum  14:26 - Bitcoin takeover   15:29 - Taproot 18:00 - Bitcoin being accepted by more nations 18:50 - Ethereum 2.0    20:05 - Proof of Stake    20:50 - Sharding  23:26 - Ethereum 2.0 vs Ethereum  25:10 - Security and Scaliabity  of Eth 2.0  27:06 - Taproot vs Ethereum 2.0    28:16 - Ethereum vs Bitcoin charts    30:05 - Marketcap    34:40 - CPI Report  39:44 - G7 Sumit coming up    43:25 - Recapping last week's stock picks   45:47 - Palo Alto Networks (PANW) 47:46 - BetaPro Invevse Bitcoin ETF (BTI) 49:10 - American Express (AXP)   50:50 - $50 Amazon giftcard winner    Resources https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/12/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-auctions-spaceflight-seat-for-28-million.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/12/virgin-orbit-in-talks-with-spac-for-3-billion-deal-to-go-public.html https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/audi-volkswagen-data-breach-affects-33-million-customers/ https://www.wired.com/story/ea-hack-fifa-frostbite-source-code/ https://cyware.com/news/fresh-crypto-attacks-targeting-kubernetes-clusters-d182d04e https://thehackernews.com/2021/06/hackers-can-exploit-samsung-pre.html https://cryptonews.com/news/solanax-fastest-decentralized-exchange-built-on-solana-block-10615.htm https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/10/the-g-7-summit-guide-to-everything-you-need-to-know.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/10/cpi-may-2021.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/12/bitcoin-taproot-upgrade-what-it-means.html