Today we're joined by Mustafa Al-Bassam, CEO and Co-Founder of Celestia Labs. 15 years after Satoshi, we finally have what a blockchain actually is Celestia provides the ability to publish data and make sure that data is available. Celestia had what many are calling one of the best launches of 2023, and they are the first Data Availability Layer live today. In our conversation we get into how Mustafa built Celestia, other Data Availability Layers in the space, how Celestia can be thought of as a bulletin board for computers with some cryptographic and economic assurances - computers posting info so everyone can see it. It's so simple. It's an obvious fundamental building block. Yet they were the first to do it. Prior to Celestia, Mustafa was generally known for his expertise in ethical hacking. He had the US government at the age of 16 and was sentenced for it. We get into this and so much more, but first to ground the conversation, Mustafa shares what he is focused on at Celestia today. 0:00 Intro 1:10 Mustafa Al-Bassam 8:45 Hacking the US Government 10:47 Lazy Ledger 14:13 Colab with Vitalik 16:00 Challenges 18:00 DA and Celestia within Blockchain 19:27 Modular Blockchain 21:54 Monolithic Chains 24:55 Celestia within Cosmos 25:40 Celestia technicals 29:08 Requirements to run a node 35:05 The Graph vs Celestia 36:42 Developer experience 38:23 Starting fresh 40:21 Advice for teams 41:10 Celestia's culture 43:27 Payments 45:10 Decentralized Stablecoins ✨ Check out our new website ✨ https://thedefiant.io/ 🚀 Sign up to our newsletter 🚀 https://thedefiant.io/go-premium#pricing?utm_source=YT&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=signup 🤑 Find DeFi investment opportunities & educational primers here https://thedefiant.io/promo?utm_source=YT&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=alpha ✊ Follow The Defiant Twitter: https://twitter.com/defiantnews Discord: https://discord.com/invite/3SdRdEs5ag Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedefiant.io/ Telegram: https://t.me/DefiantNews 📬 Contact our Newsroom editorial@thedefiant.io 🤝 Sponsorships & Partnerships sponsors@thedefiant.io #TheDefiant​ #DeFi​ #Decentralized​ #Finance​ #Blockchain #Web3

Matt Hougan is the CIO of Bitwise, which is a crypto index fund manager and one of the issuers of Bitcoin ETFs. Hougan is a renowned figure in the financial sector, known for his expertise in cryptocurrency and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). In our conversation we get into Matt's initial reaction to the BTC ETF launch, the expected inflows for 2024, and the often underestimated impacts of these developments. We also discuss unique Vanguard's stance, the evolution of Bitcoin ETFs, why Bitwise maintains the lowest fees, Matt Hougan's background, possibility of Ethereum ETFs, and the growing understanding of Ethereum in traditional finance. Finally, we touch upon the centralization risks of Bitcoin, the future of Bitcoin ETFs, and Bitcoin price forecast. 0:00 Intro 0:46 Initial thoughts on BTC ETF launch 2:17 Inflows for 2024 4:37 Underestimated impact 8:11 Vanguard is goofy 9:40 Self sovereignty 12:30 History of Bitcoin ETFs 16:53 Why Bitwise has the lowest fees 20:20 Matt Hougan's background 23:10 ETF hate 26:45 Crypto ETFs 29:08 Ethereum ETF 31:07 TradFi understand Ethereum better than Bitcoin 36:30 Normalizing Bitcoin 42:00 Centralization risk of Bitcoin 45:47 What's next for Bitcoin ETFs 47:20 We're in a bull market 48:40 Bitcoin price forecast ✨ Check out our new website ✨ https://thedefiant.io/ 🚀 Sign up to our newsletter 🚀 https://thedefiant.io/go-premium#pricing?utm_source=YT&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=signup 🤑 Find DeFi investment opportunities & educational primers here https://thedefiant.io/promo?utm_source=YT&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=alpha ✊ Follow The Defiant Twitter: https://twitter.com/defiantnews Discord: https://discord.com/invite/3SdRdEs5ag Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedefiant.io/ Telegram: https://t.me/DefiantNews 📬 Contact our Newsroom editorial@thedefiant.io 🤝 Sponsorships & Partnerships sponsors@thedefiant.io

Today we're joined by Jason Bailey, Co-Founder and CEO of ClubNFT. ClubNFT provides solutions to help collectors analyze, monitor, and protect their NFT collections. Jason is an O.G. in the NFT space and today he shares many stories from back in the day. He was an early collector on SuperRare. He created the first NFT IRL drop at Christie's art event back in 2018. He'd been Red Pilling traditional art collectors before the term NFT was even coined. In our conversation we get into Jason's background in both art and tech, his views on generative art, as well as a deep dive into ClubNFT and the solutions they help solve for. But first, Jason tells us why he's passionate about the NFT space. Chapters 0:53 Passion for NFTs 2:52 Blockchain x Art 7:22 IRL NFT Airdrop 11:42 TradArt vs Crypto Art 17:20 Problem with NFTs 22:34 Arweave 24:40 ClubNFT 33:28 NFT standards 35:30 NFT culture 41:25 AI 43:39 Hopium for NFT space 48:30 Embracing crypto art 50:55 Imposter syndrome ✨ Check out our new website ✨ https://thedefiant.io/ 🚀 Sign up to our newsletter 🚀 https://thedefiant.io/go-premium#pricing?utm_source=YT&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=signup 🤑 Find DeFi investment opportunities & educational primers here https://thedefiant.io/promo?utm_source=YT&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=alpha ✊ Follow The Defiant Twitter: https://twitter.com/defiantnews Discord: https://discord.com/invite/3SdRdEs5ag Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedefiant.io/ Telegram: https://t.me/DefiantNews 📬 Contact our Newsroom editorial@thedefiant.io 🤝 Sponsorships & Partnerships sponsors@thedefiant.io #TheDefiant​ #DeFi​ #Decentralized​ #Finance​ #Blockchain #Web3

Illia Polosukhin is the Co-Founder of NEAR Protocol, which is a sharded, proof-of-stake, Layer 1 blockchain. Originally conceived as an Artificial Intelligence endeavor, NEAR underwent a transformation, pivoting its focus to become a crypto project. We begin our conversation by exploring NEAR's shift into crypto, and later gain deeper insight into NEAR's core principles, underlying technology, the users, builders, as well as anticipated new features in the near future. Chapters 1:04 Who is Illia Polosukhin? 4:04 NEAR’s design 7:52 Mini Blockchains 9:30 Consensus mechanism 10:29 NEAR token 12:30 Participating in NEAR Network 13:11 Physical shards 18:10 Delegation 19:32 Liquid staking on NEAR 20:50 Goal & Design 26:23 Ideal use cases for NEAR 33:54 Bridging 39:38 Attracting users and builders 44:38 New crosschain mechanism 48:10 Future of Blockchain 54:31 Future of NEAR 59:15 AI run governance ✨ Check out our new website ✨ https://thedefiant.io/ 🚀 Sign up to our newsletter 🚀 https://thedefiant.io/go-premium#pricing?utm_source=YT&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=signup 🤑 Find DeFi investment opportunities & educational primers here https://thedefiant.io/promo?utm_source=YT&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=alpha ✊ Follow The Defiant Twitter: https://twitter.com/defiantnews Discord: https://discord.com/invite/3SdRdEs5ag Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedefiant.io/ Telegram: https://t.me/DefiantNews 📬 Contact our Newsroom editorial@thedefiant.io 🤝 Sponsorships & Partnerships sponsors@thedefiant.io #TheDefiant​ #DeFi​ #Decentralized​ #Finance​ #Blockchain #Web3

Jameson Lopp is the CTO of CasaHODL, a company specializing in Bitcoin security solutions. He has played a pivotal role in developing products and services that empower individuals to safeguard their digital assets. Jameson is a globally recognized voice from his written work on cybersecurity, privacy and the social implementations of Bitcoin. Trigger warning for those in the Ethereum community and beyond as this is a spicy episode that gets gritty with the importance of individual privacy and protecting personal info in the digital age. 0:54 Casa 1:50 The Bitcoin Journey 4:34 Time at BitGo 5:41 Blocksize Wars 9:24 Disappearance of Satoshi 10:49 F*ck You Money 12:17 Bitcoin's major accomplishment 13:12 Why did Bitcoin survive? 14:30 Why did Satoshi not touch his Bitcoin? 17:04 What happens after all Bitcoins are mined? 22:09 Jameson's passion towards crypto 24:10 Bitcoin node syncing 29:50 Decentralization 31:10 Privacy on Bitcoin 32:31 Setting up a home node 33:31 The Swatting Story 43:03 More on Casa 51:36 Self custody 53:10 Casa supporting Ethereum 56:10 Thoughts on Ethereum 59:41 Is $ETH Money? 1:02:06 Bitcoin developers 1:05:06 Evolution of Bitcoin/crypto 1:0838 Bitcoin's Roadmap 1:15:00 How is Jameson Defiant? Our sponsor https://thegraph.com/ ✨ Check out our new website ✨ https://thedefiant.io/ 🚀 Sign up to our newsletter 🚀 https://thedefiant.io/go-premium#pricing?utm_source=YT&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=signup 🤑 Find DeFi investment opportunities & educational primers here https://thedefiant.io/promo?utm_source=YT&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=alpha ✊ Follow The Defiant Twitter: https://twitter.com/defiantnews Discord: https://discord.com/invite/3SdRdEs5ag Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedefiant.io/ Telegram: https://t.me/DefiantNews 📬 Contact our Newsroom editorial@thedefiant.io 🤝 Sponsorships & Partnerships sponsors@thedefiant.io

Chris Bradbury is the CEO of Summer.fi (previously oasis.app). Summer.fi is the 6th largest DeFi protocol that enables users to borrow, lend, and multiply assets across multiple DeFi protocols. In our conversation we dive into the basics of Summer.fi, the rebrand from oasis.app, learn about popular strategies within the platform and their risks, UX updates, competition, and much more. 0:04 Intro to Chris Bradbury 0:50 TL;DR Summer.fi 2:26 Rebrand from oasis.app 9:20 DeFi in one frontend 16:20 Popular DeFi strategies 30:30 Risks of looping strategies 40:40 Risks of leverage 47:40 DeFi vs CeFi 57:26 UX changes coming for summer.fi 1:02:55 Summer.fi competition 1:06:55 noob vs degen 1:09:01 wen token? 1:09:45 Summer.fi in 10 years

Paradigm announces the launch of the Paradigm Policy Lab, a collaborative space for academics, policy experts, lawyers, and technologists in the crypto sector. The lab, a first in the field, focuses on research and analytical thinking applied to policy in the crypto world. Over the last year, Paradigm has become a policy leader, involved in legal battles, hosting discussions, and publishing research. The Policy Lab, guided by three principles, aims to impact the crypto policy landscape through evidence-based advocacy, interdisciplinary research with technical depth, and a commitment to humility, iteration, and crypto expertise.

Matcha recently launched cross-chain swap functionality, allowing users to swap one asset on a particular chain for an new asset on a separate chain with one transaction. Cross-chain swaps on Matcha are available on 7 chains: Ethereum, Optimism, Polygon, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Base and BNB Chain. 1:05 Will's background 4:41 Matcha origin story 8:30 USP of Matcha 11:30 Cross-chain swaps 19:13 Bridge security 25:00 Supported chains 35:40 Mainstream catalyst for DeFi 40:03 Hopes for the upcoming bull 42:42 Biggest learnings of Matcha 44:07 Monetization of Matcha 49:25 Developments and Milestones

Today we're joined by Arjun Bhuptani, founder and CEO of Connext Labs. We get an in-depth look at Connext, an important component in the Web 3 stack. In a world of many Layer 1s and Layer 2s, connecting the chains is so important, especially doing it in a secure way. We get into how they approach security, we dive into the nuance of Vitalik's post on bridging, we talk about rollups-as-a-service, how Connext abstracts away the hassle from a user standpoint around interacting with multiple chains, their proposal for bridged assets, as well as they're recent launch and so much more. But first, Arjun tells us about what he's focused on at Connext. Chapters 0:50 What is Arjun focused on? 1:37 History of Connext 4:26 Arjun's vision on Web3 8:42 Improving UX 12:54 Connext Users 14:55 Bridging 18:05 Where does Connext fit in Web3? 20:25 Connext Security 24:46 Connext Roadmap 27:33 XRC20 32:10 Competition 37:22 $NEXT Launch 40:41 $NEXT Utility 44:23 Connext DAO 46:24 What surprised Arjun the most 49:30 Decentralization 53:08 How is Arjun Defiant? ✨ Check out our new website ✨ https://thedefiant.io/ 🚀 Sign up to our newsletter 🚀 https://thedefiant.io/go-premium#pricing?utm_source=YT&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=signup 🤑 Find DeFi investment opportunities & educational primers here https://thedefiant.io/promo?utm_source=YT&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=alpha ✊ Follow The Defiant Twitter: https://twitter.com/defiantnews Discord: https://discord.com/invite/3SdRdEs5ag Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedefiant.io/ Telegram: https://t.me/DefiantNews 📬 Contact our Newsroom editorial@thedefiant.io 🤝 Sponsorships & Partnerships sponsors@thedefiant.io #TheDefiant​ #DeFi​ #Decentralized​ #Finance​ #Blockchain #Web3

David Gogel is the VP of Strategy and Operations at the dYdX Foundation. In today's podcast, David will discuss the recent milestone of the foundation operating on its independent app chain. This transition involved multiple stages and intriguing tokenomics mechanisms, marking a significant moment for the organization. In our conversation, we will delve deeper into the evolution of this move and its implications, offering insights into dYdX's journey going forward.

This conversation between The Defiant and Rune Christensen was recorded during Devconnect 2023 in Istanbul. Chapters 0:28 Why Rune is in Istanbul 1:02 Crypto Adoption in Türkiye 5:03 Interest for DeFi in Türkiye 8:09 Emerging Markets 10:50 Regulatory Landscape in Türkiye 24:15 MakerDAO Rebrand 27:51 MakerDAO Endgame Update 33:57 MakerDAO's Exposure to T-Bills vs Macro Conditions 38:00 Different Stablecoins 47:14 MKR and Governance

This conversation between The Defiant and Vitalik Buterin was recorded during Devconnect 2023 in Istanbul. Chapters 0:18 First time in Türkiye? 1:20 Significance of crypto in Türkiye 3:40 Key takeaways from Türkiye 4:56 Türkiye as a crypto hub 7:20 Vitalik's favorite Turkish dish 8:25 Ethereum roadmap update 12:03 Can the roadmap be dynamic? 14:25 Dencun upgrade 16:34 Rollup risks & costs 18:25 Scaling rollups 19:30 UX problems 22:27 Ethereum Security 23:25 Solution to centralized servers 26:53 Client centralization 33:18 Scaling with Plasma 39:50 L2 fragmentation 42:02 Sharding / Danksharding 44:40 Future of Ethereum 47:12 Vitalik responds to Anatoly 51:42 Ethereum's core message 56:09 Thoughts on DeFi ✨ Check out our new website ✨ https://thedefiant.io/

The cryptocurrency world has been buzzing with news of a potential Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) in recent weeks. The idea of a Bitcoin ETF has been around since 2013, with early proposals like the one from the Winklevoss twins facing repeated rejections by the SEC. However, the recent optimism stems from BlackRock's involvement in the application process. This prominent financial institution's interest has reignited hope for the ETF's approval and sparked a new rally in the cryptocurrency market. Investors see the ETF as a way to bridge the gap between traditional finance and crypto, potentially increasing Bitcoin's value and adoption. The market eagerly awaits the SEC's decision on BlackRock's application.

This week's podcast features a number of interviews we conducted in Romania, during the xDay conference hosted by MultiversX. In this podcast, we will hear from Beniamin Mincu - founder of MultiversX Bogdan Ivan - Romanian Minister of Digitalization Sheraz Ahmed - Managing Partner at Storm Partners Sunny Aggarwal - Co-Founder of Osmosis Sergiu Biriș - Head of Product at MultiversX Grigore Rosu - Founder of Runtime Verification Danilo Carlucci - Founder and CEO of Morningstar Ventures. In this episode, we discuss the current state of MultiversX and the transition from Elrond, crypto adoption in Romania, Universal zkRollups and its benefits, upcoming trends and narratives, challenges lying ahead for MultiversX, and much more. But first, Beniamin will introduce us to xDay.

Darren Langley is the general manager of Rocket Pool which provides liquid staking services for ETH holders. Liquid staking on Ethereum has been a major trend this year as it enables ETH holders to earn rewards by staking on the Ethereum network while additionally allowing stakers to seek financial opportunities with their staked ETH. In our conversation, we will get into the Rocket Pool story since their ICO, details of what it takes to become an Ethereum validator and node operator, the utility of their native token, the issue of centralization among liquid staking protocols, and more. But first, Darren will begin with an introduction to Rocket Pool.

Lucas Vogelsang is the founder of Centrifuge, a credit platform that brings Real World Assets onchain. Real World Assets (RWAs) have been a growing sector in DeFi over the last year. In our conversation, we’ll talk about how RWAs bridge the gap between tradfi and DeFi, how the process of beginning on institutional lenders and matching with real-life borrowers works, what protections are in place in case of loan defaults, and what the future looks like for this sector. But first, Lucas will provide an overview of Centrifuge.

Alex Shevchenko is the CEO of Aurora Labs, which is a Layer 2 scaling solution built on Near. Alex has a doctoral degree in math and physics. Today, we get into the details behind Aurora Labs, the difference between Aurora Cloud and the Aurora EVM, how they have survived the market crash, Alex's vision of Ethereum Layer 2s, his conviction in an AppChain future, and so much more. We begin our conversation with Alex's focus at Aurora Labs.

Today we're diving deep into the mind of Spencer Bogart, who is a partner at Blockchain Capital. Spencer has played a pivotal role in shaping the landscape of decentralized technologies and digital assets over the last decade. We get into his journey impact in the blockchain sector, their investment thesis around the controversial WorldCoin, how he's continued to thrive among many economic downturns, and we get into their recent news of a $580 million for two new funds. But first, Spencer tells us about the history of the firm.

This week, we were joined by Christian Montoya, Senior Product Manager for Metamask Snaps Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments. Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts. Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Erik Marks is the director of product for permissionless innovation at MetaMask. MetaMask, the popular non-custodial wallet owned by Consensys, has been in the spotlight following the launch of Snaps on open beta. You can think of Snaps as plugins that allow developers to add new and different apps that we can use in MetaMask. One of the biggest implications of this is that Snaps will connect MetaMask to non-Ethereum chains, including Bitcoin and Solana. In our conversation, we dive deep into the vision and the broader implications of Snaps.

Sean Li is the CEO and Co-founder of Magic Labs, which is a wallet that enables passwordless login and Web3 onboarding without seed phrases. Despite not being as well known as other Web3 wallets, Magic Labs recently raised $52M from PayPal Ventures, onboarded mainstream brands like Mattel and 7-Eleven, and have over 25 million wallets installed. In our conversation, we will dive into how they've built enterprise-friendly wallet solutions, their major collaborations, the onboarding process of Web2 brands and how they're using Web3 technology, how DeFi can be more palatable for the mainstream, and much more. But first, Sean will get us started with Magic and describe how it's different from the other wallets. This episode is brought to you by: Bumper: Defend your crypto from market crashes & downside volatility

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments. Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts. Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

This week, we were joined by Will Warren and Ashley Ebersole from 0x to discuss the CFTC's recent enforcement actions against three DeFi protocols. Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments. Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts. Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

This week, we were joined by Anatoly Yakovenko, founder and CEO of Solana. Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments. Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts. Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments. Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts. Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

In this episode of The Defiant podcast, we are joined by Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino. We discuss Tether's banking partners, its reserve composition, its latest attestation, and why the stablecoin issuer still hasn't presented an audit. Ardoino puts some of the blame on auditing firms.

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments. Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts. Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Today we're joined by the driving force behind a venture that has redefined the concept of modern travel and community: Jon Hillis, the founder of Cabin, a network city for remote workers in nature, who is actively working to grow a global network of neighborhoods for people interested in community-centric living and working. Cabin exists today and they have many different locations around the world. Cabin is a great example of merging the digital with the physical and using Web 3 tools in real life. We delve into the purpose behind Cabin, how the COVID lockdowns inspired and allowed room for a Cabin to emerge, the shift in the remote work mindset, the different governance structures that exist within the DAO ecosystem, why Cabin chose polycentric governance, the best DAO practices, how you can get involved in Cabin communities and so much more. But first, Jon will introduce us to Cabin.

This week, we dived into liquid staking and LSTFi, which has been the hottest narrative of 2023. With special guests: Amit Gajjala - cofounder, Stader Labs Daniel Dizon - founder, Swell Network Ken Chia - institutional sales, Pendle Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments. Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts. Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Jesse Pollak is the creator of Base, which is a Layer 2 scaling solution from Coinbase that launched last week. Base has quickly become a trending topic this summer, attracting more than $200M of value in its short life. Coinbase is the world’s second-largest crypto centralized exchange by volume, and now it’s moving to the on-chain world, so it’s worth watching. In our conversation, we dive into the origin story of Base, why opt for a Layer 2 and not start a new Layer 1, why go for Optimistic rollups, how Base is unique in the already crowded Layer 2 space, their decentralization road map and more.

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments. Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts. Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Today we are joined by Erick Calderon, founder of Art Blocks. You may also know him as Snowfro. Erick is not only a talented artist but also a tech innovator and entrepreneur who has redefined the limits of artistic expression in the digital era. Today we get into how Art Blocks fosters creativity and community via the platform, how they differ from other projects, Erick's views on why you should even buy art in the first place, as well as his passion for generative art and decentralization. We also get into his views on the NFT market fluctuations and he shares a bit about the community of curators that are curating art on Art Blocks and how you can get involved there. But first, Erick will begin by telling us about his crypto origin story and early involvement in the Crypto Punks community.

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments. Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts. Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments. Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts. Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments. Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts. Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Aya Kantorovich is the co-CEO and co-founder of Fractal, which is an infrastructure provider enabling institutions to clear, settle, and margin digital asset trades on-chain. In today's podcast, Aya shares her founder journey at Fractal, the impact of the FTX collapse on institutional players, DeFi growth since many CeFi companies imploded, how Fractal is red-pilling institutions, as well as her prediction on how many institutions will be cosseting crypto and having tokens on the balance sheet in 5 to 10 years time and so much more. But first, Aya tells us about her crypto journey thus far.

Nicolas Liochon is the Global Lead for Linea, which is a new zkEVM rollup by Consensys. Rollups play a crucial role in scaling Ethereum as they reduce computational load on the main network by processing transactions off-chain. The two prominent rollups currently available on Ethereum are ZK Rollups and Optimistic Rollups, and Linea is the latest ZK Rollup to launch. In our conversation, we will explore how Linea sets itself apart in the already highly competitive Ethereum Layer 2 landscape. But first, we will begin our conversation with an introduction to Linea.

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments. Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts. Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Mike Silagadze is the founder and CEO of ether.fi, which is a new player in ethereum staking space, which allows stakers to control their keys while delegating their stake. A reminder that Ethereum now runs on Proof of Stake, which requires users to deposit, or stake, their ETH. Ethereum’s Shapella upgrade introduced the ability for early stakers to withdraw their ETH, which made Ethereum staking and the projects around it one of the hottest themes of crypto this year. Tokens that function as a receipt of staked ETH, called Liquid Staking Tokens, grew in popularity, as did concerns about centralization. We will begin our conversation with an introduction to ether.fi, followed by their differentiation in the already competitive liquid staking sphere. Thanking our podcast sponsors: Parcl is the decentralized real estate trading platform that is making it easier to get exposure to global real estate. For a limited time get 10% back on your first trade. Arch, the crypto asset management platform that helps you maximize returns with diversified and gas-efficient investment strategies. Learn more at https://www.arch.finance/best-of-web3. IPOR Protocol, the home of interest rate benchmarks, derivatives, structured products, and some of the best stablecoin yields in DeFi.

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments. Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts. Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Neal Gorevic is the Chief Marketing Officer at ConsenSys, which drives Ethereum ecosystem development. ConsenSys is behind key pieces of Ethereum infrastructure, including Metamask and Infura. In today's podcast, Neal discusses his transition from web2 marketing at Spotify, to web3 marketing. He goes into why ConsenSys is rebranding and provides insights into the strategic vision for the company. But first, we begin our conversation with an introduction on why Neal decided to make the jump to crypto. Thanking our podcast sponsors: Parcl, the decentralized real estate trading platform is making it easier to get exposure to global real estate. For a limited time get 10% back on your first trade. Asymetrix, a decentralized, non-custodial protocol offering asymmetric yield distribution from staking. Stake your ETH for a chance to reap substantial staking rewards, while always earning ASX tokens at a solid 20% APR, no matter the outcome. Arch, crypto asset management platform that helps you maximize returns with diversified and gas-efficient investment strategies. Learn more at https://www.arch.finance/best-of-web3 IPOR Protocol, the home of interest rate benchmarks, derivatives, structured products, and some of the best stablecoin yields in DeFi.

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments. Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts. Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Today, we're joined by Caitlin Long, the founder and CEO of Custodia Bank, which provides payment rails and custody services for digital assets. We explore the recent surge of institutional interest in crypto, regulatory pressure in the US, and whether US regulators are prioritizing investor protection or incumbent interest. But first, we start by delving into Caitlin's journey as an early adopter of blockchain tech.

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments. Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts. Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Today we're joined by Coinbase's head of cryptography, Yehuda Lindell. He has big news to share as Coinbase just released WaaS which is an MPC wallet. Some are calling this one of the most exciting products from Coinbase yet. Yehuda has an impressive track record. He's a former professor and the former CEO of Unbound Tech, a cybersecurity company specializing in privacy and key management solutions. Unbound Tech, the company Yehuda co-founded, was acquired by Coinbase. Yehuda leads the cryptography team at Coinbase, driving innovation in the field of secure computation and increased privacy and data security. On today's podcast, we dive into the cryptography team at Coinbase, the new innovative wallet that might just be the key to mass adoption for crypto, bringing self-custody to the masses where we're expecting tech giants to jump on this new wallet opportunity, how WaaS compares to holding crypto on exchanges and Multisigs, Coinbase Self-Custody and beyond. We also get into Yehuda’s advice for aspiring cryptographers and so much more. But first, Yehuda tells us what he's focused on inside of Coinbase.

Today we are joined by Alex Gluchowski, the co-founder and CEO of Matter Labs. Matter Labs is the initial team behind zkSync. Alex is a renowned physicist and entrepreneur. Today we dive into the founding story of zkSync, the launch of zkSync, why they chose to help scale Ethereum, and if they stand by that decision today, the zkSync mission, alpha around getting into zkSync today, when token, as well as new use cases on zkSync and so much more. But first, Alex is going to tell us the founding story of zkSync

Steven Goldfeder is the founder of OffChain Labs. OffChain Labs is a company focused on Ethereum scaling solutions and known primarily for building Arbitrum, which is currently Ethereum's biggest Layer 2. In our conversation, Steven will explain how OffChain Labs is addressing the scalability challenges of Ethereum by utilizing off-chain computation and optimistic rollups. We get into the Arbitrum airdrop, its governance drama, the big vision for Arbitrum and Layer 2s as a whole, and what the next milestones are for the scaling solution. But first, Steven starts the interview by explaining the basics of Arbitrum.

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments. Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts. Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments. Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts. Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Today we are joined by the cofounding forces behind Goldfinch, Blake West and Mike Sall. They share with us about what they learned from over 70 user interviews from everyone from Blackrock, Apollo to retired nurses, as well as their excitement around the user experience improvements for the entire Web3 and crypto space and how that UX and UI improvement will impact the Goldfinch Protocol. They also dive into how they saw 162% year-over-year growth in 2022 with no defaults. Blake and Mike give us insight into their thoughts on how crypto will reshape the global economy, expanding access to capital around the world and what they're building to make that possible. But first they give us the TL;DR of Goldfinch as well as what they're both focused on.

Today we're joined by Jacob and Marcin, co-founders of RedStone. RedStone is an oracle in the crypto space picking up steam. We get into the nitty-gritty details of oracles, how RedStone is going up against the oracle monolith Chainlink, how they differentiate, and they share an exclusive update with us. But first, we begin with Jakub and Marcin's introductions and what they're working on inside of RedStone.

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments. Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts. Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

This week's episode stars Mihailo Bjelic, co-founder of Polygon. We get into the juicy details behind what went on with the zkEVM launch a few months back, Mihailo’s thesis on Layer 3’s, how Polygon secured brand deals with the NFL, Starbucks and others, and what he's most excited about in 2023. But first, Mihailo shares what he's been focused on at Polygon.

Taylor Monahan is the founder of MyCrypto, an Ethereum wallet, and today she’s helping build MetaMask. As part of her job, she has become a full-time blockchain detective. She’s also a character in my book, The Infinite Machine! Taylor is the first one who alerted us to the fact that in the past several months, a mysterious hack has taken over crypto wallets, draining $10 million worth of ether from OGs in the space. We begin our conversation with Taylor breaking down the hack from the beginning and also the latest in this saga. Then we go over her own, long history in the space, she gives risk management advice for crypto users and developers, and ponders some deep questions on whether code is law and whether DeFi should really be immutable. 🙏 Thanking our podcast sponsor: Stader Labs, a multi-chain liquid staking platform with 40k+ DeFi partnerships across 6 chains, is coming to Ethereum soon. Sign up to get alpha on ETHx—their ETH LST. Be the first to know about $1M in DeFi rewards!

The Weekly Recap is where The Defiant reporters discuss the week's hottest news and share further insights from our reports. It goes live on our YouTube channel every Friday at 1200 ET. Remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with our latest videos!

Today we are joined by the all-around dev phenomenon Nader Dabit. Nader has become a household name across the developer community with his combination of to-the-point tutorials, live coding demos and interviews focused on modern web development, Web 3, AI, cloud computing and more. He's always learning and experimenting in public. Nader is currently the Director of Dev Relations at Aave/Lens. Today, he'll get to do some details behind his journey into Web 3 starting with The Graph, decentralized social media, the devs building on the Lens Protocol, Lens infrastructure and he'll give us a mini deep dive into gasless transactions via Lens. But first, Nader tells us about what it was like being early to AWS before he made his switch into Web 3 full-time. 🙏 Thanking our podcast sponsors: Stader Labs, a multi-chain liquid staking platform with 40k+ DeFi partnerships across 6 chains, is coming to Ethereum soon. Sign up to get alpha on ETHx—their ETH LST. Be the first to know about $1M in DeFi rewards!

Today we are joined by the ma behind ENS - the Ethereum Name Service. Since we last chatted with Nick in 2021, he has made ENS a household name across the crypto industry and beyond. Nick and I get into the details behind the ENS roadmap, including the latest V3 announcement, what it was like for Nick to go from Google to the Ethereum Foundation to founding ENS, and the inside scoop on last year's drama with Brantly and the current culture at ENS and so much more. But first, Nick is going to tell us the founding story of ENS and how he managed to go from Google to Ethereum to founding ENS. 🙏 Thanking our podcast sponsors: Stader Labs, a multi-chain liquid staking platform with 40k+ DeFi partnerships across 6 chains, is coming to Ethereum soon. Sign up to get alpha on ETHx—their ETH LST. Be the first to know about $1M in DeFi rewards!

Sidney Powell is the co-founder and CEO of Maple Finance. Maple is a DeFi platform that offers uncollateralized loans and facilitates interactions between institutional borrowers and lenders. In our conversation we dive into Sidney’s background, how uncollateralized loans work, how the bear market affected Maple, the benefits of blockchain-based financial systems and more. We begin our conversation with Sidney giving us an intro to Maple Finance. Also, if you’d like to have a say in The Defiant Podcast, and ask questions to the following guests, please join our discord channel or sign-up for a Premium account, by following this link. 🙏 Thanking our podcast sponsors: Stader Labs is a non-custodial multi-chain liquid staking platform with 40k+ DeFi partnerships across 6 chains. Sign-up for our ETHx alpha list today and be the first to know about $1M in DeFi rewards! This episode is brought to you by Silo Finance, the risk-isolated lending market on Ethereum and Arbitrum. Lend and Borrow your favorite crypto without compromising on security. Learn more: https://silopedia.silo.finance/welcome/what-is-silo-finance

Harsh Rajat is the founder of Push Protocol and a leading figure in the world of decentralized messaging. Push Protocol is a messaging protocol that utilizes the power of decentralized networks to create secure, private, and efficient communication between dApps and Web3 users. In our conversation we dive into Harsh’s background, the founding story of Push Protocol, their business model, the intersection of Web3 and AI, challenges in Web3 UX, and more. We begin our conversation with an introduction to Push Protocol from Harsh. 🙏 Thanking our podcast sponsors: This episode is brought to you by Silo Finance, the risk-isolated lending market on Ethereum and Arbitrum. Lend and Borrow your favorite crypto without compromising on security. Learn more: https://silopedia.silo.finance/welcome/what-is-silo-finance

The Weekly Recap is where The Defiant reporters discuss the week's hottest news and share further insights from our reports. It goes live on our YouTube channel every Friday at 1200 ET. Remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with our latest videos!

The Weekly Recap is where The Defiant reporters discuss the week's hottest news and share further insights from our reports. It goes live on our YouTube channel every Friday at 1200 ET. Remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with our latest videos!

Today we are joined by the dynamic Ethereum KZG Ceremony Duo, Carl and Trent of the Ethereum Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting Ethereum and related technologies. With Carl and Trent, we dive into the KZG ceremony, why it's important for scaling Ethereum, the ETH roadmap, demystify jargon like Dank Sharding, IP 4844, and we talk about the culture of the Ethereum Foundation, why Ethereum has become a bit more adversarial with time, how they plan to continue scaling without sacrificing decentralization or censorship resistance and so much more. But first, they tell us their origin stories about entering crypto, why they joined Ethereum and what they're focused on today. Timestamps00:00 Crypto Journey04:57 Ethereum Foundation Work Culture08:08 Question from a Twitter follower11:30 Near and Long-term Roadmap18:06 Next Steps25:41 Question from a Twitter follower28:55 EIP-484431:58 Danksharding33:31 Staking Withdraws36:47 ETH Governance41:44 Proposer Builder Separation45:42 Single Slot Finality49:17 Use Cases55:33 Impact Thanking our podcast sponsors: This episode is brought to you by Silo Finance, the risk-isolated lending market on Ethereum and Arbitrum. Lend and Borrow your favorite crypto without compromising on security. Learn more: https://silopedia.silo.finance/welcome/what-is-silo-finance web3 with a16z is a chart-topping podcast about the next generation of the internet, from a16z crypto. Click here to listen now.

The Weekly Recap is where The Defiant reporters discuss the week's hottest news and share further insights from our reports. It goes live on our YouTube channel every Friday at 1200 ET. Remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with our latest videos!

This week on The Defiant Podcast, Camila Russo chats with Dan Finlay, the co-founder of MetaMask - one of the leading Web3 wallets. In our conversation, we dive into Dan’s background prior to co-founding MetaMask, where Dan sees MetaMask heading in the upcoming years, their privacy policies, a potential MASK token, and much more. Dan shares his hopes and dreams for the next bull run. But first, Dan tells us the origin story of MetaMask. Thanking our podcast sponsors: This episode is brought to you by Silo Finance, the risk-isolated lending market on Ethereum and Arbitrum. Lend and Borrow your favorite crypto without compromising on security. Learn more: https://silopedia.silo.finance/welcome/what-is-silo-finance web3 with a16z is a chart-topping podcast about the next generation of the internet, from a16z crypto. Click here to listen now. This episode is brought to you by Orbs Layer-3. Trade DeFi like a pro using decentralized TWAP order type on SpookySwap, SpiritSwap, and Pangolin. Learn more: https://www.orbs.com/dtwap/

The Weekly Recap is where The Defiant reporters discuss the week's hottest news and share further insights from our reports. It goes live on our YouTube channel every Friday at 1200 ET. Remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with our latest videos!

This week on The Defiant podcast, Tegan Kline hosts Jesse Pollak, senior director of Engineering at Coinbase, Eva Beylin, the director of the Graph Foundation, and Ben Jones, the director of the Optimism Foundation, to give us a deep dive into the launch of Base, Coinbase's recently-launched Layer 2 blockchain. Base is an Ethereum Layer two that offers a secure, low-cost, developer-friendly way for anyone anywhere to build decentralized applications. In this episode, we talk about the evolution of Base from inside a Fortune 500 company, the importance of decentralized tools like the Graph and Optimism, and the importance of thinking positive sum, not zero-sum. Jesse discusses decentralization inside a centralized company and how Coinbase plans to onboard millions of dapps and a billion users. Thanking our podcast sponsors: web3 with a16z is a chart-topping podcast about the next generation of the internet, from a16z crypto. Click here to listen now. This episode is brought to you by Orbs Layer-3. Trade DeFi like a pro using decentralized TWAP order type on SpookySwap, SpiritSwap, and Pangolin. Learn more: https://www.orbs.com/dtwap/

The Weekly Recap is where The Defiant reporters discuss the week's hottest news and share further insights from our reports. It goes live on our YouTube channel every Friday at 1230 ET. Remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with our latest videos!

This week on The Defiant Podcast, Tegan Kline chats with Sreeram Kannan, the founder of Eigen Layer and the director of the University of Washington's Blockchain Lab. His research at UW focuses on distributed computing, information theory, queuing theory, networking, coding theory, and game theory of blockchain systems.  Eigen Layer is a proof of stake validation marketplace that reuses state capital and existing validation infrastructure. With Eigen Layer. Ethereum can enable permissionless and modular innovation across all blockchain layers.   Today, we dive into Sreeram's background in academia, how the blockchain space piqued his interest, and the hype around Eigen Layer.  But first, Sreeram is going to tell us exactly what he's up to at Eigen Layer and how he merges both a data availability layer and a restaking platform. Thanking our podcast sponsors: MetaMask Learn is an educational and entertaining platform designed to immerse you in the world of web3: what it is, why it matters, and how to get started. You will learn core concepts in visually engaging lessons from the world’s leading self-custodial wallet. web3 with a16z is a chart-topping podcast about the next generation of the internet, from a16z crypto. Click here to listen now.

This week on The Defiant Podcast, Camila Russo chats with Matthew Gould, the founder and CEO of Unstoppable Domains. Unstoppable Domains is a service that facilitates the creation of blockchain-based domains that users own to build and verify their digital identity and login into applications, games, metaverses, and much more. In our conversation, we unpack the concept of digital identity in Web3 and discuss where the market is headed. But first, Matthew explains the importance of having a blockchain-based domain name service. This episode is brought to you by: MetaMask Learn : an educational and entertaining platform designed to immerse you in the world of web3: what it is, why it matters, and how to get started. You will learn core concepts in visually engaging lessons from the world’s leading self-custodial wallet.

The Weekly Recap is where The Defiant reporters discuss the week's hottest news and share further insights from our reports. It goes live on our YouTube channel every Friday at 1230 ET. Remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with our latest videos!

This week on The Defiant Podcast, Tegan Kline chats with Kain Warwick, crypto OG and founder of Synthetix. Synthetix is a new financial primitive enabling the creation of synthetic assets, offering unique derivatives and exposure to real-world assets on the blockchain.  Today, we dive into what's next for Synthetix with the latest V3 launch, and what will cause the next big leg up in DeFi - what we’re calling DeFi Summer 2.  We go on to discuss the differentiation between different perpetual products that exist in crypto, and how Synthetix made the decision to launch on a Layer 2 so quickly and burn all bridges behind them. And it gets pretty spicy with some tea on FTX and 3AC.  Before we dive into it, Kain tells us what he's been up to since we last spoke to him about what it takes to scale Ethereum.

This week on The Defiant Podcast, Camila Russo chats with Andre Cronje, the co-founder of Fantom, a Layer 1 blockchain, and also the founder of Yearn Finance, one of the first yield aggregators in DeFi.  Andre is certainly a key figure in the DeFi space who, at times, has been seen as a rockstar, and also been criticized for his controversial takes.  We start by talking about Andre’s backstory: How did he get into crypto in the first place, and why did he decide to build in DeFi? Thanking our podcast sponsors: MetaMask Learn is an educational and entertaining platform designed to immerse you in the world of web3: what it is, why it matters, and how to get started. You will learn core concepts in visually engaging lessons from the world’s leading self-custodial wallet. Store your tokens safely. Go self-custodial with 1inch Wallet.

The Weekly Recap is where The Defiant reporters discuss the hottest news of the week and share further insights from our reports. It goes live on our YouTube channel every Friday at 1230 ET. Remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with our latest videos!

The Weekly Recap is where The Defiant reporters discuss the hottest news of the week and share further insights from our reports.  It goes live on our YouTube channel every Friday at 1230 ET.  Make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with our latest videos!

This week on The Defiant Podcast, we speak with Tekin Salimi, the founder of dao5, a Web 3 investment fund founded last year. Tekin was previously at Polychain Capital.  Dao5 is an experimental cryptocurrency investment fund with plans to convert into a decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO.  We dive into the biggest DAO drama from the last year, why Tekin is so bullish and excited about DAOs.  We also discuss Tekin's investment thesis while he was at Polychain, his switch to focus mostly on the Ethereum ecosystem at dao5, Web 3 infrastructure, NFTs, regulations, his thoughts on FTX, and so much more. Thanking our podcast sponsors: This episode is brought to you by the Glo dollar, a new stablecoin that reduces extreme poverty as its market cap goes up. With Glo, you can lift people out of poverty just by holding a stablecoin. To join the waitlist, visit https://www.glodollar.org/defiant Store your tokens safely. Go self-custodial with 1inch Wallet.

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

Microsoft is a Web2 giant producing software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services. Yorke shares his experience working at Microsoft in a strategy and transformation role in blockchain and Web3 technology, specifically focusing on producing a blockchain-based full-stack application within one of the largest supply chains in the world. We dive into what Microsoft is doing within the blockchain space, how Microsoft is using NFTs internally, and the use-cases of Ethereum and IPFS inside the company. We also talk about the different CEOs that have led Microsoft over the years and even get into the rumors of Google choosing their slogan "Don’t Be Evil" because of Microsoft. Thanking our podcast sponsors: This episode is brought to you by the Glo dollar, a new stablecoin that reduces extreme poverty as its market cap goes up. With Glo, you can lift people out of poverty just by holding a stablecoin. To join the waitlist, visit https://www.glodollar.org/defiant Store your tokens safely. Go self-custodial with 1inch Wallet.

Dear Defiers, In addition to our weekly podcast series, we are happy to now bring our Weekly Recap show to all podcast platforms. Weekly Recap is a show where we discuss the hottest news of the week together with The Defiant writers and share further insights from our reports. It goes live on our YouTube channel every Friday. In this week's recap, we discussed SBF getting bailed out of jail, stablecoin adoption, Visa's plans for non-custodial auto-payments, and more. Hope you enjoy it! Also, a quick side note, make sure to check out our YouTube channel to keep up with our regular uploads on DeFi news, market updates, monthly investigations and more to come soon.

This week on The Defiant Podcast, we speak with Adam Cochran, an investor at Cinneamhain Ventures, who's probably most known for his extensive Twitter threads. We kick off our conversation by asking Adam if he expected to turn into a meme in the crypto community for his long-winded tweets. The primary driver behind crypto this year has been traditional macro markets. Crypto markets have been at the mercy of inflation and rising interest rates and the FED recently raised interest rates by half a point. Adam talks about where he thinks rates and inflation are headed and how will that impact crypto. The coins mentioned on Adam’s shopping list from December 2021 have approximately lost 80% of their value this year. For comparison, Bitcoin has dropped 60%. We talk about the thesis behind the list and whether he’s changing it for next year.  Adam says that he adjusted to the market conditions and had been shorting throughout the year, compensating for some of his long positions. Finally, Adam shares some trade ideas for 2023. Thanking our podcast sponsors: Built by the team behind Avalanche, Core is an all-in-one command center for Web3 supporting Avalanche, Ethereum, and Bitcoin, a rich ecosystem of dApps, Bitcoin & Ethereum bridges, NFTs, Subnets, and more. Visit core.app to download now. Minima is a new mobile-native layer 1 blockchain. Join over 400,000 node runners on Minima's Incentive Program, to start earning $MINIMA every day until Mainnet launch. Get started at minima.global/get-involved  This episode is brought to you by the Glo dollar, a new stablecoin that reduces extreme poverty as its market cap goes up. With Glo, you can lift people out of poverty just by holding a stablecoin. To join the waitlist, visit https://www.glodollar.org/defiant

Dear Defiers, In addition to our weekly podcast series, we are happy to now bring our Weekly Recap show to all podcast platforms. Weekly Recap is a show where we discuss the hottest news of the week together with The Defiant writers and share further insights from our reports. It goes live on our YouTube channel every Friday. In this week's recap, we discussed SBF getting arrested, the Binance investigation, Trump NFTs and more. Hope you enjoy it! Also, a quick side note, make sure to check out our YouTube channel to keep up with our regular uploads on DeFi news, market updates, monthly investigations and more to come soon.

This week on The Defiant Podcast, we speak with Mike Belshe, the CEO of BitGo, a digital asset custodian, wallet, and issuer of wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC). We start our conversation with an overview of BitGo and Mike's crypto journey. Wrapped Bitcoin is the most successful representation of Bitcoin on Ethereum. There’s about 200K Bitcoin in BitGo's custody, which is the equivalent of $3.4B. WBTC is an important piece of the ecosystem as it enables Bitcoin holders to interact with DeFi. We dive into the recent selloff that saw WBTC lose its peg to Bitcoin. In the final part of our conversation, we discuss the role of custodians in the crypto space. Especially after what happened this year with FTX and various other centralized entities, crypto has been given a wake-up call to bring transparency and disclosures to CeFi. We explore the biggest lessons we can take away from this year. Thanking our podcast sponsors: Built by the team behind Avalanche, Core is an all-in-one command center for Web3 supporting Avalanche, Ethereum, and Bitcoin, a rich ecosystem of dApps, Bitcoin & Ethereum bridges, NFTs, Subnets, and more. Visit core.app to download now. Minima is a new mobile-native layer 1 blockchain. Join over 400,000 node runners on Minima’s Incentive Program, to start earning $MINIMA every day until Mainnet launch. Get started at minima.global/get-involved  Railway is the first DeFi wallet to integrate the powerful RAILGUN privacy system built using zero-knowledge cryptography and available on Ethereum, BSC, and Polygon.

Dear Defiers,  In addition to our weekly podcast series, we are happy to now bring our Weekly Recap show to all podcast platforms. Weekly Recap is a show where we discuss the hottest news of the week together with The Defiant writers and share further insights from our reports. It goes live on our YouTube channel every Friday.  In this week's recap, we discussed SBF agreeing to testify before Congress, Vitalik's favorite things, Apecoin and Link staking, and the Ethereum roadmap.  Hope you enjoy it! Also, a quick side note, make sure to check out our YouTube channel to keep up with our regular uploads on DeFi news, market updates, monthly investigations and more to come soon.

This week on The Defiant Podcast, we speak with Sam Williams, the co-founder and CEO of Arweave, a 'collectively owned hard drive' that enables users to store data, applications, and documents on-chain, forever. We start by learning about Sam's crypto journey, from discovering Bitcoin in 2010 and going on to invest in the Ethereum ICO and finally, starting Arweave. Sam thinks we're seeing a renewed focus on decentralization as the debate over censoring transactions continues. He believes it's essential to keep a neutral historical record that future generations can learn from. We go on to dive into the varied use cases of Arweave, what Sam says to those that say Arweave might be too expensive to store certain files, how Arweave is used to store NFTs so that they can live forever, and how you can earn money with Arweave. Thanking our podcast sponsors: Built by the team behind Avalanche, Core is an all-in-one command center for Web3 supporting Avalanche, Ethereum, and Bitcoin, a rich ecosystem of dApps, Bitcoin & Ethereum bridges, NFTs, Subnets, and more. Visit core.app to download now. Minima is a new mobile-native layer 1 blockchain. Join over 400,000 node runners on Minima's Incentive Program, to start earning $MINIMA every day until Mainnet launch. Get started at minima.global/get-involved  Railway is the first DeFi wallet to integrate the powerful RAILGUN privacy system built using zero-knowledge cryptography and available on Ethereum, BSC, and Polygon.

Dear Defiers,  In addition to our weekly podcast series, we are happy to now bring our Weekly Recap show to all podcast platforms. Weekly Recap is a show where we discuss the hottest news of the week together with The Defiant writers and share further insights from our reports. It goes live on our YouTube channel every Friday.  In this week's recap, we discussed SBF's recent public appearances, the ongoing manhunt in The Bahamas, Uniswap’s NFT marketplace and more. Hope you enjoy it.  Also, a quick side note, make sure to check out our YouTube channel to keep up with our regular uploads on DeFi news, market updates, monthly investigations and more to come soon.

This week on The Defiant Podcast, we speak with Juan Benet, the founder of Protocol Labs and the inventor of the InterPlanetary File System. Juan is also the creator of Filecoin, a storage network incentivized by crypto. Both of Juan’s ventures are hugely ambitious as they are in direct competition with the basic rails of the internet, with protocols such as HTTP and data giants like AWS. We begin our conversation with Juan explaining what led him to start IPFS and Filecoin. Juan points out that all of the layers of the internet that run below the application layer, rely on trust. He believes that the promise of web3 is to be able to upgrade the whole stack with trust-minimized public verifiability primitives. One of the key innovations of IPFS is in data addressing, which increases the efficiency of data fetching. But there’s more to IPFS than just this, and we talk about some of the other features of IPFS. Juan says universities would be a good next step to expand the user base of Filecoin since they deal with large amounts of data and run intensive computations. We go on to discuss Filecoin's plans to encourage the adoption of its technology beyond web3 users. Thanking our podcast sponsors: Built by the team behind Avalanche, Core is an all-in-one command center for Web3 supporting Avalanche, Ethereum, and Bitcoin, a rich ecosystem of dApps, Bitcoin & Ethereum bridges, NFTs, Subnets, and more. Visit core.app to download now. Minima is a new mobile-native layer 1 blockchain. Join over 400,000 node runners on Minima's Incentive Program, to start earning $MINIMA every day until Mainnet launch. Get started at minima.global/get-involved  Railway is the first DeFi wallet to integrate the powerful RAILGUN privacy system built using zero-knowledge cryptography and available on Ethereum, BSC, and Polygon.

Dear Defiers,  In addition to our weekly podcast series, we are happy to now bring our Weekly Recap show to all podcast platforms.  Weekly Recap is a show where we discuss the hottest news of the week together with The Defiant writers and share further insights from our reports. It goes live on our YouTube channel every Friday.  In this week's recap, we went through all the latest on FTX, discussed MetaMask collecting user addresses, update on arrested Tornado Cash developer and more. Hope you enjoy it!  Also, a quick side note, make sure to check out our YouTube channel to keep up with our regular uploads on DeFi news, market updates, monthly investigations and more to come soon.

This week on The Defiant Podcast, Tegan Kline speaks with Bogdan Alexandrescu, co-founder and VP of Engineering at SAGA. SAGA is focused on lowering the barrier of entry for building in Web3 so that developers can spin up a blockchain in a single click, and the company places emphasis on the metaverse. In this conversation, we dive deep into Bogdan’s departure from Apple after six years to work full-time in crypto, any advice that he has for anyone looking to make a similar switch, what the metaverse is, more about SAGA, and the current innovator program they’re running.

Dear Defiers,  In addition to our weekly podcast series, we are happy to now bring our Weekly Recap show to all podcast platforms. Weekly Recap is a show where we discuss the hottest news of the week together with The Defiant writers and share further insights from our reports. It goes live on our YouTube channel every Friday. In this week's recap, we went through all the latest on FTX, how far the contagion spread, and discussed how DeFi benefited from the recent events. Hope you enjoy it.  Also, a quick side note, make sure to check out our YouTube channel to keep up with our regular uploads on DeFi news, market updates, monthly investigations and more to come soon.