This week on The Defiant Podcast we speak to Jake Chervinsky, the executive vice president and head of policy at Blockchain Association, a non-profit trade association representing the crypto industry in Washington DC. Jake is one of the most qualified to discuss the US Treasury Department sanctioning Tornado Cash, a development that?s caused shockwaves through crypto.

Thanking our podcast sponsors:

1inch is a DEX aggregator that finds the best rates across multiple networks. Why use a single DEX when you can use them all? Find your best deal at 1inch.

Pods stETHvv allows you to accumulate more ETH in only one click. Every time ETH price bounces, up or down, the vault earns more ETH. In this market it's not a matter of IF price will move, but WEN.

ZenGo a crypto wallet that uses biometric encryption, 3FA authentication and MPC  wallet cryptography instead of private keys.

This week on The Defiant Podcast, we speak Will Warren, founder and CEO of 0x labs, one of the oldest and largest decentralized exchanges.  0x API is currently the 5th largest DEX by trading volume but is structurally different from other DEXs as it aggregates liquidity from multiple venues.

We talk about the effect this bear market has had on the DEX ecosystem and how sliding prices have affected DEX volumes in 2022.

We discuss the evolution of DEXs, having seen some massive innovations such as concentrated liquidity with Uniswap V3. Will goes on to talk about the major impact that miner-extractable value (MEV) has had on the DEX sector.

Finally, Will talks about 0x?s vision to see a world where all forms of value are tokenized on public blockchains, from fiat currencies, stocks and bonds, to video game items and airline miles.

Thanking our podcast sponsors:

1inch is a DEX aggregator that finds the best rates across multiple networks. Why use a single DEX when you can use them all? Find your best deal at 1inch.

Web3 with a16z, a new podcast about the next internet, from a16z crypto

0x/Matcha makes sure you?re getting the best possible price by routing trades over various DEXs, without taking commissions. Head over to matcha.xyz/defiant.

This week on The Defiant Podcast we speak to Hart Lambur, co-founder of the UMA protocol. UMA is an optimistic oracle on Ethereum that aims to record any knowable truth onto a blockchain.

We discuss his take on the crypto market and how the current crisis is not a DeFi crisis, but rather a failure of risk management at centralized institutions.

We dive into UMA's plans for its 2.0 release, the risks posed by centralized cross-chain bridges and Outcome Finance, an upcoming brand that will encompass all the DAO tooling that the UMA team has been building.

Thanking our podcast sponsors:

1inch is a DEX aggregator that finds the best rates across multiple networks. Why use a single DEX when you can use them all? Find your best deal at 1inch.

Web3 with a16z, a new podcast about the next internet, from a16z crypto

0x/Matcha makes sure you?re getting the best possible price by routing trades over various DEXs, without taking commissions. Head over to matcha.xyz/defiant.

This week on The Defiant podcast we speak with Justin Drake. Justin is a researcher for the Ethereum foundation. He?s at the forefront of the biggest change to happen in Ethereum's history: The transition from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake, also known as The Merge. We go into what the next steps are before this change happens, how exactly it will be executed, and what the risks are. Last week, right after we recorded this interview, fellow researcher Tim Beiko suggested the switch would happen in September.

Thanking our podcast sponsors:

1inch is a DEX aggregator that finds the best rates across multiple networks. Why use a single DEX when you can use them all? Find your best deal at 1inch.

Web3 with a16z, a new podcast about the next internet, from a16z crypto

0x/Matcha makes sure you?re getting the best possible price by routing trades over various DEXs, without taking commissions. Head over to matcha.xyz/defiant.

This week on the Defiant Podcast we speak to Arthur Breitman, the co-founder of Tezos. Created together with his wife Kathleen way back in 2014, Tezos mainnet was launched in 2018 as a proof of stake chain with smart contracts, a combo that has now become the industry standard. They were very much ahead of their time.

Yet, Tezos has been slower to pick up than other Layer 1s such as Ethereum & Solana.  We discuss its upcoming upgrades and roadmap, and how Arthur sees a deeper DeFi and NFT ecosystem evolving on the network. He argues that with the hype and vanity metrics of the bull run fading away, Tezos approach of what he considers is more thoughtful building, will shine through.

Thanking our podcast sponsors:

dYdX has launched a Grants program with funding allocated to open-source builders. Come help build the future of decentralized trading at dydxgrants.com

Nexo is a platform where you can swap 300+ market pairs and borrow against your crypto from 0% APR. Sign up to Nexo until June 30 & get a welcome bonus of up to $150 in BTC.

Avalanche Subnets allow anyone build custom, app-specific blockchains - the future of Web3 scaling.

APWine - get your future yield today, speculate on APY evolution or fix APY rates. Discover the latest yield tokenization trend in Web3 with 'APwine'

Joseph Delong is the former CTO of SushiSwap, one of the biggest decentralized exchanges, and the founder of Astaria, a recently created NFT lending protocol. Joseph has been heavily involved in building and managing DAOs. With the recent controversial proposals surfacing on MakerDAO and Lido, we are once again reminded of the importance of DAO governance. We begin by talking about Joseph?s analogy on what would happen if a lemonade stand was run by a DAO and reflect on some of the DAO experiments that occurred over the last couple of years.

Thanking our sponsors:

1inch is a DEX aggregator that finds the best rates across multiple networks. Why use a single DEX when you can use them all? Find your best deal at 1inch.

0x/Matcha makes sure you?re getting the best possible price by routing trades over various DEXs, without taking commissions. Head over to matcha.xyz/defiant.

Web3 with a16z, a new podcast about the next internet, from a16z crypto

This week on The Defiant Podcast we speak with Hasu, strategic advisor at Lido, strategy lead at Flashbots, MakerDAO delegate, researcher at Paradigm and host of the Uncommon Core Podcast. That?s a lot of titles and it goes to show just how deeply plugged into DeFi and crypto this anon researcher is.   In this episode, we?ll focus on Lido, as it?s become a crucial piece of infrastructure for Ethereum.

Thanking our podcast sponsors:

dYdX has launched a Grants program with funding allocated to open-source builders. Come help build the future of decentralized trading at dydxgrants.com

Nexo is a platform where you can swap 300+ market pairs and borrow against your crypto from 0% APR. Sign up to Nexo until June 30 & get a welcome bonus of up to $150 in BTC.

Avalanche Subnets allow anyone build custom, app-specific blockchains - the future of Web3 scaling.

APWine - get your future yield today, speculate on APY evolution or fix APY rates. Discover the latest yield tokenization trend in Web3 with 'APwine'

Gmoney is one of the most prominent NFT collectors in the space, breaking into the scene with a splash when he bought a crypto punk for 140 ETH last year.  He rose t become one of the best-recognized NFT collectors and is now becoming a creator himself.  Given the current market crash is hitting all areas of crypto, Gmoney dives into how it's affecting NFTs. In his previous life, GMoney was a trader in traditional finance.  We talk about how he went from trading stocks to trading non-fungible tokens full time and now starting his own project.

Thanking our podcast sponsors:

dYdX has has launched a Grants program with funding allocated to open source builders. Come help build the future of decentralized trading at dydxgrants.com

Nexo is a platform where you can swap 300+ market pairs and borrow against your crypto from 0% APR. Sign up to Nexo until June 30 & get a welcome bonus of up to $150 in BTC.

Avalanche Subnets allow anyone build custom, app-specific blockchains - the future of Web3 scaling.

APWine - get your future yield today, speculate on APY evolution or fix APY rates. Discover the latest yield tokenisation trend in Web3 with 'APwine'

This week on The Defiant Podcast we speak to Mati Greenspan. Mati is the CEO & founder of Quantum Economics, a crypto research and advisory firm. Mati believes we?ll keep seeing pain in the market, with crypto and stocks remaining highly correlated, as long as inflation persists.  Only those well-funded and committed teams will make it through, and any project that survives a bear will see huge gains in the next rally.    A heads up that this interview was recorded last week, right before the Celsius debacle, in case you?re wondering why we didn?t speak about the elephant in the bear market.

Thanking our podcast sponsors:

dYdX has has launched a Grants program with funding allocated to open source builders. Come help build the future of decentralized trading at dydxgrants.com

Nexo is a platform where you can swap 300+ market pairs and borrow against your crypto from 0% APR. Sign up to Nexo until June 30 & get a welcome bonus of up to $150 in BTC.

Avalanche Subnets allow anyone build custom, app-specific blockchains - the future of Web3 scaling.

APWine - get your future yield today, speculate on APY evolution or fix APY rates. Discover the latest yield tokenisation trend in Web3 with 'APwine'

Adriana Hoppenbrouwer-Pereira is the co-founder and CMO of The Fabricant, a digital fashion house for the metaverse founded in 2018. Their belief is that fashion is identity, and digital fashion is simply an extension of the digital identity we?re building in web 3. The Fabricant is one of the most prolific digital garment creators today and we discuss how (and if)  these pieces are being used and whether the market slump has affected adoption. Adriana discussed The Fabricant?s collaboration with World of Women and how these two communities are seeking to make sure women feel represented and welcome in web3.

Thanking our podcast sponsors:

dYdX, the decentralized exchange, launched a Grants program with funding allocated to open-source builders, contributors and ecosystem integrations to help build its V4. Apply now! Oasis is the leading, scalable, and privacy-enabled, layer-1 blockchain, ideal for DeFi.  Learn More and experience the benefits of the network. 1inch finds the best rates across multiple networks. Why use a single DEX when you can use them all? Find your best deal at 1inch. Tracer DAO?s Perpetual Pools - Liquidation-free, long-term leveraged tokens allowing you to long or short anything - commodities, cryptocurrencies, equities; even NFTs.

Yoni Assia is the founder and CEO of eToro, one of the most successful crypto and stock buying apps with over 27 million users in more than 100 countries.   Originally founded in 2007, it was one of the pioneering companies to incorporate crypto as early as 2013. Yoni speaks about what led to being so early and where the idea for Etoro stemmed from. He also dives into the importance of the user experience in creating a mainstream crypto trading app, and how including a social aspect to the product early on helped in accelerating growth.

We talked about the next phase for eToro and the role NFTs and DeFi will play in the platform, as he looks to integrate both. Yoni is convinced finance will become increasingly digital, and believes eToro?s role is to help investors diversify their holdings. He sees a change in investment attitudes as the younger generation is interested in taking a more active role with their assets, and trading is becoming a more social experience. Finally, we talk about some of the lessons he has learned about entrepreneurship and taking big risks.

Thanking our podcast sponsors:

dYdX, the decentralized exchange, launched a Grants program with funding allocated to open-source builders, contributors and ecosystem integrations to help build its V4. Apply now! Oasis is the leading, scalable, and privacy-enabled, layer-1 blockchain, ideal for DeFi.  Learn More and experience the benefits of the network. 1inch finds the best rates across multiple networks. Why use a single DEX when you can use them all? Find your best deal at 1inch. Tracer DAO?s Perpetual Pools - Liquidation-free, long-term leveraged tokens allowing you to long or short anything - commodities, cryptocurrencies, equities; even NFTs.

Kevin Zhou is the founder of crypto quant fund, Galois Capital and former head of trading at Kraken. Last week, Terra, one of the most prominent ecosystems in crypto, effectively disintegrated in days. Its native token Luna had over $40 B in market cap at its peak, and nearly all of it was wiped out while UST, which was supposed to be a stablecoin worth $1 crashed. It was a historical moment in crypto as never before had a project that big, crashed so hard, so quickly. Kevin was one of the few who saw it coming and predicted the fall just a couple of months ago. In this interview, he talks about the red flags that helped him get to that conclusion. We also talk about whether there?s any hope for algorithmic stablecoins and explore potential alternatives for this type of asset.  Kevin discusses the ripple effects we?re already seeing in crypto and more broadly, what to expect for the coming bear market.

? Thanking our podcast sponsors:

dYdX, the decentralized exchange, launched a Grants program with funding allocated to open-source builders, contributors and ecosystem integrations to help build its V4. Apply now! Oasis is the leading, scalable, and privacy-enabled, layer-1 blockchain, ideal for DeFi.  Learn More and experience the benefits of the network. 1inch finds the best rates across multiple networks. Why use a single DEX when you can use them all? Find your best deal at 1inch. Tracer DAO?s Perpetual Pools - Liquidation-free, long-term leveraged tokens allowing you to long or short anything - commodities, cryptocurrencies, equities; even NFTs.

This week we speak to Diego Fernandez, the secretary of innovation and digital transformation for the city of Buenos Aires. Recently, news broke that Buenos Aires will be taking tax payments via crypto, an initiative that Diego helped shape. We talk about what this means for residents of the city and how it works in practice. Diego also addressed critics? response to the measure, who questioned why Argentines would spend crypto instead of holding it as a store of value. Diego dives into the city?s broader plans with crypto, including how it wants to leverage the tools and data at its disposal to build a blockchain-based identity system.

Thanking our podcast sponsors:

dYdX, the decentralized exchange, launched a Grants program with funding allocated to open-source builders, contributors and ecosystem integrations to help build its V4. Apply now! Oasis is the leading, scalable, and privacy-enabled, layer-1 blockchain, ideal for DeFi.  Learn More and experience the benefits of the network. 1inch finds the best rates across multiple networks. Why use a single DEX when you can use them all? Find your best deal at 1inch. Tracer DAO?s Perpetual Pools - Liquidation-free, long-term leveraged tokens allowing you to long or short anything - commodities, cryptocurrencies, equities; even NFTs.

BoredElonMusk is one of the most prominent Twitter personalities in the crypto space with over 1.7M followers at the time of recording. With decades of online gaming experience, he is now taking his skills offline with his new venture, Bored Box, a curation platform for blockchain games. BoredElon grew his Twitter profile by consistently tweeting wacky but relatable inventions. We talk about how he built out his brand on Twitter, at what point he was able to leverage and monetize his audience, and also his take on the OG Elon?s move to try to buy the social media platform. We also get into how he was able to transition to crypto, first through NFT artist collabs, next by investing in startups and now building his own project.

Thanking our podcast sponsors:

0x/Matcha makes sure you?re getting the best possible price by routing trades over various DEXs, without taking commissions. Head over to matcha.xyz/defiant. Eden Network is a next-generation private transaction service for Ethereum, providing traders with MEV protection by submitting transactions directly to miners and away from the prying eyes of harmful bots. 1inch finds the best rates across multiple networks. Why use a single DEX when you can use them all? Find your best deal at 1inch. Sperax has created $USDs, the stablecoin that generates passive income for holders.  Thanks to the Auto-Yield feature, it pays to hold $USDs.  Try it yourself here!

Fabian Schär is one of the most prominent academics focusing on blockchains and specifically DeFi. He has a great deal of experience speaking with regulators and studying different laws and frameworks being applied to crypto. He argues regulators should not be using old laws to regulate new tech. He also says regulation should happen at the off and on-ramp level, and at individual businesses, but not in the non-custodial world of on-chain transactions. Fabian has the somewhat controversial opinion that regultaros should ditch consumer protection as a goal all together, and trust that each individual should be free to decide what to do with their money, and take responsibility for their decisions.

Thanking our podcast sponsors:

0x/Matcha makes sure you?re getting the best possible price by routing trades over various DEXs, without taking commissions. Head over to matcha.xyz/defiant. Eden Network is a next-generation private transaction service for Ethereum, providing traders with MEV protection by submitting transactions directly to miners and away from the prying eyes of harmful bots. 1inch finds the best rates across multiple networks. Why use a single DEX when you can use them all? Find your best deal at 1inch. Sperax has created $USDs, the stablecoin that generates passive income for holders.  Thanks to the Auto-Yield feature, it pays to hold $USDs.  Try it yourself here!

Jill Gunter is the co-founder and chief strategy officer at scaling solution Espresso Systems and a venture partner at Slow Ventures. She became interested in Bitcoin via her experience with Latin American markets ? which is somewhat of a pattern in the space. She was a debt trader at Goldman Sachs, focusing on Argentina and Venezuelan bonds, and saw crypto?s potential to help those in corrupt or repressive regimes. She continued exploring how crypto can help skirt currency controls and enable more global and efficient markets, and we discuss how those themes are playing out right now in the war in Ukraine. We talk about how Jill went from Wall Street to crypto, and from VC to founder. Her latest venture is Espresso Systems, which aims to bring scalability and privacy to web3.

Thanking our podcast sponsors:

0x/Matcha makes sure you?re getting the best possible price by routing trades over various DEXs, without taking commissions. Head over to matcha.xyz/defiant. Eden Network is a next-generation private transaction service for Ethereum, providing traders with MEV protection by submitting transactions directly to miners and away from the prying eyes of harmful bots. 1inch finds the best rates across multiple networks. Why use a single DEX when you can use them all? Find your best deal at 1inch. Sperax has created $USDs, the stablecoin that generates passive income for holders.  Thanks to the Auto-Yield feature, it pays to hold $USDs.  Try it yourself here!

We have a special podcast episode this week ? a live conversation between Defiant founder Camila, our head of video Robin, and our editor Alp, recorded directly from The Defiant?s video studio in the Netherlands. Robin and Alp were one of the very first team members working with Camila in making the best DeFi and web3 content out there. In this episode we hear their story, how they came to work together and what moves them. We also go behind the scenes on their intense production process and schedule. Together with Camila, they also try to make sense of the latest drivers behind the crypto market, including the war in Ukraine, last year?s massive bull run and the recent volatility.

Thanking our podcast sponsors:

0x/Matcha makes sure you?re getting the best possible price by routing trades over various DEXs, without taking commissions. Head over to matcha.xyz/defiant. Eden Network is a next-generation private transaction service for Ethereum, providing traders with MEV protection by submitting transactions directly to miners and away from the prying eyes of harmful bots. 1inch finds the best rates across multiple networks. Why use a single DEX when you can use them all? Find your best deal at 1inch. Sperax has created $USDs, the stablecoin that generates passive income for holders.  Thanks to the Auto-Yield feature, it pays to hold $USDs.  Try it yourself here!

Ethan Buchman is the co-founder of Cosmos, an ecosystem of interoperable blockchains which includes Terra, Osmosis and Crypto.org, and has the most value locked after Ethereum. It's a complex network with many moving parts, and in the past year it has exploded with activity. Cosmos was born out of Ethan?s research into a switch from proof of work to proof of stake, and his idea to enable each project and community to be able to build and secure their own blockchain. It was Ethan?s goal to bring about a community computer revolution, stemming from the personal computer revolution.

Thanking our podcast sponsors:

Zerion is Mission Control for Web3: an intuitive DeFi portfolio manager, multichain tracking & trading and the best place to show off your NFT collection Unstoppable Domains is The #1 provider of NFT domains. Get YourName dot crypto, dot x, dot nft or a range of other endings for as low as $5 Nexo: Invest in crypto, earn interest of up to 20%, paid out daily, and use crypto as collateral to receive a credit line at premium rates. Step Finance's portfolio management dashboard enables Solana users to visualize, analyze, execute and aggregate transactions across all Solana contracts at the click of a button.

Ken Seiff is the managing partner of Blockchange Ventures, one of the longest-standing venture funds focusing on early-stage blockchain startups. One of his very first forays into crypto was as one of the investors in Ethereum?s token sale, as I describe in my book, The Infinite Machine. He went on to focus on various other Layer 1s at Blockchange, investing in Polkadot, Solana, Near and Flow, among others. Ken?s investments look to capture not just the potential value of the venture itself, but the overall growth of a space that is still in its infancy, and his bet is that taking exposure at the base protocol layer is the best way to do that.

Thanking our podcast sponsors:

Zerion is Mission Control for Web3: an intuitive DeFi portfolio manager, multichain tracking & trading and the best place to show off your NFT collection Unstoppable Domains is The #1 provider of NFT domains. Get YourName dot crypto, dot x, dot nft or a range of other endings for as low as $5 Nexo: Invest in crypto, earn interest of up to 20%, paid out daily, and use crypto as collateral to receive a credit line at premium rates. Step Finance's portfolio management dashboard enables Solana users to visualize, analyze, execute and aggregate transactions across all Solana contracts at the click of a button.

Kevin Owocki is the founder of Gitcoin, which helps coordinate crowdfunding for projects and software developments on the Ethereum blockchain.  With 300,000 builders and over 25,000 funders, Gitcoin has become a key pillar of the Ethereum nation, making sure public goods can thrive. We talk about how Gitcoin was born as a reaction to the ICO era, after Kevin realized many of the business models and funding mechanisms on Ethereum were broken. Open-source software is carrying a huge weight, while its builders are not being properly compensated or incentivized, and Gitcoin wants to change that.

Thanking our podcast sponsors:

Zerion is Mission Control for Web3: an intuitive DeFi portfolio manager, multichain tracking & trading and the best place to show off your NFT collection Unstoppable Domains is The #1 provider of NFT domains. Get YourName dot crypto, dot x, dot nft or a range of other endings for as low as $5 Nexo: Invest in crypto, earn interest of up to 20%, paid out daily, and use crypto as collateral to receive a credit line at premium rates. Step Finance's portfolio management dashboard enables Solana users to visualize, analyze, execute and aggregate transactions across all Solana contracts at the click of a button.

Fabian Vogelsteller is a Blockchain veteran who was part of the Ethereum community in its very early days. He helped shape the Ethereum space, building an ETH Wallet and a web3 Browser, which were one of the first of their kind. Fabian is the co-founder of the Lukso blockchain and together with Vitalik Buterin, created the ERC-20 standard, a foundational building block for Ethereum. The next standard Fabian is excited about is ERC725, which he says will help introduce blockchain-based profiles as opposed to accounts. Fabian believes this approach would be a seismic shift, improving usability and protecting users? assets.

Thanking our podcast sponsors:

Zerion is Mission Control for Web3: an intuitive DeFi portfolio manager, multichain tracking & trading and the best place to show off your NFT collection Unstoppable Domains is The #1 provider of NFT domains. Get YourName dot crypto, dot x, dot nft or a range of other endings for as low as $5 Nexo: Invest in crypto, earn interest of up to 20%, paid out daily, and use crypto as collateral to receive a credit line at premium rates. Step Finance's portfolio management dashboard enables Solana users to visualize, analyze, execute and aggregate transactions across all Solana contracts at the click of a button.

In this week?s episode of The Defiant podcast, we speak to Laura Shin, the former senior editor at Forbes and host of the popular podcast Unchained, about her new book ?The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze.? In Cryptopians, Laura may have solved Ethereum?s biggest mystery; the identity of the DAO hacker. In this interview, she goes into the backstory of how she came up with the most credible suspect to date.

Thanking our podcast sponsors:

Zerion is Mission Control for Web3: an intuitive DeFi portfolio manager, multichain tracking & trading and the best place to show off your NFT collection Unstoppable Domains is The #1 provider of NFT domains. Get YourName dot crypto, dot x, dot nft or a range of other endings for as low as $5 Nexo: Invest in crypto, earn interest of up to 20%, paid out daily, and use crypto as collateral to receive a credit line at premium rates. Step Finance's portfolio management dashboard enables Solana users to visualize, analyze, execute and aggregate transactions across all Solana contracts at the click of a button.

Gavin Wood?s crypto journey started with Ethereum ? he was one of the eight original founders and the project?s CTO in the early days. Today though, he?s busy building Polkadot, a chain that is attempting to improve where Ethereum falls short. Gavin wants to turn Polkadot into a multichain powerhouse where financial systems and web apps can run and interact seamlessly. To Gavin, Polkadot can be the base infrastructure for a web3 future, a set of technologies that can guarantee privacy, trustlessness and decentralization, which to him, will be crucial if the free world is going to survive.

Zerion Zerion is Mission Control for Web3: an intuitive DeFi portfolio manager, multichain tracking & trading and the best place to show off your NFT collection Oasis is a leading, scalable, and privacy-enabled, layer-1 blockchain, ideal for DeFi. Learn More ICHI enables crypto projects to create a sustainable economy that attracts users and keeps value locked in your community Eden Rocket RPC, providing the fastest private transactions on Ethereum (90%+ hashrate). Trade better anywhere on Ethereum with Eden Rocket RPC.

Edan Yago is a co-founder of Sovryn, a Bitcoin-based lending protocol. He?s maybe the first Bitcoin builder we have had on our show and that?s because DeFi on the first blockchain network has been slow to pick up ? but Edan says that?s about to change. Ethereum and other smart contracts platforms have evolved over time with use cases like tokens, DAO?s and NFTs flourishing. Meanwhile, Bitcoin has mainly looked from the sidelines. Edan says there has been a gradual mentality shift, as Bitcoiners accept the first cryptocurrency should be able to support a wider array of use cases to become the backbone of a more decentralized financial system.

Thanking our podcast sponsors:

Zerion Zerion is Mission Control for Web3: an intuitive DeFi portfolio manager, multichain tracking & trading and the best place to show off your NFT collection Oasis is a leading, scalable, and privacy-enabled, layer-1 blockchain, ideal for DeFi. Learn More ICHI enables crypto projects to create a sustainable economy that attracts users and keeps value locked in your community Eden Rocket RPC, providing the fastest private transactions on Ethereum (90%+ hashrate). Trade better anywhere on Ethereum with Eden Rocket RPC.

Vitalik Buterin wrote the Ethereum white paper when he was just 19. His aim was simple yet comprehensive, to create a ?world computer? that was designed to be a flexible base layer for all online applications without the need of any third party. Since its inception in 2015, Ethereum has become the most active and largest smart contracts platform, but has it achieved the ?world computer? goal?

Vitalik says yes and no. In the interview, it?s clear that to him, it?s almost a given that Ethereum will achieve this goal. The bigger concern is not whether the network becomes a settlement layer and decentralized engine for smart contracts used globally, but how much value and impact applications running on top of it will bring.

Thanking our podcast sponsors:

Zerion Zerion is Mission Control for Web3: an intuitive DeFi portfolio manager, multichain tracking & trading and the best place to show off your NFT collection Oasis is a leading, scalable, and privacy-enabled, layer-1 blockchain, ideal for DeFi. Learn More ICHI enables crypto projects to create a sustainable economy that attracts users and keeps value locked in your community Eden Rocket RPC, providing the fastest private transactions on Ethereum (90%+ hashrate). Trade better anywhere on Ethereum with Eden Rocket RPC.

Griff Green is one of the co-founders of Giveth, which aims to build the future of charity using the Ethereum blockchain. It wants to become the gateway for non-profit organizations into web3, giving them the tools to grow their own communities via DAOs and crypto. The primary source of revenue for any non-profit organization is donations, but relying on individuals giving voluntarily can limit their impact, Griff says. He argues a system that better aligns incentives can allow non-profits to have a much larger role in society, potentially even stepping in where local governments are failing. The big vision is for donors and volunteers to become akin to investors in an organization, and be rewarded for their participation too.

Thanking our podcast sponsors:

Zerion Zerion is Mission Control for Web3: an intuitive DeFi portfolio manager, multichain tracking & trading and the best place to show off your NFT collection Oasis is a leading, scalable, and privacy-enabled, layer-1 blockchain, ideal for DeFi. Learn More ICHI enables crypto projects to create a sustainable economy that attracts users and keeps value locked in your community Eden Rocket RPC, providing the fastest private transactions on Ethereum (90%+ hashrate). Trade better anywhere on Ethereum with Eden Rocket RPC.

When Emin Gun Sirer first came on The Defiant in May 2020, Avalanche was not even on mainnet yet. Since then, it has risen to become one of the leading smart contract networks, while the AVAX token has risen over 7x in the last 12 months. We talk about how the project got here and how it wants to create a path for faster and more scalable decentralized network, amid heavy competition from other Layer 1 blockchains.

Emin makes the case for Avalache?s novel consensus mechanism, paired with subnets with their own virtual machines, and he also has scathing criticism for Ethereum and other Layer 2 scaling solutions. To him, once a platform starts building Layer 2s, it means they?ve run out of ideas on how to make a good Layer 1. We also discuss the big picture goal for Avalanche; Bitcoin centers around digital gold, Ethereum strives to create the world computer, and Avalanche wants to digitize all assets. If it's on a balance sheet, Emin says, it can be on a blockchain, and we discuss what it will take for it to get there.

Thanking our podcast sponsors:

Zerion Zerion is Mission Control for Web3: an intuitive DeFi portfolio manager, multichain tracking & trading and the best place to show off your NFT collection Matcha: Matcha makes sure you?re getting the best possible price by routing orders across all the various DeFi exchanges, now with an integrated fiat on-ramp. Start trading at matcha.xyz/defiant Nexo.io: Nexo is a crypto lending and exchange platform where you can buy cryptocurrencies at the touch of a button and start earning double-digit annual interest that is paid out daily. Unstoppable Domains: Go to unstoppabledomains.com and replace your long, complex wallet address with YourName dot crypto, dot x, dot nft or a range of other endings for as low as $5.

This week, we sit with Kain Warwick, DeFi OG and founder of Synthetix. In some ways, last year wasn?t a great one for the synthetic assets protocol. As many DeFi projects boomed, SNX?s price and TVL dropped. Kain says he was too optimistic about how soon Synthetix would be able to scale with optimistic roll-ups. If he were to do things again, he would probably use Polygon first and move to Optimism once the solution was ready. But last year was also a time to build on a strong foundation. He?s looking forward to the months to come, when all of that effort hopefully comes to light, with the protocol fully live on Optimism, with perpetual swaps expected to be launched too. He?s a firm believer that Ethereum and its Layer 2 solutions will capture the most value being built in DeFi and web3.

Thanking our podcast sponsors:

Zerion Zerion is Mission Control for Web3: an intuitive DeFi portfolio manager, multichain tracking & trading and the best place to show off your NFT collection Matcha: Matcha makes sure you?re getting the best possible price by routing orders across all the various DeFi exchanges, now with an integrated fiat on-ramp. Start trading at matcha.xyz/defiant Nexo.io: Nexo is a crypto lending and exchange platform where you can buy cryptocurrencies at the touch of a button and start earning double-digit annual interest that is paid out daily. Unstoppable Domains: Go to unstoppabledomains.com and replace your long, complex wallet address with YourName dot crypto, dot x, dot nft or a range of other endings for as low as $5.

Welcome back to The Defiant podcast! After a brief break at the end of last year, we?re back stronger and better than ever to continue chatting with the greatest and brightest minds in DeFi and web3. Our first guest is our very own Robin Schmidt, aka SuperMassive. Robin leads multimedia at the Defiant and produces our video content, which has become known for raising the bar way beyond what?s expected not just from crypto videos, but from all of YouTube. If you haven?t already, check out and subscribe to our channel. I wanted to do the first video of the year with Robin to get the chance to talk about The Defiant itself ? what moves us, what sets us apart and what we?re expecting for this year. After over a year working together, I also wanted to finally shine the spotlight on the man behind the video host, and hear the story of how he got here.

Thanking our podcast sponsors:

Zerion Zerion is Mission Control for Web3: an intuitive DeFi portfolio manager, multichain tracking & trading and the best place to show off your NFT collection Matcha: Matcha makes sure you?re getting the best possible price by routing orders across all the various DeFi exchanges, now with an integrated fiat on-ramp. Start trading at matcha.xyz/defiant Nexo.io: Nexo is a crypto lending and exchange platform where you can buy cryptocurrencies at the touch of a button and start earning double-digit annual interest that is paid out daily. Unstoppable Domains: Go to unstoppabledomains.com and replace your long, complex wallet address with YourName dot crypto, dot x, dot nft or a range of other endings for as low as $5.

In this week?s episode I speak with Nick Johnson, founder and lead developer of Ethereum Name Service, or ENS. Nick talks about the journey of ENS, from an internal project within the Ethereum Foundation, to spinning off to become a public good for Ethereum and other blockchains, and recently decentralizing and becoming a DAO controlled by token holders. Nick talks about the big vision of ENS, which is to become the naming service for every digital resource in the world.

Thanking our sponsors:

Matcha, which routes orders across DEXs on Ethereum, Polygon, BSC, fantom, and Avalanche to provide the best possible prices without taking any commissions. Tracer Perpetual Pool tokens, leveraged tokens that can be put into cold storage OR used as collateral throughout the DeFi economy without worrying about liquidation risk, or margin requirements Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools here! Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi

In this week?s episode I speak with Geoff Cook, co-founder of Base, a design studio with huge clients from all industries, including The New York Times, MoMA, ING Bank and large-scale projects like JFK?s Terminal 4 and the Meatpacking District in New York. Geoff hopes to soon add crypto to the list. He recently wrote an article stating that "For Crypto, Branding Could be the Highest Currency? as the success of these projects will rely on communicating complex concepts and features to gain mass adoption. We discuss that crypto is in its teenage years in terms of branding: crypto, and especially DeFi projects, are rebelling against traditional finance and web2, but they?re still seeking to belong to a group and are not expressing their own individual characteristics and values. This is making all DeFi brands look alike. Geoff says that a company, or in the case of crypto, a protocol, that wants to build a powerful brand needs to figure out the story they want to tell.

Thanking our sponsors:

Matcha, which routes orders across DEXs on Ethereum, Polygon, BSC, fantom, and Avalanche to provide the best possible prices without taking any commissions. Tracer Perpetual Pool tokens, leveraged tokens that can be put into cold storage OR used as collateral throughout the DeFi economy without worrying about liquidation risk, or margin requirements Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools here! Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi

In this week?s episode I, speak with Nadya Tolokonnikova, one of the founding members of the feminist punk rock protest collective, Pussy Riot. Nadya has been protesting against the repression of individual freedoms in Russia since she was 17. She started Pussy Riot to focus on women and non-binary people as she noticed leadership would always fall on men. The group started performing in the streets of Moscow and were being repeatedly arrested for a few hours at a time, until one day in 2012, Nadya was put in jail for two years, for performing in a church. She believes art is a more effective vehicle for influencing hearts and minds than politics and that?s why she continues to perform. This year, she discovered she can use cryptocurrency and NFTs as tools to amplify her art, and coordinate people and capital on a global scale.

Thanking our sponsors:

Matcha, which routes orders across DEXs on Ethereum, Polygon, BSC, fantom, and Avalanche to provide the best possible prices without taking any commissions. Tracer Perpetual Pool tokens, leveraged tokens that can be put into cold storage OR used as collateral throughout the DeFi economy without worrying about liquidation risk, or margin requirements Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools here! Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi Integral is a new DeFi primitive and OTC trading protocol built for large crypto trades. Join the waitlist for a new version launching in Q4!

Zeneca is an NFT investor and content creator who grew his collection of non-fungible tokens from 0 to about 3,000 pieces worth millions in less than a year. He comes on the podcast to talk about how he went from professional poker player to full-time NFT trader, and what lessons from poker he has brought over to crypto.Zeneca believes the NFT market has hit a downturn amid rising crypto prices because it has become saturated with the same types of projects. He believes avatars will take a back seat to projects where NFTs have utility beyond displaying the art itself and being part of a community. That?s why gaming is setting up to be the next big movement in NFTs, he says. Still, he doesn?t believe we?ve seen a true bull and bear market yet ? that will come when NFTs better integrate with DeFi and leverage comes into play.

Thanking our sponsors:

Matcha, which routes orders across DEXs on Ethereum, Polygon, BSC, fantom, and Avalanche to provide the best possible prices without taking any commissions. Tracer Perpetual Pool tokens, leveraged tokens that can be put into cold storage OR used as collateral throughout the DeFi economy without worrying about liquidation risk, or margin requirements Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools here! Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi Integral is a new DeFi primitive and OTC trading protocol built for large crypto trades. Join the waitlist for a new version launching in Q4!

In this week?s episode I speak with Eric Wall, chief investment officer at Arcane Assets. He used to be known as the Altcoin Slayer, thanks to his brutal takedowns of non-bitcoin tokens in the 2017 ICO era, which made him popular among Bitcoin maximalists. But he?s not a maximalist anymore, and sees value in other blockchains as he has recognized they can fulfill use cases that Bitcoin can?t. He even argues Bitcoin risks being overtaken by Ethereum if it doesn?t adopt some ETH?s own features and developments, such as a fee-burning mechanism and a more expressive scripting language.

Thanking our sponsors:

Matcha, which routes orders across DEXs on Ethereum, Polygon, BSC, fantom, and Avalanche to provide the best possible prices without taking any commissions. Tracer Perpetual Pool tokens, leveraged tokens that can be put into cold storage OR used as collateral throughout the DeFi economy without worrying about liquidation risk, or margin requirements Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools here! Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi Integral is a new DeFi primitive and OTC trading protocol built for large crypto trades. Join the waitlist for a new version launching in Q4!

In this week?s episode I speak with Scoopy Trooples, founder of Alchemix, a protocol that programs self-paying loans without the risk of liquidations. Think about that; here?s a DeFi application that promises to automatically pay users? collateralized loans, and on top of that, guarantee they won?t be liquidated. Scoopy explains how something like that can work and it?s all about plugging into other money legos like Yearn Finance to earn yield off that collateral and use that yield to pay off loans. Scoopy also goes into Alchemix v2 and into what he believes is a new movement in DeFi, which he helped coin as DeFi 2.0. Scoopy says dapps will now have options besides yield farming to attract liquidity to their protocols, which will allow teams to better control assets in their smart contracts, increasing capital efficiency.

Thanking our sponsors:

Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools here! Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets Integral is a new DeFi primitive and OTC trading protocol built for large crypto trades. Join the waitlist for a new version launching in Q4!

In this week?s episode, I interview Adam Jackson, co-founder of Braintrust, a user-owned talent network. Think Fiverr for web3. Braintrust runs on Ethereum, has thousands of users, household names like NASA, TaskRabbit, Nike and Nestlé are clients, it has processed millions of dollars, yet not many people in the crypto community have heard of it.  And it may be by design, as the team has focused on building the platform looking outside of crypto. Adam believes the so-called gig economy is broken because platforms are incentivized to extract as much value as they can, leaving workers feeling like they?ve been cheated.  The way to fix it, he says, is through market-driven solutions using Web 3.0, DeFi and user-owned marketplaces.

Thanking our sponsors:

Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools here! Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets Integral is a new DeFi primitive and OTC trading protocol built for large crypto trades. Join the waitlist for a new version launching in Q4!

In this week?s episode I speak with Yam Karkai, the digital illustrator and artist behind NFT project World of Women. She?s had all sorts of odd jobs, before becoming a full-time illustrator, and none of them had anything to do with crypto. She was freelancing from gig to gig when she discovered NFTs this year and that?s when everything changed for her. For the first time ever, she had some economic stability, oddly thanks to volatile crypto.

Thanking our sponsors:

Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools here! Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets Integral is a new DeFi primitive and OTC trading protocol built for large crypto trades. Join the waitlist for a new version launching in Q4!

https://bit.ly/IntegralSIZE

In this week?s episode, I interview Jaime Rogozinski, founder of Wall Street Bets, the famous Reddit trading group which earlier this year organized to push up the price of heavily shorted stocks like Gamestop and AMC to create a short squeeze, which had the double benefit of amplifying the group?s gains and screwing over big hedge funds. Jaime goes over what led him to create the subreddit back in 2012 and how it grew into several thousands and then millions of members. He started Wall Street Bets to make money, but also because he believed the financial system was broken and so-called retail traders should have a chance against the big guys. A lot of those sentiments mirror ideals that fuel the cryptocurrency community and so it?s only natural that after his exit from Wallet Street Bets, he has found his way into crypto.

Thanking our sponsors:

Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools here! Enzyme provides an easy way to build, scale and monetize DeFi investment strategies Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets The DeFi Pulse Index, by Index Coop - DPI is the easiest way to capture the upside of DeFi with the benefit of diversification.  Buy DPI today on your favorite DEX.

In this week?s episode we speak with Matthew Sigel, head of digital asset research at VanEck, an asset management firm overseeing $80 billion, which has shifted its focus heavily into crypto. They started out with investments almost exclusively in Bitcoin, but now, with Matthew on board, the firm is becoming increasingly bullish on Ethereum and DeFi.

Matthew has a very methodical way of analyzing cryptocurrencies, applying the same rigorous methods used in traditional finance, and so it becomes even more compelling to hear him make the case for Ethereum?s market cap growing to $2 trillion. He also believes even after this year?s bull run, Ethereum and most DeFi protocols are trading cheaper than Web 2.0 and with better growth.

Thanking our sponsors:

Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools here! Enzyme provides an easy way to build, scale and monetize DeFi investment strategies Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets The DeFi Pulse Index, by Index Coop - DPI is the easiest way to capture the upside of DeFi with the benefit of diversification.  Buy DPI today on your favorite DEX.

In this week?s episode I speak with Stephen Young, the founder and CEO of NFTfi, a platform for enabling NFT-backed loans. For some people, decentralized finance and nonfungible tokens sit on two separate worlds; DeFi on one end with its different lending, boring, and trading applications, and NFTs, with their digital art, music royalties and collectibles. Entrepreneurs like Stephen sit at the intersection, with a platform that uses NFTs to provide a financial product. He says volume on the platform is booming, as many new NFT owners find they can now get liquidity from digital property they don?t want to sell, while lenders can get more attractive rates for their crypto. Stephen believes this is just the beginning, and that eventually, real-world assets will also become digital property incorporated in the growing world of NFT and DeFi.

Thanking our sponsors:

Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools here! Enzyme provides an easy way to build, scale and monetize DeFi investment strategies Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets The DeFi Pulse Index, by Index Coop - DPI is the easiest way to capture the upside of DeFi with the benefit of diversification.  Buy DPI today on your favorite DEX.

In this week?s episode, I speak with John Crain, the co-founder & CEO of SuperRare, one of the top NFT marketplaces. SuperRare wants to differentiate itself by being the NFT marketplace that best curates art, specifically. John believes the natural evolution for NFT platforms will be to specialize in verticals. The team recently launched a token and a DAO, and John explains how the move will be instrumental for SuperRare to scale its curation, as the original team gives up control and other participants propose and vote on what should go on the platform. We talk about the NFT boom more broadly, and how John believes NFTs are enabling the first artistic revolution since the internet.

Thanking our sponsors:

Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools here! Enzyme provides an easy way to build, scale and monetize DeFi investment strategies Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets The DeFi Pulse Index, by Index Coop - DPI is the easiest way to capture the upside of DeFi with the benefit of diversification.  Buy DPI today on your favorite DEX.He started doing so well, collecting Axies, which are NFT tokens linked to digital, mystical animals, that he started renting out his NFTs. He realized this could lead to an entirely new business model, and that?s how Yield Guild Games was born.

In this week?s episode, I speak with Gabby Dizon, co-founder of Yield Guild Games, or YGG. Long before Gabby was into crypto he was into gaming, and that?s how he started playing Axie Infinity, a blockchain-based game where players earn cryptocurrency just for playing. Gabby eventually became a well-known figure in the Axie community, spreading the word especially in his home country, the Philippines, as he saw that crypto earned for playing was making a real difference in people?s lives. 

Thanking our sponsors:

Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools here! Enzyme provides an easy way to build, scale and monetize DeFi investment strategies Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets The DeFi Pulse Index, by Index Coop - DPI is the easiest way to capture the upside of DeFi with the benefit of diversification.  Buy DPI today on your favorite DEX.He started doing so well, collecting Axies, which are NFT tokens linked to digital, mystical animals, that he started renting out his NFTs. He realized this could lead to an entirely new business model, and that?s how Yield Guild Games was born.

In this week?s episode, we speak with Dan Morehead, the founder of one of the longest-standing and largest crypto funds. Dan founded Pantera Capital in 2003 as a global macro hedge fund. In 2013, Pantera began investing in Bitcoin and quickly shifted its entire focus into crypto. Today, Pantera manages $3.8 billion in digital assets and equity in blockchain companies. Dan said Pantera is planning on increasing the Bitcoin exposure on its liquid tokens fund from zero to somewhere in the teens, while its main bet will remain DeFi. Dan is most excited about what he views is a shift in institutions? interest in crypto. Firms which had told him they would never come close to holding crypto, are now wanting to dip their toes. And in a still small market, that has the potential to make big waves.

Thanking our sponsors:

Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools at https://balancer.finance/! Enzyme provides an easy way to build, scale and monetize DeFi investment strategies Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets The DeFi Pulse Index, by Index Coop - DPI is the easiest way to capture the upside of DeFi with the benefit of diversification.  Buy DPI today on your favorite DEX.

In this week?s episode we speak with Ryan Selkis, CEO and founder of Messari, one of the most popular crypto data and research companies.  Recently, Ryan has been very vocal about crypto regulation in the US. We talk about how he believes the infrastructure bill was a catalyzing event for the whole American crypto ecosystem. He believes while there are think tanks and corporate-led lobbying groups, the space is missing a grassroots entity that gives a voice to the millions of crypto users in the US that so energetically came to life against this bill. That?s why he?s creating a group to help mobilize voters in the crypto community to support pro-crypto candidates.

Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools at https://balancer.finance/! Enzyme provides an easy way to build, scale and monetize DeFi investment strategies Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets The DeFi Pulse Index, by Index Coop - DPI is the easiest way to capture the upside of DeFi with the benefit of diversification.  Buy DPI today on your favorite DEX.

In this week?s episode we interview Nate Chastain, head of product at OpenSea. Opensea got its start back in 2017 when CryptoKitties launched on Ethereum. After those digital cats, the NFT space was pretty dead for the next couple of years. Now OpenSea is reaping the rewards of hanging through that NFT winter, as NFT summer explodes with punks, apes, penguins and more cats. Nate was openSea?s first product hire and now he?s making sure that what started out as a platform for essentially CryptoKitties and a couple of other projects, can deal with millions of digital assets. He talks about the scaling challenges OpenSea is facing and what?s next on the roadmap after raising $100M dollars in a round led by a16z. The daily records in volume and users, are proving the founders right in thinking maybe it?s not finance that will take crypto to mainstream, but something that looks like a cute game.

Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools at https://balancer.finance/! Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets The DeFi Pulse Index, by Index Coop - DPI is the easiest way to capture the upside of DeFi with the benefit of diversification.  Buy DPI today on your favorite DEX.

In this week?s episode, I speak with some of the creators and investors behind Stoner Cats, the NFT-infused adult cartoon show about a group of cats who become sentient from their owner?s marihuana. And there are famous humans behind these cats, Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin is one, and Jane Fonda is another. Ashton Kutcher?s VC fund is also involved. With all these big names, there was huge anticipation around this NFT sale -- so much, that the demand made Ethereum gas prices spike, so that many purchases didn?t go through and over $700,000 were lost in failed transactions. Ashton Kutcher said after this interview that the team is going to personally gift ETH to cover all failed transaction fees. Producer Lisa Sterbakov, investors Maaria Bajwa, Morgan Beller, and NFT creator Jonathan Howard, talk about the motivation behind Stoner Cats, how NFTs is changing the game for creators, what the chaotic launch was like for them, how they got Vitalik to join the show, and more behind the scenes scoops.

Many thanks to our sponsors:

Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools at https://balancer.finance/! Enzyme provides an easy way to build, scale and monetize DeFi investment strategies Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets The DeFi Pulse Index, by Index Coop - DPI is the easiest way to capture the upside of DeFi with the benefit of diversification.  Buy DPI today on your favorite DEX.

In this week?s episode, I interview Chris Blec, a researcher advocating for transparency in DeFi.  He was first drawn to cryptocurrencies through Bitcoin. He decided to go into crypto full time, first consulting with a token project in the ICO days, and later, in late 2019, by creating a YouTube channel where he aimed to educate users on how DeFi projects work under the hood. Here is where he came across what has become his focus since; the actual centralization behind supposedly decentralized protocols.All these questions and what appears to be constant criticism inspired some in the DeFi community to try to raise $50M for him to quit crypto. Meanwhile, Cointelegraph wrote a feature piece calling him maybe the most annoying man in DeFi. Chris seems unphased. To him, he?s just doing his part so that we don?t waste this opportunity to make a new, better financial system.

Big thanks to our sponsors:

Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools at https://balancer.finance/!
Enzyme provides an easy way to build, scale and monetize DeFi investment strategies
Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi
Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets

In this week?s episode I interview Raoul Pal, who retired from the hedge fund world at 36 years old and has run financial media company Real Vision for the seven years since. He predicted the housing bubble, he was early to call the devastating effect the pandemic would have on the economy, and now he gives us his thoughts on what he sees is coming up in the next few months. Raoul believes the second half of 2021 will be worse than expected, but that the decline will be short-lived thanks to even more stimulus to be added to the global economy. This will cause risk assets to continue their climb, including crypto. And for that he?s well-positioned: he says 100% of his liquid net worth is in cryptocurrencies but if he had to own just one asset over the next 12 months, that would be ETH.

Big thanks to our sponsors:

Colony, which makes it easy for people all over the world to build organizations together, online.
Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools at https://balancer.finance/!
Enzyme provides an easy way to build, scale and monetize DeFi investment strategies
Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi
Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets

In this week?s episode we speak with Tim Beiko, who organizes the Ethereum core developers calls and knows all the intricacies and latest development of the world?s most active blockchain. We spoke right after Beiko had proposed a date for the implementation of one of the biggest changes expected to happen to the Ethereum blockchain in recent history EIP 1559. If you?re not 100% clear on what this means, fear not, because Tim explains in non-dev terms exactly how this change will reduce volatility in Ethereum gas prices and also reduce the uncertainty of whether user transactions are approved or not. Importantly, it also means that part of ETH paid per transaction will be burned. That means that if demand for ETH and use of the Ethereum blockchain are greater than ETH issued, it should put pressure on the ether price to increase.

Big thanks to our sponsors:

Colony, which makes it easy for people all over the world to build organizations together, online.
Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools at https://balancer.finance/!
Enzyme provides an easy way to build, scale and monetize DeFi investment strategies
Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi
Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets

In this week?s episode we speak with Dan Robinson, a research partner at Paradigm, one of the most active VC funds in DeFi and crypto. One of the fund?s investments is Unsiwap, where Dan also had a central role in the design of v3, the latest version of DeFi?s most popular decentralized exchange. Dan talks about why Uniswap was so exciting as an investment, and about what drove the change to v3. He believes the new design will impact DeFi and crytpo, while rolling back the very revolution Uniswap itself prompted by creating a more hybrid model.

** Because of connectivity issues, the sound cuts off at times ? huge apologies for that. We're providing a public transcript to make up for it.

Big thanks to our sponsors:

Colony, which makes it easy for people all over the world to build organizations together, online.
Balancer, one of the leading DeFi automated market makers (AMM) for multiple tokens. Dive into their pools at https://balancer.finance/!
Enzyme provides an easy way to build, scale and monetize DeFi investment strategies
Kraken, consistently rated the best and most secure cryptocurrency exchange, which can get you from fiat to DeFi
Aave, an open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets