In today's episode we dive into the NEAR ecosystem, one of the top competitors to Ethereum in the L1 battle, and the leading protocol on NEAR, Ref Finance with Didier Pironi, Ref's product manager and a former DeFi entrepreneur. There is a NEAR and Ref Finance explainer intro at the 0:50 mark and the interview with Didier starts at the 3:10 mark.

The Kernel DeFi podcast is the official podcast of the Kernel DeFi Guild and is hosted by Shawn Dimantha.

Kernel is a custom web3 educational community. We are building an open, peer-to-peer, lifelong network of awesome humans, one block at a time. Each block accommodates 250 individuals and runs for 8 weeks. It is a unique experience. Together, we are joyfully subverting the status quo. Applications for KB7 are open, apply today at https://www.kernel.community/.

A special thanks to Michael Gattas for putting together the cover & episode art designs for the podcast!