Credible Commitments

In this episode of Credible Commitments I chat with Michael from Quasar Builder (#2 block builder on Ethereum). Michael started out mining Bitcoin before turning to block building, launching Quasar in 2025 with no privileged orderflow and climbing the leaderboard from the public mempool. The episodes progresses as we discuss PropAMMs and the market structure behind orderflow dynamics. Orderflow is downstream of trust. In particular we break down different types of orderflow and discuss what sharing orderflow between competing parties actually looks like and where multi-party block construction is heading. We close by discussing: ACE, faster blocks, and coordination as the next frontier including where ePBS fits into the auction's future, and a final question worth sitting with: is the public mempool beyond saving?

Disclaimer
Nothing in this episode should be interpreted as financial, technical, or legal advice.

In this episode of Deeply Intents I chat with Markus Schmitt, Founder of Propeller Heads. We dive into PropAMMs: what they are and how they are changing the market microstructure on Ethereum. In addition we unpack the Propeller stack of Tycho, Fynd, and Turbine which will enable a trustless trading experience on Ethereum main-net. 

Disclaimer
Nothing in this episode should be interpreted as financial, technical, or legal advice.

In this episode of Deeply Intents I chat with Quintus from Flashbots. We discuss the current transaction supply chain and how PropAMMs fit in. Quintus provides fresh insights and a wealth of technical understanding around this new market micro structure. In particular, the ways in which the working processes of PropAMMs affect determinants of transaction costs, prices, quotes, volume, and trading behavior.

Disclaimer
Nothing in this episode should be interpreted as financial, technical, or legal advice.

It already happened, propAMMs won, you just didn't notice. In this episode of Deeply Intents, I chat with Katia Banina, CEO at Bebop . We discuss prop AMMs on Ethereum, how they compare to RFQ systems, and pushing the limits of DeFi innovation with PopAMM (Block Oracle Priced AMM).

Timestamps

Disclaimer
Nothing in this episode should be interpreted as financial, technical, or legal advice.

In this episode of Deeply Intents I chat with Will Quist of Slow Ventures and Dan Gray from Odin. This episode pulls apart the current discourse on venture investing looking at an investor's and researcher's perspectives.

In particular we grapple with existential questions like; 

This was a lively conversation with plenty of spice. You will surely enjoy. 

Disclaimer
Nothing in this episode should be interpreted as financial, technical, or legal advice.

In this episode of Deeply Intents, we chat with Keone Hon co-founder & GM at Monad Foundation. Keone spent a decade at Jump Trading building algorithmic trading systems before co-founding Monad. We get into what actually transfers from HFT to crypto, why the Monad team rolled their own database, and Keone's bigger thesis on crypto as humanity's universal asset layer.                 

We open with the Jump years. In particular, what high-frequency trading actually teaches you (confidence, shipping cadence, intuition for hardware), and why the real edge isn't technical but psychological. From there, we walk through the engineering decisions that shaped Monad including values choices, not an engineering ones. We discuss why testnet metrics are mostly fake and how the Monad community quietly built itself into real social infrastructure during the bear market.      

We close on Keone's case for crypto as a universal asset layer, with income share agreements as one of the most underrated frontier use cases. We touch on specific EVM improvements he wants upstreamed to Ethereum, why agentic workflows are "directionally correct" but too early to pick winners, and a final note on creatine.

Timestamps

(00:00) - Algorithmic trading to Monad Foundation

Disclaimer
Nothing in this episode should be interpreted as financial, technical, or legal advice.

Zaki Manian In this episode of Deeply Intents, I chat with Zaki Manian [Cosmos co-founder, Bootstrap board member, and Zcash contributor]. We start with Zaki's AI-native development workflow: he's running 7-8 projects simultaneously using Claude, Codex, and Gemini in parallel, burning through 500M tokens a day. He breaks down which model is best for what and why most developers he's hired in his career are now outperformed by Opus 4.6. From there, Zaki gives the first public podcast account of the Zcash governance crisis from a board member's perspective, how the team navigated it, what role AI played in the negotiations, and why Zcash is suddenly a credible store-of-value contender this cycle. We also get into what the privacy landscape looks like by end of year. We wrap up with the state of crypto startups post-Genius Act, why agentic finance is the only exciting build direction, and Zaki's new framework: two years of building is now two weekends, so why are founders still sending decks instead of TestFlights?

(00:00) - Cosmos, Zcash, enterprise blockchains origins

Disclaimer
Nothing in this episode should be interpreted as financial, technical, or legal advice.

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I chat with Gwart, host of The Gwart Show. We kick off with Gwart's knack for shitposting and the art of playing the anon game, then get into reflections on this cycle, including whether VC coins are actually dead or just suffering from massive token overhang. From there, we spend time on the craft of podcasting before pivoting to the big picture: the Ethereum roadmap, whether ETH works as a store of value, Bitcoin's quantum FUD, and what actually makes crypto useful in the long run.

Timestamps

Disclaimer
Nothing in this episode should be interpreted as financial, technical, or legal advice.

Why are crypto options still so underdeveloped? In this episode of Deeply Intents, I chat with Nick Foster, Co-founder of Derive (fka Lyra). We start by unpacking why options are worth pursuing in crypto and what drove Variant's recent investment in Derive. From there, we dig into Derive's institutional focus, how they think about the competitive options landscape, and what "10/10" means for the protocol. We also speed through Derive's portfolio margin and liquidation systems, plus how their tech stack shapes product decisions. We wrap up with the story behind the rebrand from Lyra to Derive and Nick's learnings from building through multiple market cycles.

Disclaimer
Nothing in this episode should be interpreted as financial, technical, or legal advice.

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I chat with Alex Watts (ThogardPvP) from Fastlane. We begin the episode by discussing the concept of kingmaking in crypto ecosystems - why its important and the risks associated with king entrenching. Next we shift the conversation to the Monad central bank thesis as in the Monad Foundation using its treasury of MON to control yield via staking. Thereafter we shift the discussion towards risk curators and vaults exploring why they are popular. We finish the episode discussing enterprise adoption patterns and what is and what is not likely to work for institutions. 

Timestamps 

(00:00) - On Kingmakers 
(03:07) - Annie are you okay? 
(05:07) - VCs won't invest in 17 LSTs 
(05:57) - Paradigm is the best Kingmaker in the business 
(09:11) - Wealth creation event for native apps 
(16:18) - The Kingmaker and application incentives 
(21:29) - Preserve the ability for competition to disrupt incumbents 
(27:13) - The Monad Central Bank thesis 
(31:17) - This gonna sound really bad 
(37:57) - Central banks are centralized 
(45:02) - They're just professionals 
(48:21) - Loop it and leave it 
(52:24) - Programmatic interest rate policy 
(54:40) - Whats up with vaults and risk curators 
(57:07) - Glazing the curators 
(1:02:13) - Institutional adoption 
(1:03:11) - Prevailing view in crypto VC 
(1:07:17) - What's important in the institutional game 
(1:14:49) - Fast finality and short block times 
(1:16:14) - RWAs have oracles, its nuanced 
(1:22:53) - The island of misfit toys 
(1:24:42) - Ethereum is the silver of crypto

Disclaimer
Nothing in this episode should be interpreted as financial, technical, or legal advice.