Credible Commitments

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I chat with Mislav from Biconomy. We begin the episode by discussing the Biconomy Network’s one signature execution model. Next, we discuss the purpose of interoperability and chain abstraction. Thereafter, we dig our teeth into all things product, from gauging user feedback to building at the right level of abstraction to knowing who your team is. Next up, we unpack Biconomy's Supertransaction API, censorship resistance, misconceptions, and competition. We finish the conversation by reflecting on lessons learned over the years, building on the EVM, whilst speculating on potential Ethereum upgrades that would be advantageous.

Timestamps 

(00:00) - Building on Ethereum
(03:14) - One signature execution
(11:24) - Why not just use the L1?
(18:06) - Delivering chain abstraction
(20:03) - Products at the right level of abstraction
(24:32) - Talking to users
(28:54) - Knowing who you are
(36:00) - SuperTransaction API
(40:42) - Zero setup for app developers
(46:23) - Landing transactions
(48:24) - Censorship resistance
(52:30) - Addressing misconceptions
(54:43) - Competition
(56:51) - Use blockchains, lessons in there
(1:00:43) - Ethereum upgrades and standardization
(1:07:00) - Apps choose trust assumptions

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

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I chat with Jim Chang (0xJim), product guru from LI.FI. We begin the episode by answering the question, why do we need interop? Next we dive into the nuances of intent bridges, solvers, order flow auctions, MEV, and filler vaults. Thereafter, Jim explains the necessity of and philosophy behind Ethereum's Open Intents Framework (OIF). Directly after, we break down how the Ethereum Interop Layer (EIL), the OIF, and Ethereum governance interact. Later we discuss learnings from building products in 2025, including how to build distribution from zero and whether building a personal brand on Twitter is helpful towards these ends. We conclude by discussing Jim's passion for thrift shopping.

Timestamps

(00:00) - Building crypto products
(04:29) - Working with Alt VMs
(07:26) - Why do we need interop?
(14:12) - Intents
(20:16) - Getting pedantic about intents
(26:14) - Intent value chain
(30:33) - Intent verification
(33:47) - Orderflow auctions
(40:00) - Cross-chain MEV
(45:00) - Solvers are not market makers
(47:56) - Filler vaults
(52:27) - Popular routes
(57:25) - Open Intents Framework
(1:04:12) - OIF flywheel
(1:07:34) - Ethereum upgrades that support interop
(1:10:30) - EIL, OIF, and Ethereum governance
(1:14:17) - Product learnings in 2025
(1:19:15) - Distribution 0-1
(1:24:05) - Twitter
(1:28:00) - Thrift shopping

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

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I chat with Trent Van Epps from the Ethereum Foundation. In particular, we discuss Trent's work as an organizer of Protocol Guild. We begin by discussing what Protocol Guild is, why  projects care, and membership. Next, we unpack the motivations for funding the Ethereum Commons, drawing lessons from Linux, and explore various funding mechanisms. Later, we break down the Compensation Insights for Ethereum Core Developers report. We conclude the episode by discussing the next 5 to 10 years of Protocol Guild and upcoming Ethereum upgrades.

Timestamps

(00:00) - Architecture to Ethereum
(03:46) - KZG Summoning ceremony
(06:33) - What is Protocol Guild?
(11:35) - Why should projects care?
(14:04) - Protocol Guild membership
(17:57) - The Ethereum Commons
(21:25) - Onchain organization
(27:56) - Learning from Linux  
(34:05) - Protocol Guild Pledge
(41:07) - In protocol funding mechanisms
(46:01) - Protocol Guild FUD
(52:23) - Compensation survey
(57:23) - Survey feedback
(1:02:30) - PG in 5-10 years
(1:08:36) - Exciting Ethereum upgrades

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

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I chat with James Prestwich of Signet, the team behind Signet. This episode is a masterclass on rollups. To begin the episode, James breaks down exactly what a rollup is while taking us through their history that includes Bitcoin, roll_ups, Plasmas, minimum viable merged consensus, and sovereign rollups. Thereafter we unpack Signet, including no proving system as a feature, conditional transactions, instant bridging, and application-controlled execution. We continue by discussing Signet's sequencer design featuring decentralized block building. Later we discuss unexplored rollup designs by reviewing init4's article titled  "(Re)Based Rollups" which unpacks possible rollup fork-choice rules. We finish the episode by discussing building products on Ethereum, the philosophy behind building developer tools, and history repeating itself in Bitcoin.

Timestamps

(00:00) - You can build a rollup in a completely different way
(03:14) - What is a rollup?
(06:17) - History of rollups
(09:57) - Plasmas
(14:34) - Minimum viable merged consensus
(18:45) - Signet from first principles
(21:27) - No proofs
(23:01) - Conditional Transactions
(27:42) - Instant bridging
(31:15) - App-specific Conditional Transactions
(31:47) - App Controlled Execution (ACE)
(37:45) - Third party native issuance
(39:44) - A rollup that actually scales Ethereum
(41:16) - Sequencing and block building
(45:33) - More Builders than Ethereum
(48:08) - Finding the right partners
(53:45) - Benefits of an app chain and general purpose chain
(56:03) - (Re)Based Rollups
(1:00:04) - Unexplored design space for rollups
(1:03:41) - Mistakes building products on Ethereum
(1:07:39) - Making developer tools
(1:11:37) - Bitcoin repeating history 

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

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I chat with Peter Watts, founder of Relay Protocol. We begin the episode by discussing Peter's journey from music to Reservoir to Relay. Next, we spend time digging into Relay, its architecture, resource locks, vaults, DEX meta-aggregation, and MEV strategies. We finish out the episode by unpacking B2B distribution, reliability & SLAs, and product market fit.

Timestamps

(00:00) - From Music to Intents
(07:20) - Late follower advantage
(10:53) - What is Relay?
(16:57) - Layers of Relay's architecture
(23:28) - Verification without smart contracts
(25:09) - Resource Locks
(31:25) - Vaults for solvers
(37:10) - Digging into vaults
(41:15) - DEX meta-aggregation
(48:34) - MEV strategy
(53:48) - Landing transactions
(55:31) - Chain Abstraction
(1:00:14) - B2B distribution
(1:03:45) - Reliability and SLAs
(1:07:14) - Customer service strategy
(1:10:33) - Pre and post PMF
(1:16:43) - Ethereum upgrades and standards
(1:21:19) - Fast interop layer

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

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I speak with Jeremy Ornelas of Heliax, the company behind Anoma and Namada. We begin the conversation by discussing the history of Erlang and Elixir, as well as what makes Elixir a good fit for Anoma. Next, we break down the dominion of Anoma, broadly outlining the distributed operating system vision. Thereafter, we discuss Anoma's Controller system in detail, which draws design inspiration from GenServers in Erlang. Later, we discuss the nuances of building hackable systems and shipping viable products. We conclude the conversation by discussing object systems, elegant system design, and the future impact of LLMs on developers.

Timestamps

(00:00) - Anoma loves Elixir
(05:32) - History of Erlang and Elixir
(11:29) - Phoenix
(14:47) - Make cents for your bottom line
(20:00) - Elixir is live and has actors
(26:18) - Exploring the dominion of Anoma
(32:26) - Controllers and local domains
(38:27) - Ubiquitous compute
(43:21) - Ethereum speaks Anoma
(48:37) - All of this should be hackable
(52:48) - Product focused organization
(56:49) - What's the holdup on Anoma?
(1:01:14) - Products that make sense
(1:04:28) - Objects and Anoma Level
(1:10:12) - Elegant design
(1:14:20) - LLMs and quality 

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

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I talk to Shoaib Ahmed, researcher and engineer for Cycles Money / Informal Systems. We begin the episode with Shoaib's background, including his time working on SlockIt. Thereafter, we begin to unpack Cycles Money, discussing the concept of bringing liabilities on-chain, examples of debt-clearing cycles, and different types of settlement. Later, we discuss QuanTEEum, a new research paper published by Shoaib. Here we discuss the notion of quantum money and a marketplace for decentralized quantum compute. We conclude the episode by discussing the Cosmos ecosystem and trade-offs between building products and protocols.

Timestamps

(00:00) - God was a protocol designer
(02:28) - SlockIT experience
(03:53) - Gödel's incompleteness theorems
(10:19) - CoFi & Speculation resistance
(16:43) - Cycles Money
(22:26) - Bringing liabilities onchain
(29:49) - Walking through a cycle example
(33:57) - Settlement
(37:00) - Atomicity and blockchains
(42:24) - Quartz, remote attestations & ZKPs
(45:28) - Product
(53:10) - QuanTEEum and One shot signatures
(58:31) - Endgame: decentralized quantum compute
(1:03:58) - Quantum Money
(1:09:55) - The Cosmos ecosystem
(1:12:23) - Protocol design vs. product 

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

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I chat with Nikita, CEO of Barter. In this conversation, we begin by discussing Nikita's background in Ethereum DeFi. Next, we discuss how solvers work, hooks and composability, and liquidity provision. Thereafter, we discuss Superposition, which provides a fundamentally new approach to decentralized trading and liquidity provision. From there, we discuss liquidity, distribution strategies, and product philosophy. We conclude the conversation by discussing some best practices for BD and general optimism about Ethereum DeFi.

Timestamps

(00:00) - Discovering crypto
(05:05) - DeFi Summer
(06:08) - Learnings from time at 1inch
(10:50) - Building a solver and getting hacked
(16:43) - How solvers work
(18:45) - Hooks and compossability
(24:22) - Competition and acquisition
(29:49) - Market is consolidating
(34:54) - Who are the passive LPs?
(40:48) - Superposition story
(47:30) - Making AMMs outdated
(51:58) - Endgame liquidity solution
(55:42) - Passion and building teams
(1:00:42) - Distribution strategy
(1:05:38) - Cross-chain game
(1:10:09) - Product philosophy
(1:15:33) - Connect with anyone in crypto
(1:19:06) - Ethereum is the place to be
(1:20:51) - Advise for young business developers
(1:25:00) - Find synergies
(1:28:22) - WAGMI

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

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I chat with Ole Spjeldnæs, Founder and CEO of Delta Network. We begin the episode by discussing Ole's background in mathematics and what led him to blockchain. Next, we unpack Delta by discussing verifiability, shared state, and architectural affordances, including Domains. We finish up the conversation on Delta by discussing Byzantine eventual consistency, design philosophy, and credible neutrality. Thereafter, we discuss the product and go-to-market philosophy before concluding with a discussion refuting crypto dogma. 

Timestamps

(00:00) - From Math to Delta
(02:33) - Category Theory
(04:56) - Finding blockchain
(09:04) - Levels to B.S.
(11:20) - Verifiability and shared state
(16:50) - Reducing friction with verifiability
(21:08) - Shared state and compossability
(27:30) - Delta architecture
(32:38) - State diff lists
(35:13) - Integrability
(41:09) - Domains, network effects, and trust
(49:01) - Byzantine eventual consistency
(53:34) - Design philosophy
(1:01:20) - Scalability is oversold
(1:05:07) - Approach to product
(1:09:05) - GTM products
(1:13:46) - Credible neutrality
(1:20:37) - Context switching
(1:22:51) - Crypto dogma
(1:29:26) - User feedback 

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

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I sit down with Sid Gandhi, CEO of Payy. We begin the conversation discussing Sid's product background at Apple and how that led him to build Payy. We then discuss Private payments, proof of lineage, and the particulars of Payy wallet and network. Thereafter, we spend time discussing product strategies, including ideal customer profiles, market segments, and finding product-market fit. We conclude the conversation by outlining the trade-offs associated with adding product features and following industry narratives. 
 

Timestamps
(00:00) - Product at Apple
(03:32) - Build for a real human
(08:55) - Private payments
(09:54) - Proof of lineage
(12:57) - Deliver value to the user
(17:52) - Finding PMF across ICP segments
(24:08) - Raising the bar on product
(28:06) - Is it 10x better?
(36:28) - Navigating trade-offs
(38:00) - Resisting industry narratives
(40:57) - Talking to users
(47:49) - Balancing the product roadmap
(54:19) - Product features, when and how
(58:13) - Product led marketing
(1:02:16) - Play long-term games

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