My buddy Chris Jenkins just got back from ETHDenver, and he’s buzzing about the convergence of crypto and AI.

He’s the head of operations at the Pocket Network Foundation, and right now, they’re gearing up for their biggest protocol upgrade ever: Shannon. What they’re doing is wild — opening up full permissionless access to decentralized data, from blockchain RPC calls to AI models, Tor nodes, and everything in between.

We talk about agentic systems, LLMs, censorship-resistant data delivery, and why the future of open infrastructure needs crypto tokens to work at all. We also get into what it takes to build B2B tools that feel like B2C, why content creators (like podcasters) should be thinking about data licensing, and why the days of centralized APIs and broken bridges may be numbered.

This one’s nerdy, future-forward, and full of practical examples for how it’s all being built right now.

This episode contains strong language.

Pocket Network Foundation – pokt.network

ETHDenver 2025

Shannon Upgrade (Pocket Network’s protocol upgrade)

fly.pieter.com – Massive AI flight sim built with LLMs

Tornado Cash and Censorship Resistance

Decentralized RPC and Open Data Infrastructure

Drag-and-Drop LLM Interfaces

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