The Net Society crew records live from New York and opens with a familiar question in unfamiliar times: are we actually back, or just bouncing inside a bear market. From there, the conversation moves through competing views on crypto’s current state, with debate around institutional demand, stablecoin growth, ETF flows, and why the next leg up may still require more pain. The crew then explores what machine-to-machine payments could actually look like, from agentic software and API micropayments to the early shape of a machine-native economy. That leads into a sharp discussion on AI product building, where they argue that the models are already good enough and the real bottleneck is ambition, taste, and the ability to frame better problems. In the back half, they work through a run of crypto casualties and controversies, including Foundation’s collapse, Lattice shutting down, and the Bittensor Templar blowup, before closing on a more optimistic note: why so many of the most interesting builders in AI seem to come out of crypto, and how that culture may shape what comes next.

Mentioned in the episode

Response to Covenant https://x.com/const_reborn/status/2043083033969033610

Lattice winding down https://x.com/latticexyz/status/2044103611072835744

Show & Hosts

Net Society: https://x.com/net__society

Aaron Wright: https://x.com/awrigh01

Chris F: https://x.com/ChrisF_0x

Derek Edwards: https://x.com/derekedws

Priyanka Desai: https://x.com/pridesai

Production & Marketing

Producer/Editor: https://x.com/0xFnkl

Social: https://x.com/v_kirra

• (00:00) - Are We Actually Back?