Brendan Farmer is the co-founder of Polygon, which is a project that is focused on scaling Ethereum.

Brendan's contributions have been instrumental in the research and development of key scaling technologies within Polygon's framework, including Polygon PoS, Polygon zkEVM, and Polygon Miden. Our conversation begins with an exploration of the foundational elements that constitute the Polygon ecosystem. We then delve into the realm of ZK technology, discussing its advantages as a preferred scaling solution, its comparison with optimistic rollups, and the intricacies of Polygon's Aggregation Layer and CDK. We also discuss how the future of blockchain activity can be made more efficient and optimized with Aggregation Layer.

Chapters

0:00 Intro

1:13 Polygon's Products

7:55 Zero Knowledge Proofs

11:15 ZKP vs Optimistic Rollup

15:42 Aggregation Layer

38:00 Non-EVM Chains x AggLayer

41:40 Monolithic Chain

47:40 Consumer Apps

50:30 Polygon in 2024

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Alex Blania is a cofounder of Worldcoin alongside Sam Altman and Max Novendtsern. Worldcoin is aiming to become the world's largest digital identity and financial network, giving ownership to everyone. Worldcoin could be considered the frontrunner in terms of ambition, leveraging unique methods to accelerate the widespread adoption of cryptocurrency technologies globally, to a point where critics have labelled it as "dystopian". In our conversation we dive into the controversial aspect of Worldcoin, get a better grasp of what the project is about and its founding story, the $WLD token, the (new) Orb, how scanned data is stored, and much more.

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TS

0:00 Intro

1:20 What is Worldcoin?

7:52 $WLD Token

8:35 Who is Alex Blania?

12:04 The Orb

22:28 Dystopian Scenario

27:16 How Scanned Data is Stored

31:08 Bribing with Crypto

33:40 $WLD Utility

34:36 UBI

36:00 Usecases of Worldcoin

48:20 Bigger Issues

50:55 The New Orb

53:30 Decentralizing

54:50 The End State

56:30 Biggest Risk

57:30 Treasury

01:00:50 Doing things differently

⚠️IMPORTANT NOTICE ⚠️

Today we're joined by Chris Amani, who's the CEO of Terraform Labs. Our conversation with Chris unfolds in two parts. Initially recorded on January 17th, we begin by catching up on the latest developments and the new strategic direction of the Terra ecosystem following its collapse in May 2022. Intriguingly, just days after our initial dialogue, Terraform Labs announced its filing for bankruptcy. In the latter part of our discussion, we delve into the intricacies of this voluntary decision to explore the potential implications and expected outcomes stemming from the bankruptcy filing.

Chapters

0:00 Important Notice

0:49 Podcast Intro

1:50 Terra Reborn

5:55 The Day of the Crash

18:58 Terra Recap

31:20 The SEC Trial

36:30 Terra Classic vs Terra 2.0

41:04 Terra 2.0 Vision

54:02 TFL Treasury

58:00 Lessons from Building in Crypto

1:13:00 Terra 2.0 Roadmap

1:15:28 EXTENSION: Terraform Labs Files for Bankruptcy

1:22:54 Ideal outcome

1:26:13 Impacts on Roadmap

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Today we're joined by Mustafa Al-Bassam, CEO and Co-Founder of Celestia Labs. 15 years after Satoshi, we finally have what a blockchain actually is Celestia provides the ability to publish data and make sure that data is available. Celestia had what many are calling one of the best launches of 2023, and they are the first Data Availability Layer live today. In our conversation we get into how Mustafa built Celestia, other Data Availability Layers in the space, how Celestia can be thought of as a bulletin board for computers with some cryptographic and economic assurances - computers posting info so everyone can see it. It's so simple. It's an obvious fundamental building block. Yet they were the first to do it. Prior to Celestia, Mustafa was generally known for his expertise in ethical hacking. He had the US government at the age of 16 and was sentenced for it. We get into this and so much more, but first to ground the conversation, Mustafa shares what he is focused on at Celestia today.

0:00 Intro

1:10 Mustafa Al-Bassam

8:45 Hacking the US Government

10:47 Lazy Ledger

14:13 Colab with Vitalik

16:00 Challenges

18:00 DA and Celestia within Blockchain

19:27 Modular Blockchain

21:54 Monolithic Chains

24:55 Celestia within Cosmos

25:40 Celestia technicals

29:08 Requirements to run a node

35:05 The Graph vs Celestia

36:42 Developer experience

38:23 Starting fresh

40:21 Advice for teams

41:10 Celestia's culture

43:27 Payments

45:10 Decentralized Stablecoins

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Matt Hougan is the CIO of Bitwise, which is a crypto index fund manager and one of the issuers of Bitcoin ETFs. Hougan is a renowned figure in the financial sector, known for his expertise in cryptocurrency and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). In our conversation we get into Matt's initial reaction to the BTC ETF launch, the expected inflows for 2024, and the often underestimated impacts of these developments. We also discuss unique Vanguard's stance, the evolution of Bitcoin ETFs, why Bitwise maintains the lowest fees, Matt Hougan's background, possibility of Ethereum ETFs, and the growing understanding of Ethereum in traditional finance. Finally, we touch upon the centralization risks of Bitcoin, the future of Bitcoin ETFs, and Bitcoin price forecast.

0:00 Intro

0:46 Initial thoughts on BTC ETF launch

2:17 Inflows for 2024

4:37 Underestimated impact

8:11 Vanguard is goofy

9:40 Self sovereignty

12:30 History of Bitcoin ETFs

16:53 Why Bitwise has the lowest fees

20:20 Matt Hougan's background

23:10 ETF hate

26:45 Crypto ETFs

29:08 Ethereum ETF

31:07 TradFi understand Ethereum better than Bitcoin

36:30 Normalizing Bitcoin

42:00 Centralization risk of Bitcoin

45:47 What's next for Bitcoin ETFs

47:20 We're in a bull market

48:40 Bitcoin price forecast

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Today we're joined by Jason Bailey, Co-Founder and CEO of ClubNFT. ClubNFT provides solutions to help collectors analyze, monitor, and protect their NFT collections. Jason is an O.G. in the NFT space and today he shares many stories from back in the day. He was an early collector on SuperRare. He created the first NFT IRL drop at Christie's art event back in 2018. He'd been Red Pilling traditional art collectors before the term NFT was even coined. In our conversation we get into Jason's background in both art and tech, his views on generative art, as well as a deep dive into ClubNFT and the solutions they help solve for. But first, Jason tells us why he's passionate about the NFT space.

Chapters

0:53 Passion for NFTs

2:52 Blockchain x Art

7:22 IRL NFT Airdrop

11:42 TradArt vs Crypto Art

17:20 Problem with NFTs

22:34 Arweave

24:40 ClubNFT

33:28 NFT standards

35:30 NFT culture

41:25 AI

43:39 Hopium for NFT space

48:30 Embracing crypto art

50:55 Imposter syndrome

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Illia Polosukhin is the Co-Founder of NEAR Protocol, which is a sharded, proof-of-stake, Layer 1 blockchain. Originally conceived as an Artificial Intelligence endeavor, NEAR underwent a transformation, pivoting its focus to become a crypto project. We begin our conversation by exploring NEAR's shift into crypto, and later gain deeper insight into NEAR's core principles, underlying technology, the users, builders, as well as anticipated new features in the near future.

Chapters

1:04 Who is Illia Polosukhin?

4:04 NEAR’s design

7:52 Mini Blockchains

9:30 Consensus mechanism

10:29 NEAR token

12:30 Participating in NEAR Network

13:11 Physical shards

18:10 Delegation

19:32 Liquid staking on NEAR

20:50 Goal & Design

26:23 Ideal use cases for NEAR

33:54 Bridging

39:38 Attracting users and builders

44:38 New crosschain mechanism

48:10 Future of Blockchain

54:31 Future of NEAR

59:15 AI run governance

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Jameson Lopp is the CTO of CasaHODL, a company specializing in Bitcoin security solutions. He has played a pivotal role in developing products and services that empower individuals to safeguard their digital assets. Jameson is a globally recognized voice from his written work on cybersecurity, privacy and the social implementations of Bitcoin. Trigger warning for those in the Ethereum community and beyond as this is a spicy episode that gets gritty with the importance of individual privacy and protecting personal info in the digital age.

1:50 The Bitcoin Journey

4:34 Time at BitGo

5:41 Blocksize Wars

9:24 Disappearance of Satoshi

10:49 F*ck You Money

12:17 Bitcoin's major accomplishment

13:12 Why did Bitcoin survive?

14:30 Why did Satoshi not touch his Bitcoin?

17:04 What happens after all Bitcoins are mined?

22:09 Jameson's passion towards crypto

24:10 Bitcoin node syncing

29:50 Decentralization

31:10 Privacy on Bitcoin

32:31 Setting up a home node

33:31 The Swatting Story

43:03 More on Casa

51:36 Self custody

53:10 Casa supporting Ethereum

56:10 Thoughts on Ethereum

59:41 Is $ETH Money?

1:02:06 Bitcoin developers

1:05:06 Evolution of Bitcoin/crypto

1:0838 Bitcoin's Roadmap

1:15:00 How is Jameson Defiant?

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Chris Bradbury is the CEO of Summer.fi (previously oasis.app). Summer.fi is the 6th largest DeFi protocol that enables users to borrow, lend, and multiply assets across multiple DeFi protocols. In our conversation we dive into the basics of Summer.fi, the rebrand from oasis.app, learn about popular strategies within the platform and their risks, UX updates, competition, and much more.

0:04 Intro to Chris Bradbury

0:50 TL;DR Summer.fi

2:26 Rebrand from oasis.app

9:20 DeFi in one frontend

16:20 Popular DeFi strategies

30:30 Risks of looping strategies

40:40 Risks of leverage

47:40 DeFi vs CeFi

57:26 UX changes coming for summer.fi

1:02:55 Summer.fi competition

1:06:55 noob vs degen

1:09:01 wen token?

1:09:45 Summer.fi in 10 years

Paradigm announces the launch of the Paradigm Policy Lab, a collaborative space for academics, policy experts, lawyers, and technologists in the crypto sector.

The lab, a first in the field, focuses on research and analytical thinking applied to policy in the crypto world. Over the last year, Paradigm has become a policy leader, involved in legal battles, hosting discussions, and publishing research.

The Policy Lab, guided by three principles, aims to impact the crypto policy landscape through evidence-based advocacy, interdisciplinary research with technical depth, and a commitment to humility, iteration, and crypto expertise.