The Defiant

Alex Shevchenko is the CEO of Aurora Labs, which is a Layer 2 scaling solution built on Near. Alex has a doctoral degree in math and physics.

Today, we get into the details behind Aurora Labs, the difference between Aurora Cloud and the Aurora EVM, how they have survived the market crash, Alex's vision of Ethereum Layer 2s, his conviction in an AppChain future, and so much more.

We begin our conversation with Alex's focus at Aurora Labs.

Spencer has played a pivotal role in shaping the landscape of decentralized technologies and digital assets over the last decade.

We get into his journey impact in the blockchain sector, their investment thesis around the controversial WorldCoin, how he's continued to thrive among many economic downturns, and we get into their recent news of a $580 million for two new funds.

But first, Spencer tells us about the history of the firm.

This week, we were joined by Christian Montoya, Senior Product Manager for Metamask Snaps

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments.

Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts.

Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Erik Marks is the director of product for permissionless innovation at MetaMask.

MetaMask, the popular non-custodial wallet owned by Consensys, has been in the spotlight following the launch of Snaps on open beta. You can think of Snaps as plugins that allow developers to add new and different apps that we can use in MetaMask.

One of the biggest implications of this is that Snaps will connect MetaMask to non-Ethereum chains, including Bitcoin and Solana.

In our conversation, we dive deep into the vision and the broader implications of Snaps.

Sean Li is the CEO and Co-founder of Magic Labs, which is a wallet that enables passwordless login and Web3 onboarding without seed phrases.

Despite not being as well known as other Web3 wallets, Magic Labs recently raised $52M from PayPal Ventures, onboarded mainstream brands like Mattel and 7-Eleven, and have over 25 million wallets installed.

In our conversation, we will dive into how they've built enterprise-friendly wallet solutions, their major collaborations, the onboarding process of Web2 brands and how they're using Web3 technology, how DeFi can be more palatable for the mainstream, and much more.

But first, Sean will get us started with Magic and describe how it's different from the other wallets.

This episode is brought to you by:

Bumper: Defend your crypto from market crashes & downside volatility

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments.

Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts.

Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

This week, we were joined by Will Warren and Ashley Ebersole from 0x to discuss the CFTC's recent enforcement actions against three DeFi protocols.

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments.

Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts.

Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

This week, we were joined by Anatoly Yakovenko, founder and CEO of Solana.

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments.

Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts.

Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments.

Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts.

Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

In this episode of The Defiant podcast, we are joined by Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino.

We discuss Tether's banking partners, its reserve composition, its latest attestation, and why the stablecoin issuer still hasn't presented an audit. Ardoino puts some of the blame on auditing firms.