James Christoph explains why MicroStrategy can't be replicated, DATs are doomed, and crypto markets are more efficient than people think. Plus: Celestia's inflation problem, Ethena's systemic risks, and why Hyperliquid nailed their stablecoin strategy.

If you’re interested in a mission-driven company, Ellipsis Labs is hiring engineers passionate about crypto and finance to work on Atlas. Learn more and apply on Twitter at @Ellipsis_Labs and @atlasxyz.

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Mallesh, formerly Special Mechanisms Group and Rice University joins us to talk about his move to Tempo, Stripe's new payments-first blockchain.We dive into why they built another L1, multi-stablecoin architecture, MEV challenges in payments, with credible neutrality

05:34 Tempo

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Eric Yakes, venture capitalist at Epoch Ventures, joins us to talk about Bitcoin's path from digital gold to banking system integration. We dive deep into his 130-page report on Bitcoin banking, stablecoin dynamics as Trojan horses for Bitcoin adoption, and why he believes we're heading toward a hybrid financial system that bridges traditional finance with crypto innovation.

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Rory Murray, Director of Digital Asset Management at Cleanspark, joins us to discuss his journey from global macro investing to leading Bitcoin mining operations, the Griid acquisition, cost structures, hedging strategies, and how the business is evolving into a hybrid energy‑finance powerhouse.

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SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce joins us to talk about the evolving crypto regulatory landscape—from the Clarity Act and the Howey test to protocol ownership, governance tokens, and the challenges of MEV. She shares insider perspectives on market‑structure bills, self‑custody, and what regulators really care about in decentralized finance.

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Anatoly from Solana joins us to talk about the recently launched Seeker phone and its strategy to break Apple/Google's 30% monopoly through crypto-native distribution. We dive deep into Hyperliquid's centralized matching engine vs Solana's decentralized approach, Bitcoin as digital gold vs investment, the meme coin phenomenon, and why hardware might be key to building alternative app ecosystems.

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Welcome back to The Gwart Show! Today, Benedict Brady, former quant trader and founder of Meridian joins us to talk about Solana's dark pool ecosystem, Jupiter's market dominance, the move from traditional AMMs to sophisticated trading infrastructure, MEV wars, and how his AI-powered trading assistant is changing crypto trading interfaces.

Timestamps:

00:00 Start

00:19 Benedict intro

02:32 Solana focused work

05:14 Solana market evolution

13:03 RFQ vs Dark AMM

15:24 Partial RFQ Fills

17:17 Dark AMMs in practice

19:58 Define "Dark"

23:46 Why Jupyter?

27:45 Dark AMM big unlock?

30:19 Deep thoughts...

32:14 Are Solana spreads tight?

36:02 Wintermute

37:19 Why the secrecy?

40:01 Hello MEV, my old friend

45:26 Gwart the Bitcoin Maxi (or not)

49:23 SOL vs ETH

52:44 App sequencing

55:33 Perp DEX is actually an L2

58:35 BAM

59:36 Permissionless building

1:04:29 Meridian

1:07:11 LLM trading

1:09:27 AI + Crypto killer apps

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The Gwart Show is sponsored by Ellipsis Labs, the builders behind Atlas, a blockchain for verifiable finance and Phoenix, an on-chain orderbook DEX with over $50 billion in unincentivized volume.

If you're interested in a mission-driven company, Ellipsis Labs is hiring engineers passionate about crypto and finance to work on Atlas.
Learn more and apply on Twitter at @Ellipsis_Labs and @atlasxyz.

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Welcome back to The Gwart Show! Today, Alex B from Ark Labs joins us to talk about the Ark protocol and Arkade implementation - a Bitcoin layer 2 that uses transaction batching and virtual UTXOs to scale Bitcoin beyond Lightning. We explore how Ark competes with roll-ups, enables Bitcoin capital markets, and could transform Lightning's UX while maintaining self-custody. Alex explains the technical innovations, use cases from payments to lending, and why this could be Bitcoin's answer to Ethereum's scaling solutions.

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NOTES:

• Phoenix wallet charges 0.4% per transaction

• Bitcoin market cap reached $2 trillion

• Roll-ups rely on bridge security assumptions

• Ark enables unlimited swap throughput

Chapters:

00:00 Start

01:03 What is Ark?

13:34 Sequencers

16:15 Why rollups?

23:47 Security Counsel

28:17 Ellipsis Labs

29:18 EVM vs Ark

35:41 Arkade's killer app

51:30 Bitcoin payments

1:02:17 All innovation comes back to Bitcoin

1:12:12 Fragmented liquidity

1:15:35 Open source

1:19:42 Wen Arkade beta?

👋 Watch on your podcast player of choice!

Apple http://tiny.cc/e7wuwz

Spotify https://tinyurl.com/aj3ymv6h

RSS http://tiny.cc/wbwuwz

YouTube https://tinyurl.com/4kwhu4s7

The Gwart Show is sponsored by Ellipsis Labs, the builders behind Atlas, a blockchain for verifiable finance and Phoenix, an on-chain orderbook DEX with over $50 billion in unincentivized volume.

If you're interested in a mission-driven company, Ellipsis Labs is hiring engineers passionate about crypto and finance to work on Atlas.

Learn more and apply on Twitter at @Ellipsis_Labs and @atlasxyz.

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Felix Jauvin, Macro Economist and host of Forward Guidance podcast, joins us to talk about the regime shift from monetary to fiscal dominance, why Bitcoin and risk assets are hitting all-time highs despite high interest rates, the treasury company revolution led by MicroStrategy, and why "hyper gambling your way to wealth" has become a rational strategy in our current economic environment.

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Welcome back to The Gwart Show! Today, Josh Lim from FalconX joins us to talk about the massive boom in corporate crypto treasury vehicles. We talk about how these deals work, from management teams and investment bankers structuring vehicles to raise capital, to the 45-60 day liquidity windows and 2-6x NAV premiums investors are seeing. Josh explains the Michael Saylor playbook, yield strategies, and whether this trend is sustainable or headed for a crash.

Subscribe to the newsletter! https://newsletter.blockspacemedia.com

Notes:

• Treasury vehicles see 45-60 day liquidity windows

• Some trade at 2-6x NAV premiums currently  

• $4 billion new Bitcoin vehicle announced recently

• Circle IPO traded at $230 per share peak

• MicroStrategy model being widely replicated

• 3-5 month timeline for SPAC conversions

Timestamps:

00:00 Start

00:46 Josh's background & FalconX

03:12 Arbelos Markets

04:03 Market overview

07:03 Digital asset treasury companies

11:07 Starting a treasury vehicle company

12:36 Hostile takeovers?

16:06 Deal structure

21:17 LOL "Management team"

23:09 ROI for investors

26:56 What's a healthy multiple?

28:19 Copy/Paste Strategy

29:32 Yield strategies

32:02 How does this fail?

35:40 Premium longevity

38:10 Out "Sayloring" Saylor, c'mon bro?

41:26 Alt Season go bye bye?

46:06 Trading on-chain, relic of the past?

49:30 24/7 trading

50:57 Prediction markets

53:24 Gwart's take on treasury companies

54:49 Josh's optimistic take

56:19 Circle IPO

57:29 Degen's gonna degen

59:05 Wrap

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👋 The Gwart Show is proudly presented by Ellipsis Labs! Ellipsis Labs is building foundational products in DeFi. Their first product @PhoenixTrade is the leading orderbook DEX on Solana. The team is growing—visit ellipsislabs.xyz for engineering opportunities.

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