Sam MacPherson spent two years inside MakerDAO's core engineering team before co-founding Phoenix Labs to build Spark, the on-chain capital allocator that now manages billions in stablecoin liquidity across DeFi, CeFi, and tokenized real-world assets within the Sky ecosystem. Spark sits at the credit layer beneath USDS, Sky's $9B+ stablecoin, intermediating yield for institutions, fintechs, and retail through products like Spark Savings, Sparklend, Spark Prime, and an Anchorage Digital integration for institutional Bitcoin-backed loans. In a wide-ranging exchange with host Sri Misra, Sam explains why Spark offboarded rsETH three months before the KelpDAO exploit, why pure DAO governance does not scale, and why "boring" stablecoin yield products are quietly winning the institutional DeFi race. The conversation lands at a moment when the GENIUS Act has banned regulated stablecoin issuers from paying interest, pushing $300B in idle deposits toward Spark Protocol and its competitors, and when AI agents are emerging as the next stablecoin user base.👉How Spark Protocol avoided the $292M KelpDAO exploit by offboarding rsETH three months early through routine risk reviews👉Why MakerDAO's original DAO governance model failed, and how the new Sky "Stars" structure with sub-DAOs like Spark, Grove, and Obex actually works👉What the math behind a median oracle running Chainlink, Chronicle, and Redstone together protects DeFi lending protocols from👉How Spark generates $21M in annual revenue today and earned $80-$100M ARR at the last bull market peak, while running a programmatic SPK token buyback👉Why the institutional OTC crypto lending market at $20-30B is 3-6x larger than the on-chain side, and how Spark Prime is going after it👉Why stablecoin yield, AI agent payments, and cross-border settlement are converging into the next decade's biggest fintech opportunitySubscribe to the un# podcast for weekly founder conversations and follow Sri Misra on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/srimisra] for daily insights.00:00 - Inside DeFi's Oldest Lending Protocol 03:08 - What Spark Protocol Actually Does 06:30 - From MakerDAO to Sky Rebrand 09:11 - Why DAO Governance Failed at Scale 12:39 - Grove, Obex, and Sky's New Stars 14:46 - How Spark Stablecoin Yield Really Works 21:14 - The KelpDAO Exploit and Spark's Response 22:42 - Conservative Collateral Beats Degen Yield 28:08 - Median Oracles and Risk Engineering 35:00 - Spark Protocol Revenue and SPK Buybacks 40:53 - Stablecoins as the New Credit Layer 48:09 - Lessons From Three DeFi Cycles #SamMacPherson #SparkProtocol #PhoenixLabs #MakerDAO #Sky #USDS #DeFiLending #StablecoinYield #InstitutionalDeFi #KelpDAOExploit #DeFiInterview #CryptoFounderInterview #SriMisra #aarnaProtocol #StablecoinExplained #RealWorldAssets #OnChainCredit #CryptoLending #defi2026 Disclaimer: The information presented is for educational purposes only. Views expressed are those of the speakers, not necessarily the channel. You are responsible for your own research and decisions.Copyright: © 2024 Aarna AI Pte Ltd, Singapore. All rights reserved.

Anton Katz, Founder of Talos, built the institutional crypto trading infrastructure that BlackRock, Nasdaq, and Robinhood rely on, and in this conversation with host Sri Misra on alpha un#, he explains exactly what happens to finance next.Anton Katz is a MIT computer science graduate, IDF veteran, and former Head of Trading Technology at AQR Capital Management, who left in 2018 to build the institutional infrastructure his former employer could not. Talos is now a $1.5 billion digital asset trading platform connecting over 100 venues, serving asset managers with $21 trillion in AUM, and powering execution behind BlackRock's Aladdin integration and Nasdaq's tokenized collateral initiative. In this conversation, Katz makes a counterintuitive declaration: Talos is not a crypto company. Crypto was simply the first asset class on digital rails, and equities, bonds, and treasuries are next. He describes three separate financial conversations running simultaneously, why most builders are watching only one, and recounts a real exchange with a Wall Street trading head who admitted 40% of market liquidity will soon be native on-chain with no system to bridge the gap.👉How Talos became the execution layer behind BlackRock's crypto trading workflows and what that integration actually required to build👉Why Anton Katz says "crypto is just the first asset class on digital rails" and what that means for equities, bonds, and treasuries moving on-chain👉What a major US bank's head of trading told Katz four weeks before recording: that 40% of market liquidity will go native on-chain and no bank has a system to operate across both worlds👉How Talos navigated the FTX collapse and the 2022-23 crypto winter by building a churn model that doesn't compete with rivals but instead tracks whether clients' entire businesses survive👉Why DeFi vaults may fundamentally change the cost structure and access model of institutional asset management, from the perspective of someone who ran trading technology at one of the world's top quant funds👉What three financial conversations are running in parallel right now, crypto as an asset class, stablecoins as payment rails, and capital markets tokenization, and why understanding all three simultaneously is where the real opportunity sitsSubscribe to unhashed for weekly founder and builder conversations, and follow Sri Misra on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/srimisra for daily insights on DeFi, AI, and the future of finance00:00 - Inside Talos: The Institutional Crypto Infrastructure Story 02:04 - What Talos Actually Does for Institutions 08:09 - How Institutions Use CeFi vs DeFi Today 12:28 - Why DeFi Vaults Could Change Asset Management 14:35 - Talos, BlackRock Aladdin, and Crypto Adoption 18:07 - Leaving AQR: The Origin of Talos 24:28 - The Founder Mindset: Optimist and Pessimist 28:55 - The ETF Moment That Unlocked Institutional Crypto 32:21 - Stablecoins as the New Settlement Rail 35:03 - The $130 Billion Remittance Problem Stablecoins Solve 37:06 - Phase 3: Talos Beyond Crypto Assets 40:56 - BlackRock's Warning: 40% Goes On-Chain 43:47 - Is Talos Becoming a DeFi Gatekeeper? 47:18 - No Token, Possible IPO: What's Next#AntonKatz #Talos #InstitutionalCrypto #DigitalAssetTrading #CryptoInfrastructure #BlockchainCapitalMarkets #TokenizationRWA #DeFiForInstitutions #CryptoAdoption #BlackRockCrypto #SriMisra #CryptoStartup #InstitutionalBlockchain #StablecoinPayments #DeFiYield #CryptoFounder #Web3Infrastructure #DigitalAssets #CryptoUnicornDisclaimer: The information presented is for educational purposes only. Views expressed are those of the speakers, not necessarily the channel. You are responsible for your own research and decisions.Copyright: © 2024 Aarna AI Pte Ltd, Singapore. All rights reserved.

"We don't make fees when we liquidate you." Most DeFi protocols profit from your liquidation. Sidney Powell explains why Maple designed the opposite incentive.Full episode at: unhashed.co/sid

The same way Amazon got ahead of Walmart - same business model, different technology stack.Sid Powell on why crypto-native lenders will overtake Apollo and Blackstone. Full episode at: unhashed.co/sid

"No plan survives first contact with the enemy." Sid Powell built Maple through 3 brutal pivots - tokenized bonds → uncollateralized lending → where they are now. Full episode at: unhashed.co/sid

"DeFi is dead" - and the CEO who built $20 billion in institutional DeFi lending is the one saying it. In this conversation, Sid Powell of Maple Finance explains why that declaration is the most bullish signal in crypto, how onchain credit is now undercutting Apollo and KKR on price, and why the $3 trillion private credit market has no idea what is coming for it.Sid Powell spent years at National Australia Bank structuring securitisations and running a $200 million bond funding program before walking away from traditional finance to rebuild those exact instruments on a blockchain - without a bank, a clearing house, or Monday-to-Friday operating hours. Maple Finance, the institutional DeFi lending platform he co-founded with Joe Flanagan in 2019, has since originated over $20 billion in loans, closed a single $500 million transaction in December 2025, and grown AUM tenfold in one year to $5 billion - managed by just 41 people. Among the episode's most counterintuitive revelations: that standard DeFi protocols are structurally designed to profit from borrower liquidations, that there is no real technology moat in DeFi and never was, and that FinTech companies which have never touched a stablecoin are now approaching Maple for credit facilities. Host Sri Misra, founder of aarna.ai, draws out the full arc of this story - the 2022 near-collapse, the vertical integration pivot, and the long-term bet that all capital markets will eventually settle on a blockchain - in a conversation that is as much a masterclass in credit market structure as it is a DeFi episode.👉How Maple Finance built a $5 billion institutional DeFi lending platform with 41 people by automating risk management and leveraging AI to scale without scaling headcount👉Why standard DeFi lending protocols are incentivised to liquidate borrowers, and how Maple's recourse loan model and 24-hour margin call window inverts that dynamic entirely👉What the $500 million single on-chain loan closed in December 2025 signals about where institutional appetite for onchain credit has genuinely arrived👉Why Sid Powell abandone the infrastructure positioning that defined Maple's early years, and how the Apple and Tesla vertical integration model became the blueprint for Maple's rebuild after 2022👉How DeFi's low cost of capital in 2026 is making onchain lenders genuinely price-competitive with private credit funds in card receivables, invoice finance, and SMB lending for the first time👉What the convergence of stablecoin regulation, tokenized assets, and FinTech origination means for the $3 trillion private credit market over the next three years, as explored by Sri Misra and Sid Powell in this alpha un# episode - subscribe to alpha un# for weekly founder conversations and follow Sri Misra on LinkedIn and X for daily insights on the future of onchain finance00:00 - DeFi is Dead: What That Really Means 04:16 - Institutional DeFi Lending Explained Simply 07:09 - The $500M Loan and Maple Finance Scale 09:38 - When Non-Crypto Firms Enter DeFi Credit 13:00 - FinTech Asset-Backed Lending on Blockchain 18:28 - Maple Finance Founding Story and 2022 Crisis 20:53 - Why Vertical Integration Beats DeFi Infrastructure 23:13 - SyrupUSDC, Stablecoin Yield and Composability 27:53 - Onchain Risk Management and Margin Call Process 33:55 - Competing With Apollo, KKR, and Blackstone 36:30 - Tokenized Assets as Collateral by 2027 #Maplefinance #SidPowell #InstitutionalDeFi #DeFiLending #OnchainCredit #StablecoinYield #TokenizedAssets #SriMisra #AlphaUnhashed #DeFi2026 #PrivateCredit #OnchainFinance #SyrupUSDC #CryptoLending #TradFiDeFi #BlockchainFinance #DigitalAssets #OnchainAssetManagementDisclaimer: The information presented is for educational purposes only. Views expressed are those of the speakers, not necessarily the channel. You are responsible for your own research and decisions.Copyright: © 2024 Aarna AI Pte Ltd, Singapore. All rights reserved.

In this episode, host Sri Misra sits down with Eric Saraniecki to unpack why the future of crypto may not be driven by hype cycles, but by durable, repeatable financial activity. From token burns and network activity to the long-term convergence of TradFi and DeFi, this conversation explores what real utility on-chain could actually look like.Full episode at: unhashed.co/eric

In this episode, host Sri Misra speaks with Eric Saraniecki about what may actually be blockchain’s most important breakthrough: composability. Eric explains why the real shift is not just decentralization or immutability, but the ability to coordinate updates across applications without losing privacy. From DeFi’s multi-leg transaction logic to Canton’s vision for globally composable financial apps, this is a sharp conversation on what real blockchain infrastructure should enable.Full episode at: unhashed.co/eric

In this episode, host Sri Misra sits down with Eric Saraniecki to unpack a more practical view of decentralization. Instead of treating it like a universal answer, Eric explains why different layers need different configurations, why institutions need flexibility, and why all of it still has to coexist in a neutral, composable network.

Full episode at: unhashed.co/eric

Finance is the last industry on earth where pressing a button does not make something happen instantly, and Eric Saraniecki, Co-founder of Canton Network, has spent 12 years building the blockchain infrastructure designed to finally change that.Canton Network is the public permissionless blockchain with privacy that Goldman Sachs, DTCC, Nasdaq, BNY and 600+ institutions have quietly chosen as the foundation for the next era of on-chain finance. While most of crypto was debating decentralisation, Eric and his team were in the rooms that matter, convincing the most risk-averse institutions in the world to move trillions in real assets onto a single composable network. In this deep-dive founder conversation with host Sri Misra, Eric unpacks the thesis that has guided 12 years of building, why composability is the only blockchain innovation that actually matters, why ZK proofs solve the wrong privacy problem, what the DTCC's decision to tokenize US Treasuries on Canton means for every RWA platform alive today, and why the DeFi versus TradFi debate is a false binary that Canton is already making irrelevant.What you will learn in this episode:👉Why Eric says there is no composability across chains, none, period, and why that single fact determines which blockchain wins the institutional finance endgame👉How Canton Network generates $3.25 million in daily fees with 5.5% of all Canton Coin already burned, before its largest institutional volume catalyst, the DTCC Treasury tokenization, has even gone live👉Why anonymity and institutional privacy are completely different problems, and why ZK proofs and FHE are the wrong solution for stablecoins, RWAs and regulated DeFi👉How Eric convinced Goldman Sachs, Broadridge and the DTCC to build in production, not in pilots, on Canton, and the one word he uses to describe what institutions feel when they first see it👉Eric's prediction on the multi-chain world, the AllFi thesis that merges DeFi and TradFi into a single composable network, and why the DTCC going live is the beginning for everyone, not the end for anyoneIf this episode gave you a sharper view of where institutional blockchain and on-chain finance are heading, subscribe to alpha un# and follow host Sri Misra on LinkedIn and X for more founder-to-founder conversations at the frontier of DeFi and global finance.Chapters:00:00 - What Is Canton Network Really 02:26 - Inside Out, Canton's 12-Year Strategy 04:54 - Composability, the Flaw Every Chain Ignored 10:43 - Decentralisation Does Not Equal Trust 17:06 - Canton Coin Burn and Durable Fee Revenue 22:45 - DAML vs EVM, Privacy Built Into the Language 27:21 - No Composability Across Chains, None 31:28 - ZK Proofs Cannot Save Regulated Finance 35:47 - Why Banks Feel Relief Not Excitement 39:47 - Broadridge, $400 Billion Daily on Canton 41:05 - DTCC Tokenizing Treasuries, The Full Picture 45:26 - DTCC Goes Live, Beginning Not End 46:19 - From DRW Trading Pits to Fixing Finance 49:11 - Canton's Vision, Networks Over Headlines#EricSaraniecki #CantonNetwork #DigitalAsset #InstitutionalDeFi #RWATokenization #BlockchainPrivacy #OnChainFinance #DeFiInstitutional #CantonCoin #DTCC #UST #Tokenization #Composability #DAML #ZeroKnowledge #Stablecoins #Web3Institutional #TradFiOnChain #BlockchainFinance #AlphaUnhashed #CryptoFounder #Web3Podcast #DeFiTradFi #AllFi #Broadridge #GoldmanSachs #FounderToFounder #CryptoInvesting #InstitutionalBlockchain #realworldassets Disclaimer: The information presented is for educational purposes only. Views expressed are those of the speakers, not necessarily the channel. You are responsible for your own research and decisions.Copyright: © 2024 Aarna AI Pte Ltd, Singapore. All rights reserved.