WAGMI Ventures Podcast

Justin Vogel is the Co-Founder of Safary (https://www.safary.club). Safary is a web3 growth community & marketing analytics platform. In this episode we chat about how Safary was created, key early moments in Safary’s existence (along with challenges and “good surprises”), why you can think about content and product and community all with a similar framework, the value prop of Safary’s marketing attribution platform, how AI is intersecting with his work as a content creator, & much more.

Recorded Friday October 20th, 2023.

Nigel Eccles is the Co-Founder & CEO of Vault (https://vault.fan). Backed by WAGMI Ventures, Placeholder VC, & more, Vault uses web3 technology to help artists launch limited runs of singles, albums and exclusive Box Set collections. In this episode we talk about Nigel’s professional journey (including the creation of FanDuel), the intersection of web3 and creative industries like music, what’s wrong with existing models for musicians, the theory and praxis of how Vault is solving deep issues in the music industry, & much more.

Recorded Thursday October 19th, 2023.

Jaemin Jin is the Co-Founder & CPO @ Magic (https://magic.link). Backed by PayPal Ventures, Lightspeed, Social Capital, SV Angel, as well as angels like Naval Ravikant, Balaji Srinivasan, Scott Belsky, Ryan Hoover, & more, Magic provides the leading wallet-as-a-service (plus essential NFT capabilities)—enabling all the benefits of web3, and none of the stress, for brands like Mattel, Animoca Brands, Magic Eden, & more. In this episode we chat about how Magic began, what their market is like, the earliest surprises and challenges in building Magic, working with big brands like Macy’s or 7-11 (and how to think about solving for their needs), how crypto has changed since his start in the space, his most generalizable advice for crypto founders, & much more.

Recorded Tuesday October 17th, 2023.

Paul Schmidt is the COO of fxhash (https://www.fxhash.xyz). Backed by 1kx, Fabric Ventures, Union Square Ventures, & more, fxhash is the open platform for artists and collectors to live out their passion for generative art. In this episode we discuss why generative art is the artistic movement of our era, fxhash’s recent evolution to become multi-chain (in supporting Ethereum), the most exciting possibilities in web3 from his present vantage point, & much more.

Recorded Tuesday October 10th, 2023.

Keone Hon is the Co-Founder & CEO of Monad (https://www.monad.xyz). Backed by Dragonfly, Monad is a decentralized, developer-forward Layer 1 smart contract platform that ushers in a new paradigm of possibility through pipelined execution of Ethereum transactions—crafted for productivity, fundamentally optimized. In this episode we discuss Keone’s perspective on where applications will find most traction, how they raised funds during the present market cycle, his thoughts on the future of crypto, & much more.

Recorded Wednesday October 11th, 2023.

Dima Romanov & David Cao are the Co-Founders of Layer N, and Patricia Xiang is the Head of Growth at Layer N (https://www.layern.com/). Backed by Founders Fund, Amber Group, Kraken Ventures, & more, Layer N is a hyperperformant rollup network designed to scale financial applications on Ethereum. In this episode we chat about why blockchain scalability is so important, the market dynamics of their particular space, earliest challenges and surprises in building Layer N, what crypto’s getting right (and wrong) in 2023, & much more.

Recorded Thursday October 12th, 2023.

Helena Gagern is the Co-Founder of Salsa (https://salsa.me). Backed by IDEO CoLab VC, Inflection.xyz, Dan Romero, Balaji Srinivasan, & more, Salsa is a web3 native messaging platform currently focused on creating community tools for musicians. In this episode we discuss the origin story of Salsa (and the story of how the co-founders met), earliest challenges and surprising opportunities, what kind of impact Salsa could make if they continue to execute, best advice for navigating web3 as a crypto founder, & much more.

Recorded Wednesday October 4th, 2023.

Bryan Pellegrino is the Co-Founder & CEO of LayerZero Labs (https://layerzero.network). Backed by Sequoia, a16z, Coinbase Ventures, Uniswap Labs, & more, LayerZero is a user application (UA) configurable on-chain endpoint that runs a ULN. In this episode we discuss interesting second-orders / downstream effects if their work continues to gain traction, Bryan’s fascinating perspective on the history and future of crypto, advice for crypto founders working on hard technical problems, & much, much more.

Recorded Tuesday October 3rd, 2023.

Uri Klarman is the Co-Founder & CEO of BloXroute Labs (https://bloxroute.com). Backed by Dragonfly, Lightspeed Venture Partners, SoftBank, & more, BloXroute Labs has created the first and fastest blockchain distribution network—across transaction propagation (400-1000ms faster), block propagation (up to 2 seconds faster), mempool service (50-400 ms faster), and more. In this episode we discuss Uri’s journey into crypto from a Northwestern PhD program, how the future changes because of bloXroute’s work, what crypto is getting right and getting wrong in 2023, & much more.

Recorded Monday October 2nd, 2023.

Guy Young is the Founder & CEO of Ethena Labs (www.ethena.fi). Backed by Huobi, Arthur Hayes, & more, Ethena Labs is all about unlocking the potential of staked Ethereum. Their main offerings are a delta-neutral stablecoin with embedded yield (called USDe), globally accessible floating & fixed rate USD-denominated bonds, and capital efficient and composable leverage. In this episode we discuss Guy’s journey to crypto from a $50b fund in TradFi, the mechanism and philosophy behind USDe (and why it works), most interesting trajectories for DeFi in 2023, the attitude of major TradFi institutions toward DeFi right now (despite the ETF excitement), and much more.

Recorded Wednesday September 27th, 2023.