WAGMI Ventures Podcast

Temoc Weber & Igor Mandrigin are the Co-Founders of Gateway (https://gateway.fm).

Backed by Lemniscap, Unstoppable Domains, & more, Gateway is building the next generation of web3 infrastructure and tooling products—offering RPC, staking, and instant private zk-rollups. In this episode we discuss private rollups and app-chain development, building during the bear market, what keeps them excited about building in crypto (despite macro adversity), their best advice for founders in web3, & much more.

Recorded Friday September 22nd, 2023.

Julia Zhou is a Partner—Venture & Market-Making at AlphaLab Capital (www.alphalab.capital).

AlphaLab Capital Group is a technology-driven trading group that transacts over $2B daily in cryptoassets on 40+ exchanges, both centralized and decentralized. They were one of the first movers in quantitative trading on the blockchain, and today they operate thousands of algorithms 24/7 on a globally distributed network of trading servers. In this episode we chat about whether market makers are necessary for every token project, DEX vs. CEX for different types of token projects, best tools to monitor liquidity during launch and trading, the various business models of market makers, and much more.

Recorded Tuesday August 15th, 2023.

Amrit Kumar is the COO at AltLayer (https://www.altlayer.io).

Backed by Polychain, Binance Labs, Balaji Srinivasan, & more, AltLayer offers Rollups-as-a-Service products that accelerate web3 projects. In this episode we discuss the original insights that led to the creation of AltLayer, the remarkable traction of their testnet, Amrit’s advice for building and scaling teams, his outlook on the crypto space writ large, & much more.

Recorded Wednesday August 30, 2023.

Tim Beiko is part of the Protocol Team at the Ethereum Foundation (https://ethereum.org/en/foundation). In this role Tim orchestrates development teams focused on the core protocol—most notably for The Merge. In this episode we discuss Tim’s origin story in crypto, how Ethereum can serve as an economic testnet for new types of coordination in the world (and why that’s a valuable proposition), what he’s most excited about for the future of Ethereum, his advice for developers new to the crypto space, and much more.

Recorded Thursday August 31, 2023.

J.M. Porup is the Chief Information Security Officer of Ava Labs (here in a personal capacity to talk security and web3). In this episode we discuss security differences within web2 vs. web3, how to think about security in web3 as an individual and as an institution, why being a CISO is about risk reduction (not risk elimination), and why security in crypto right now is like “fighting Mike Tyson with a blindfold on” (hint: it has to do with playing defense against actual nation-states—without governmental support).

Recorded Tuesday August 22nd, 2023.

Foobar is the Founder & CEO of Delegate (https://delegate.xyz).

Delegate is all about securing your on-chain identity—enabling you to keep your vaulted NFTs and ERC20s safe by linking wallets together, plus claim airdrops, prove token ownership, and more from your hot wallet. In this episode we talk about unexpected challenges of semi-pseudonymity on the internet, Foobar’s present outlook on the crypto space writ large, the interesting product evolution of Delegate (formerly Delegate Cash), Foobar’s thoughts and work around Friend.tech, and much, much more.

Recorded Monday August 24th, 2023.

Zac Williamson is the Co-Founder and CEO of Aztec (https://aztec.network). Backed by Variant, a16z, & more, Aztec is a first-of-its-kind hybrid zkRollup supporting both public and private smart contract execution. In this episode we learn how Zac got into crypto from his past life as an Oxford researcher in particle physics, his perspective on the practical uses of privacy (and the implications for the future of the internet), the limitations of blockchains today (compared to the past), the advice he would impart to his earlier self from his present self, & much, much more.

Recorded Tuesday August 8th, 2023.

Evin McMullen is the Co-Founder and CEO of Disco (https://www.disco.xyz/).

Backed by Polychain Capital, Winklevoss Capital, WAGMI Ventures, & more, Disco is your own personal data backpack—where you own yourself, and control what you share. In this episode we hear about Evin’s fascinating educational journey, her formative experiences with Napster early-on, how decentralized identifiers and verifiable credentials work in Disco, some upcoming exciting news for the Disco community, & much, much more.

Recorded Tuesday August 1st, 2023.

Jay Jog is the Co-Founder of Sei Labs (https://www.sei.io/). Backed by Multicoin Capital, Coinbase, WAGMI Ventures, & more, Sei is the fastest Layer 1 blockchain, designed to scale with the industry. In this episode we discuss Jay’s experience at Robinhood (and how it inspired the creation of Sei Labs), how speed unlocks new building possibilities, Sei’s evolution from the “DeFi-focused chain” to a “general-purpose permissionless chain,” and of course–today’s mainnet launch (plus much, much more).

Recorded Monday August 14th, 2023.

Max Galka is the Founder and CEO of Elementus (https://www.elementus.io/). Backed by Gemini, Lightspeed, & more, Elementus puts the democratization of quality blockchain data at the forefront of everything we do in order to transform industries at web3 scale. In this episode we chat about his tradfi experience during the financial crisis, the quest for enabling quality data at-scale, what’s got Max excited at Elementus these days (and looking toward the future), and much more.

Recorded Monday July 31st, 2023.