WAGMI Ventures Podcast

Michael Feng is the Co-Founder @ Hummingbot (https://hummingbot.org/). Backed by Initialized Capital, Slow Ventures, & more, Hummingbot is open source software that helps you build high-frequency crypto trading bots that specialize in market making and arbitrage strategies. They average $100M+ 24H volume, have 1M+ all-time downloads, and support 13+ HFT strategies. In this episode we dive deep on recently decentralizing their operations to HBOT token holders, why they restructured as a not-for-profit organization, the key differences between TradFi and crypto markets for traders, & much more.

Recorded Tuesday May 30th, 2023.

Omar Yehia is the Head of Investments at Matter Labs, creators of zkSync (https://matter-labs.io/).

Backed by a16z, Variant, Dragonfly, & more, Matter Labs is scaling Ethereum with zero-knowledge proofs to accelerate public blockchain adoption. In this episode we discuss zkSync’s evolution from testnet to mainnet alpha, the breadth of their ecosystem (and Omar’s opinion on most exciting directions), how he thinks about capital allocation on behalf of Matter Labs, and his predictions for the various possible futures of the crypto space.

Recorded Monday May 22nd, 2023.

SHOW NOTES:
1. https://zksync.io/
2. Omar's twitter: @0xomaryehia
3. zkSync's twitter: @zksync
4. Omar's content page: https://omaryehia.notion.site/omaryehia/A-collection-of-talks-podcasts-writing-and-so-on-0b6b31ccb0b44d5b847653d6bea6969e 

Matt Cutler is the Co-Founder & CEO of Blocknative (https://www.blocknative.com/). Backed by Blockchain Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Ryan Sean Adams & David Hoffman, & more, Blocknative is powering the crypto space—building for validators, for dApps, for wallets, and for traders. In this episode we discuss Blocknative’s product evolution (from their beginnings to their now-expansive product offerings), rogue Ethereum validators, the possibilities & implications of ERC 4337, lessons learned from scaling Blocknative, and Matt’s thoughts on the future of crypto.

Recorded Friday May 19th, 2023.

Abhinav Gaur is the Founder & COO @ urFeed  (https://urfeed.xyz). urFeed is a social video & streaming platform, co-owned by creators and their community. In this episode we discuss problems with traditional web2 social platforms, why their feed experience is better than the usual algorithmic feeds, migrating users from web2, the road of progressive decentralization, and much more.

Recorded Tuesday May 16th, 2023.

Bradley Miles is the Co-Founder & CEO of Roll (https://tryroll.com/).

Backed by Techstars, Arthur Hayes, Balaji Srinivasan, & more, Roll is enabling a world where the future of social tokens belongs to you. In this episode we discuss Bradley’s background in venture capital, what Roll is building toward (and soon launching!), and the incredible experience they’re designing for users that will broaden adoption and usability for tokens across the space.

Recorded Monday May 15th, 2023.

SHOW NOTES:

Book – #BreakIntoVC: How to Break Into Venture Capital and Think Like an Investor Whether You're a Student, Entrepreneur or Working Professional, by Bradley Miles

Himanshu Sahay & Dhruv Patel are the Co-Founders of Arch (www.archlending.com). Backed by Tribe Capital, Picus Capital, & more, Arch is the most secure way to borrow against alternative assets. Users can access instant credit without selling your crypto or equity stake, on the platform with best-in-class security and a regulatory-first approach. In this episode we discuss their policy to not “touch or reloan customer funds for any reason,” their state-by-state approach to getting regulatory compliance right, their thoughts on how to best approach building in crypto right now, and much more.

Recorded Monday May 8th, 2023.

Ben Su is the Co-Founder & COO of Capita (https://www.percapita.io/).

Capita allows you to easily design, launch, and operate the investment group you want, on a platform made for you. End-to-end. No-code—whether syndicates, incubators, funds, or DAOs. In this episode we discuss their interesting path from working as lawyers to landing on the present iteration of Capita, the missing ingredients in tooling they've stepped in to solve, the future of the crypto space in general, and much more.

Recorded on Tuesday May 2nd, 2023.

Alex Salnikov is the Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer at Rarible (https://rarible.com/). Backed by Coinbase Ventures, CoinFund, & more, Rarible is a leading blue-chip NFT company that powers both established and emerging brands and creators. Through a multi-chain, aggregated marketplace for NFTs, a self-serve marketplace builder tool, and a white-glove service for custom marketplaces, their products help brands and creators achieve success at every stage of their NFT journey. In this episode, we cover the verticalization of NFT marketplaces, their experience decentralizing Rarible, the NFT royalties debate, & much, much more.

Recorded Tuesday May 9th, 2023.

Chad Lynch is the Co-Founder of Loreum (https://www.loreum.org/). Previously engineer #1 at Maple Finance, Chad is creating Loreum to explore the frontier of human coordination. Right now Loreum is building a DAO Governance protocol for EVM chains, DAO capital formation tooling, and DAO labor market and productivity tooling. In this episode we discuss why Loreum is necessary given the current state of DAO’s, what ingredients have been missing to bring web3 into the next inning, and much, much more.

 Recorded Tuesday April 25th, 2023.

Shane Mac is the Founder & CEO of XMTP (http://xmtp.org). Backed by a16z, Sound Ventures, Alexis Ohanian, Naval Ravikant, Balaji Srinivasan, & many more, XMTP is building the communication network & protocol for web3. In this episode we discuss the remarkable people who’ve come alongside XMTP’s purpose (with emphasis on the developers), the nature of value accrual for a network like XMTP, what the earliest days of XMTP were like, and much more.

Recorded Monday April 17th, 2023.