In this episode, Austin chats with Seth (Cake Wallet) about why privacy is gaining traction after years of being niche, tracing Seth’s entry through Monero and other privacy-preserving products. They compare Zcash’s seemingly influencer-driven pump with Monero’s quieter but rising real-world usage, discuss Cake Wallet’s UX-driven approach (including enforced auto-shielding for Zcash), and debate how criminal adoption can actually validate that privacy tools work in adversarial settings while emphasizing legitimate use cases and storytelling. They explore why app-layer privacy on major L1s has weak adoption versus privacy-native L1s, the importance of defaults, and what’s next for privacy in DeFi and stablecoins.

00:00 - Seth’s Personal and Professional Privacy Journey 

05:53 - Zcash vs Monero Adoption 

09:51 - Crime Compliance and Privacy Ethics 

15:25 - Why Privacy-Preserving Wallet UX Has Lagged 

20:49 - Privacy L1s vs. App-Layer Privacy 

27:30 - What’s Next Private DeFi 

30:07 - Why Monero Has Survived CEX Delistings 

32:35 - Privacy in the Age of AI Surveillance 

41:51 - Conclusion 

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