The Defiant - DeFi Podcast

Today we're joined by Arjun Bhuptani, founder and CEO of Connext Labs. We get an in-depth look at Connext, an important component in the Web 3 stack. In a world of many Layer 1s and Layer 2s, connecting the chains is so important, especially doing it in a secure way. We get into how they approach security, we dive into the nuance of Vitalik's post on bridging, we talk about rollups-as-a-service, how Connext abstracts away the hassle from a user standpoint around interacting with multiple chains, their proposal for bridged assets, as well as they're recent launch and so much more. But first, Arjun tells us about what he's focused on at Connext. Chapters

0:50 What is Arjun focused on?

1:37 History of Connext

4:26 Arjun's vision on Web3

8:42 Improving UX

12:54 Connext Users

14:55 Bridging

18:05 Where does Connext fit in Web3?

20:25 Connext Security

24:46 Connext Roadmap

27:33 XRC20

32:10 Competition

37:22 $NEXT Launch

40:41 $NEXT Utility

44:23 Connext DAO

46:24 What surprised Arjun the most

49:30 Decentralization

53:08 How is Arjun Defiant? ✨ Check out our new website ✨ https://thedefiant.io/ 🚀 Sign up to our newsletter 🚀 https://thedefiant.io/go-premium#pricing?utm_source=YT&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=signup 🤑 Find DeFi investment opportunities & educational primers here https://thedefiant.io/promo?utm_source=YT&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=alpha ✊ Follow The Defiant Twitter: https://twitter.com/defiantnews Discord: https://discord.com/invite/3SdRdEs5ag Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedefiant.io/ Telegram: https://t.me/DefiantNews 📬 Contact our Newsroom editorial@thedefiant.io 🤝 Sponsorships & Partnerships sponsors@thedefiant.io #TheDefiant​ #DeFi​ #Decentralized​ #Finance​ #Blockchain #Web3

David Gogel is the VP of Strategy and Operations at the dYdX Foundation.

In today's podcast, David will discuss the recent milestone of the foundation operating on its independent app chain. This transition involved multiple stages and intriguing tokenomics mechanisms, marking a significant moment for the organization.

In our conversation, we will delve deeper into the evolution of this move and its implications, offering insights into dYdX's journey going forward.

This conversation between The Defiant and Rune Christensen was recorded during Devconnect 2023 in Istanbul.

Chapters

0:28 Why Rune is in Istanbul

1:02 Crypto Adoption in Türkiye

5:03 Interest for DeFi in Türkiye

8:09 Emerging Markets

10:50 Regulatory Landscape in Türkiye

24:15 MakerDAO Rebrand

27:51 MakerDAO Endgame Update

33:57 MakerDAO's Exposure to T-Bills vs Macro Conditions

38:00 Different Stablecoins

47:14 MKR and Governance

The cryptocurrency world has been buzzing with news of a potential Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) in recent weeks.

The idea of a Bitcoin ETF has been around since 2013, with early proposals like the one from the Winklevoss twins facing repeated rejections by the SEC.

However, the recent optimism stems from BlackRock's involvement in the application process. This prominent financial institution's interest has reignited hope for the ETF's approval and sparked a new rally in the cryptocurrency market.

Investors see the ETF as a way to bridge the gap between traditional finance and crypto, potentially increasing Bitcoin's value and adoption. The market eagerly awaits the SEC's decision on BlackRock's application.

This week's podcast features a number of interviews we conducted in Romania, during the xDay conference hosted by MultiversX.

In this podcast, we will hear from

• Beniamin Mincu - founder of MultiversX
• Bogdan Ivan - Romanian Minister of Digitalization
• Sheraz Ahmed - Managing Partner at Storm Partners
• Sunny Aggarwal - Co-Founder of Osmosis
• Sergiu Biriș - Head of Product at MultiversX
• Grigore Rosu - Founder of Runtime Verification
• Danilo Carlucci - Founder and CEO of Morningstar Ventures.

In this episode, we discuss the current state of MultiversX and the transition from Elrond, crypto adoption in Romania, Universal zkRollups and its benefits, upcoming trends and narratives, challenges lying ahead for MultiversX, and much more.

But first, Beniamin will introduce us to xDay.

Darren Langley is the general manager of Rocket Pool which provides liquid staking services for ETH holders.

Liquid staking on Ethereum has been a major trend this year as it enables ETH holders to earn rewards by staking on the Ethereum network while additionally allowing stakers to seek financial opportunities with their staked ETH.

In our conversation, we will get into the Rocket Pool story since their ICO, details of what it takes to become an Ethereum validator and node operator, the utility of their native token, the issue of centralization among liquid staking protocols, and more.

But first, Darren will begin with an introduction to Rocket Pool.

Lucas Vogelsang is the founder of Centrifuge, a credit platform that brings Real World Assets onchain.

Real World Assets (RWAs) have been a growing sector in DeFi over the last year.

In our conversation, we’ll talk about how RWAs bridge the gap between tradfi and DeFi, how the process of beginning on institutional lenders and matching with real-life borrowers works, what protections are in place in case of loan defaults, and what the future looks like for this sector.

But first, Lucas will provide an overview of Centrifuge.

Alex Shevchenko is the CEO of Aurora Labs, which is a Layer 2 scaling solution built on Near. Alex has a doctoral degree in math and physics.

Today, we get into the details behind Aurora Labs, the difference between Aurora Cloud and the Aurora EVM, how they have survived the market crash, Alex's vision of Ethereum Layer 2s, his conviction in an AppChain future, and so much more.

We begin our conversation with Alex's focus at Aurora Labs.

Today we're diving deep into the mind of Spencer Bogart, who is a partner at Blockchain Capital.

Spencer has played a pivotal role in shaping the landscape of decentralized technologies and digital assets over the last decade.

We get into his journey impact in the blockchain sector, their investment thesis around the controversial WorldCoin, how he's continued to thrive among many economic downturns, and we get into their recent news of a $580 million for two new funds.

But first, Spencer tells us about the history of the firm.

This week, we were joined by Christian Montoya, Senior Product Manager for Metamask Snaps

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments.

Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts.

Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Erik Marks is the director of product for permissionless innovation at MetaMask.

MetaMask, the popular non-custodial wallet owned by Consensys, has been in the spotlight following the launch of Snaps on open beta. You can think of Snaps as plugins that allow developers to add new and different apps that we can use in MetaMask.

One of the biggest implications of this is that Snaps will connect MetaMask to non-Ethereum chains, including Bitcoin and Solana.

In our conversation, we dive deep into the vision and the broader implications of Snaps.

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments.

Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts.

Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

This week, we were joined by Will Warren and Ashley Ebersole from 0x to discuss the CFTC's recent enforcement actions against three DeFi protocols.

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments.

Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts.

Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

This week, we were joined by Anatoly Yakovenko, founder and CEO of Solana.

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments.

Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts.

Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments.

Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts.

Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

In this episode of The Defiant podcast, we are joined by Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino.

We discuss Tether's banking partners, its reserve composition, its latest attestation, and why the stablecoin issuer still hasn't presented an audit. Ardoino puts some of the blame on auditing firms.

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments.

Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts.

Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Today we're joined by the driving force behind a venture that has redefined the concept of modern travel and community: Jon Hillis, the founder of Cabin, a network city for remote workers in nature, who is actively working to grow a global network of neighborhoods for people interested in community-centric living and working.

Cabin exists today and they have many different locations around the world. Cabin is a great example of merging the digital with the physical and using Web 3 tools in real life.

We delve into the purpose behind Cabin, how the COVID lockdowns inspired and allowed room for a Cabin to emerge, the shift in the remote work mindset, the different governance structures that exist within the DAO ecosystem, why Cabin chose polycentric governance, the best DAO practices, how you can get involved in Cabin communities and so much more.

But first, Jon will introduce us to Cabin.

This week, we dived into liquid staking and LSTFi, which has been the hottest narrative of 2023.

With special guests:

Amit Gajjala - cofounder, Stader Labs

Daniel Dizon - founder, Swell Network

Ken Chia - institutional sales, Pendle

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments.

Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts.

Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Jesse Pollak is the creator of Base, which is a Layer 2 scaling solution from Coinbase that launched last week.

Base has quickly become a trending topic this summer, attracting more than $200M of value in its short life. Coinbase is the world’s second-largest crypto centralized exchange by volume, and now it’s moving to the on-chain world, so it’s worth watching.

In our conversation, we dive into the origin story of Base, why opt for a Layer 2 and not start a new Layer 1, why go for Optimistic rollups, how Base is unique in the already crowded Layer 2 space, their decentralization road map and more.

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments.

Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts.

Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Today we are joined by Erick Calderon, founder of Art Blocks. You may also know him as Snowfro. Erick is not only a talented artist but also a tech innovator and entrepreneur who has redefined the limits of artistic expression in the digital era. Today we get into how Art Blocks fosters creativity and community via the platform, how they differ from other projects, Erick's views on why you should even buy art in the first place, as well as his passion for generative art and decentralization. We also get into his views on the NFT market fluctuations and he shares a bit about the community of curators that are curating art on Art Blocks and how you can get involved there. But first, Erick will begin by telling us about his crypto origin story and early involvement in the Crypto Punks community.

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments.

Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts.

Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments.

Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts.

Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments.

Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts.

Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Aya Kantorovich is the co-CEO and co-founder of Fractal, which is an infrastructure provider enabling institutions to clear, settle, and margin digital asset trades on-chain.

In today's podcast, Aya shares her founder journey at Fractal, the impact of the FTX collapse on institutional players, DeFi growth since many CeFi companies imploded, how Fractal is red-pilling institutions, as well as her prediction on how many institutions will be cosseting crypto and having tokens on the balance sheet in 5 to 10 years time and so much more.

But first, Aya tells us about her crypto journey thus far.

Nicolas Liochon is the Global Lead for Linea, which is a new zkEVM rollup by Consensys. Rollups play a crucial role in scaling Ethereum as they reduce computational load on the main network by processing transactions off-chain. The two prominent rollups currently available on Ethereum are ZK Rollups and Optimistic Rollups, and Linea is the latest ZK Rollup to launch.

In our conversation, we will explore how Linea sets itself apart in the already highly competitive Ethereum Layer 2 landscape. But first, we will begin our conversation with an introduction to Linea.

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments.

Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts.

Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Mike Silagadze is the founder and CEO of ether.fi, which is a new player in ethereum staking space, which allows stakers to control their keys while delegating their stake. A reminder that Ethereum now runs on Proof of Stake, which requires users to deposit, or stake, their ETH. Ethereum’s Shapella upgrade introduced the ability for early stakers to withdraw their ETH, which made Ethereum staking and the projects around it one of the hottest themes of crypto this year. Tokens that function as a receipt of staked ETH, called Liquid Staking Tokens, grew in popularity, as did concerns about centralization. We will begin our conversation with an introduction to ether.fi, followed by their differentiation in the already competitive liquid staking sphere.

Thanking our podcast sponsors:

Parcl is the decentralized real estate trading platform that is making it easier to get exposure to global real estate. For a limited time get 10% back on your first trade.

Arch, the crypto asset management platform that helps you maximize returns with diversified and gas-efficient investment strategies. Learn more at https://www.arch.finance/best-of-web3.

IPOR Protocol, the home of interest rate benchmarks, derivatives, structured products, and some of the best stablecoin yields in DeFi.

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments.

Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts.

Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Neal Gorevic is the Chief Marketing Officer at ConsenSys, which drives Ethereum ecosystem development. ConsenSys is behind key pieces of Ethereum infrastructure, including Metamask and Infura. In today's podcast, Neal discusses his transition from web2 marketing at Spotify, to web3 marketing. He goes into why ConsenSys is rebranding and provides insights into the strategic vision for the company. But first, we begin our conversation with an introduction on why Neal decided to make the jump to crypto.

Thanking our podcast sponsors:

• Parcl, the decentralized real estate trading platform is making it easier to get exposure to global real estate. For a limited time get 10% back on your first trade.
• Asymetrix, a decentralized, non-custodial protocol offering asymmetric yield distribution from staking. Stake your ETH for a chance to reap substantial staking rewards, while always earning ASX tokens at a solid 20% APR, no matter the outcome.
• Arch, crypto asset management platform that helps you maximize returns with diversified and gas-efficient investment strategies. Learn more at https://www.arch.finance/best-of-web3
• IPOR Protocol, the home of interest rate benchmarks, derivatives, structured products, and some of the best stablecoin yields in DeFi.

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments.

Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts.

Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Today, we're joined by Caitlin Long, the founder and CEO of Custodia Bank, which provides payment rails and custody services for digital assets.

We explore the recent surge of institutional interest in crypto, regulatory pressure in the US, and whether US regulators are prioritizing investor protection or incumbent interest.

But first, we start by delving into Caitlin's journey as an early adopter of blockchain tech.

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant.

This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments.

Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts. Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Today we're joined by Coinbase's head of cryptography, Yehuda Lindell. He has big news to share as Coinbase just released WaaS which is an MPC wallet. Some are calling this one of the most exciting products from Coinbase yet. Yehuda has an impressive track record. He's a former professor and the former CEO of Unbound Tech, a cybersecurity company specializing in privacy and key management solutions. Unbound Tech, the company Yehuda co-founded, was acquired by Coinbase. Yehuda leads the cryptography team at Coinbase, driving innovation in the field of secure computation and increased privacy and data security. On today's podcast, we dive into the cryptography team at Coinbase, the new innovative wallet that might just be the key to mass adoption for crypto, bringing self-custody to the masses where we're expecting tech giants to jump on this new wallet opportunity, how WaaS compares to holding crypto on exchanges and Multisigs, Coinbase Self-Custody and beyond. We also get into Yehuda’s advice for aspiring cryptographers and so much more. But first, Yehuda tells us what he's focused on inside of Coinbase.

Today we are joined by Alex Gluchowski, the co-founder and CEO of Matter Labs. Matter Labs is the initial team behind zkSync. Alex is a renowned physicist and entrepreneur. Today we dive into the founding story of zkSync, the launch of zkSync, why they chose to help scale Ethereum, and if they stand by that decision today, the zkSync mission, alpha around getting into zkSync today, when token, as well as new use cases on zkSync and so much more. But first, Alex is going to tell us the founding story of zkSync

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant.

This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments.

Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts. Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant.

This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments.

Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts. Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

Today we are joined by the cofounding forces behind Goldfinch, Blake West and Mike Sall. They share with us about what they learned from over 70 user interviews from everyone from Blackrock, Apollo to retired nurses, as well as their excitement around the user experience improvements for the entire Web3 and crypto space and how that UX and UI improvement will impact the Goldfinch Protocol. They also dive into how they saw 162% year-over-year growth in 2022 with no defaults. Blake and Mike give us insight into their thoughts on how crypto will reshape the global economy, expanding access to capital around the world and what they're building to make that possible. But first they give us the TL;DR of Goldfinch as well as what they're both focused on.

Today we're joined by Jacob and Marcin, co-founders of RedStone. RedStone is an oracle in the crypto space picking up steam. We get into the nitty-gritty details of oracles, how RedStone is going up against the oracle monolith Chainlink, how they differentiate, and they share an exclusive update with us. But first, we begin with Jakub and Marcin's introductions and what they're working on inside of RedStone.

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant.

This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments.

Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve by tuning into our weekly broadcasts. Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel for a regular dose of content that keeps you in the loop!

This week's episode stars Mihailo Bjelic, co-founder of Polygon. We get into the juicy details behind what went on with the zkEVM launch a few months back, Mihailo’s thesis on Layer 3’s, how Polygon secured brand deals with the NFL, Starbucks and others, and what he's most excited about in 2023. But first, Mihailo shares what he's been focused on at Polygon.

The Weekly Recap is where The Defiant reporters discuss the week's hottest news and share further insights from our reports.

It goes live on our YouTube channel every Friday at 1200 ET.

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