a16z crypto founder Chris Dixon's new book highlights how blockchains can lead to a more equitable internet

Chris Dixon is a managing partner at a16z and the founder of a16z crypto. In this episode, Dixon gives an overview of his new book, Read Write Own: Building the Next Generation of the Internet, and explains how blockchains have the potential to create more equatable online experiences. OUTLINE 00:00 Background 08:04 New Book 11:13 Crypto Skeptics 14:56 Tech Centralization 19:53 Web2 vs Web3 24:11 Networks vs Tokens 31:12 Platform Ownership 33:49 Platform Take Rates 37:49 Consumer Crypto 40:49 Regulatory Uncertainty 47:29 Venture Landscape

Onchain record labels with Coop Records

The inaugural episode of the Coop Records Podcast featuring the core team - Cooper, Ramie, Jake and Cece. We cover the origins of Coop Records and everything you need to know about running an onchain record label in 2024.

Celestine Sloths, Alloyed Assets, And Hyperbitcoinization with Sunny Aggarwal

The evolution of the modular thesis doesn't go without saying Osmosis and the Cosmos ecosystem. Being the hub of liquidity for the modular ecosystem assets (TIA, DYM, OSMO), Osmosis plays an important role for the space. In today's interview with co-founder Sunny Aggarwal, we discuss the recent rise of Celestine Sloths and how features like the Skip API allows for seamless cross-chain transactions, enabling users to mint NFTs on Stargaze by swapping currencies through Osmosis in a single transaction. This is a mega leap forward in interchain fluidity and for all of those who minted Sloths, you understand. We then went onto discuss the Mad Scientists collection which has recently gained traction, (Sunny's PFP) and how the tech behind this collection works.We discussed Backbone Labs and the plan to distribute a significant portion of protocol revenues to holders, and whether or not this "real yield" is bullish. Shortly after, we discussed the proposal from Osmosis about alloyed assets. Osmosis has introduced the concept of alloyed assets, which aggregrate various tokens into a unified asset pool to manage liquidity more effectively. This approach not only mitigates risks associated with individual bridge failures but also streamlines asset management across chains, thus simplifying the user experience significantly. But, is it really the best solution? We asked Sunny about the risks associated, some edge cases, and really dug into some areas where we feel they may have fell short... Sunny stepped up to the plate and addressed our concerns as always. Finally, towards the end of the podcast we talked about the hyperbitcoinization of Cosmos with players like Babylon and others. Sunny is pretty excited about this and we talked in-depth about this new phenomenon of bringing BTC to Cosmos and other ecosystems. We really enjoyed this conversation and hope you will too! The Rollup

After the Bitcoin Halving, Will the Runes Protocol Live Up to the Hype?

Not only will April 20 (or 19, depending on which part of the world you are) mark the fourth Bitcoin halving, but also the launch of a new primitive on Bitcoin called Runes Protocol. Charlie Spears, co-founder of Blackspace Media, joined Unchained to talk about all things Runes, which is a messaging protocol that allows for the creation of fungible tokens on Bitcoin. It is designed to fix some of the issues with the BRC-20 token standard, such as inefficiency and proliferation of unspent transaction outputs. Charlie believes that the launch of Runes will increase demand for Bitcoin's blockspace and potentially lead to higher transaction fees. He also discusses the potential for Runes to interact with Bitcoin covenants and layer two solutions.

S8 BONUS | Crypto The Game Season 2 Recap, Reunion, and Confessions

On this special bonus episode of Rehash, we’re recapping Season 2 of Crypto The Game (CTG) with CTG founders and getting some juicy confessions from some of the finalists and players. We start by chatting with Dylan Abruscato, Tyler Cagle, and Bryan Lee from the CTG team about their thoughts on what went well this season and what they might change for future seasons. We get a behind the scenes look into their decision making around some of the changes in gameplay this season and whether they were able to predict the outcomes from the season. We then speak with Eva Beylin, representing CTG Season 2 winner, Player #733, Will Hunter and Nico Valencia, who were finalists in Season 2, and Katy Jeremko, who almost made it to the finals and had a fiery and controversial gameplay with boyfriend, Nico. All four players share their strategy and gameplay and reveal some shocking confessions.

Polygon’s AggLayer Wants to Be a Hub for Ethereum Layer 2s. Can It Succeed?

Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron and co-founder Brendan Farmer discussed everything about the AggLayer, a decentralized protocol built by Polygon that enables fast, secure cross-chain interactions and allows different chains to use the same native bridge. This allows users to seamlessly move assets across chains in the AggLayer ecosystem. The AggLayer aims to unify blockspace so that it feels like a single chain, improving user experience. Boiron and Farmer also discussed the potential for Layer 2 solutions to scale Ethereum, the benefits of zero-knowledge technology, and the future of Polygon's proof-of-stake chain.

Ronin: The Frontier of Web3 Gaming w/ Jihoz (Ronin)

In this episode, Jeffrey “Jihoz” Zerlin joins us to discuss the evolution of the Ronin Ecosystem as the leading web3 gaming blockchain. Jihoz is the Co-founder of Axie Infinity, a team on a mission to create economic freedom for gamers by building games that are truly player owned. In our conversation, we cover Jihoz's continued success, decentralization of the Ronin Chain, where web3 gaming and DeFi collide, governance of gaming protocols, and much more.

#168 - JACEK

Jacek is the creator of ⁠$DEGEN⁠, an innovative cryptocurrency and L3 built on Base on Ethereum and popularized on Farcaster. Follow Jacek on Farcaster ⁠@jacek⁠. For more episodes, go to ⁠⁠⁠podofjake.com⁠⁠⁠. Previous guests include ⁠⁠⁠Mark Cuban⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Vitalik Buterin⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Brian Armstrong⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Balaji Srinivasan⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Keith⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Rabois⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Ali Spagnola⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Anthony Pompliano⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Raoul Pal⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Julia Galef⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Jack Butcher⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Tim Draper⁠⁠⁠, and over 100 others alike. Learn from founders and CEOs of companies like ⁠⁠⁠OpenAI⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Coinbase⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Solana⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Polygon⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠AngelList⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Oura⁠⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠Replit⁠⁠⁠, and investors from ⁠⁠⁠Founders⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Fund⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠a16z⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Union Square Ventures⁠⁠⁠, and many more. I appreciate your support and hope you enjoy. Thanks to ⁠⁠⁠⁠Chase Devens⁠⁠⁠⁠ for the show notes and ⁠⁠⁠⁠Yiction⁠⁠⁠⁠ for the music. Lastly, I love hearing from fans of the pod. Feel free to email me any time at ⁠⁠⁠jake@blogofjake.com⁠⁠⁠. Thank you!

Ep 54 - 33 Below

Were joined by rising artists 33 Below to talk about his first headline tour, opening for RL Grime and winning the Optimism art contest.

Ethena: DeFi's Multibillion Dollar Tokenized Basis Trade

Guy Young is the Founder of Ethena Labs. In this episode, we dive into questions from listeners about Ethena and its multibillion dollar tokenized basis trade protocol. Guy shares what’s made Ethena so successful right out of the gate growing the USDe market cap to $2B in less than a few months, the impact of the Ethena Effect on DeFi, and what to know about their recent ENA token launch. ------ 🔗 Essential Show Links 🔗 ► Youtube: https://youtube.com/@defidad ► Apple: https://tinyurl.com/edgepod ► Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/edgepodspotify ► Linktree: https://linktr.ee/edge_pod ► Follow DeFi Dad: https://twitter.com/DeFi_Dad ► Follow Nomatic: https://twitter.com/Nomaticcap ► Learn about DeFi and Web3: http://defidad.com/ ------ The Edge Podcast Sponsor Resources 🚀 FLAT MONEY | NEW FLATCOIN AND DELTA-NEUTRAL MARKETPLACE BACKED BY RETH https://flat.money/ 🌊 SWELL NETWORK | NATIVE LIQUID RESTAKING WITH RSWETH https://www.swellnetwork.io/ 💧 INSTADAPP | NEW LENDING AND BORROWING VAULTS WITH FLUID https://fluid.instadapp.io/ 🧑‍🌾 MANTLE | THE ETHEREUM L2 FOR TOP NATIVE YIELDS https://www.mantle.xyz/ 🟢 KELP DAO | THE FIRST LIQUID RESTAKING PLATFORM FOR LSTS https://kelpdao.xyz/restake ------ Timestamps 0:00 - Intro 5:08 - Reflecting on Ethena's launch 6:30 - Insane growth of Ethena 9:24 - Maker raising the DSR and the Ethena Effect 11:34 - What happens when funding rates go negative 16:30 - Power of composability behind USDe 19:07 - Synthetic dollar vs tokenized basis trade 22:34 - Ethena's insurance fund 25:10 - Season 1 - Shards Campaign 26:54 - Importance of Pendle 33:57 - Adding BTC and Season 2, Sats Campaign 35:35 - Adding LRTs? 37:53 - Expanding to Mantle and more L2s 39:04 - ENA TGE and ENA airdrop 41:02 - Closing ------ 🔗 Guest Links 🔗 ► Ethena Website: https://www.ethena.fi/ ► Ethena ENA Airdrop and Season 2 Sats Campaign post: https://mirror.xyz/0xF99d0E4E3435cc9C9868D1C6274DfaB3e2721341/GTbzFynrve4gzSjIEKL0vz7Kq0UHkIiekHkup0EXgjU ► Ethena on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ethena_labs ► Guy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/leptokurtic_ ------ If you're a DeFi/Web3 builder, contact our team at: https://fourthrevolution.capital/ All opinions expressed by hosts and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and not necessarily those of Fourth Revolution Capital. Podcast guests and 4RC may have positions in the assets or other matters discussed in this podcast. Nomatic and DeFi Dad invested in the most recent Ethena investment round. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. Do your own research. This is not a recommendation or endorsement to buy any token(s) related to any platform(s) discussed.

What DeFi Can Learn From Chipped w/ Winny.eth - Flywheel #98

In this episode of Flywheel, DeFi Dave interviews Winnie, the founder of Chipped, a project that aims to make crypto more accessible and fun for non-crypto native users. Winnie is creating human-centered products that don't focus solely on financialization. They also touch on the role of social media and the need for restraint in hyper-financialization. They discuss the future of wearable tech and the vision for Chipped as a gossip protocol that aligns with the direction of technology. Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Overview of Chipped 11:21 The Importance of Mass Adoption and Long-Term Thinking 25:39 The Power of Authenticity and Fun in Marketing Crypto 30:40 Culture and Storytelling in the Crypto Space 32:37 Embracing Silliness and Being True to Yourself 33:34 Spotting Short-Term Opportunistic Projects 34:58 The Role of Social Media and Restraint in Hyper-Financialization 36:23 The Future of Wearable Tech: Moving Away from Screens 37:22 Chipped: A Gossip Protocol for the Internet of Everything 50:19 Be Kind to Yourself and Pursue What You Care About Keywords crypto, mass adoption, long-term thinking, accessibility, human-centered products, marketing, authenticity, culture, storytelling, crypto, long-term thinking, short-term opportunistic projects, social media, hyper-financialization, wearable tech, gossip protocol ~~~~ Subscribe to the Flywheel mailing list: https://flywheeldefi.com ~~~~ Have ETH but don't know what to do with it? Swap it to FrxETH for the highest staking yields in crypto. https://app.frax.finance/frxeth/mint ~~~~ Calling all threadoors, researchers, and dashboard creators 📢 Earn rewards for your original Frax content. Learn more: https://flywheeldefi.com/p/announcing-the-frax-educational-incentives ~~~~ Follow Flywheel Twitter: https://twitter.com/FlywheelDeFi Telegram: https://t.me/FlywheelDeFi YouTube: @flywheeldefi Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/34xXNO2... Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... ~~~~ Connect DeFi Dave: https://twitter.com/defidave22 Kiet: https://twitter.com/0xkapital_k Sam: https://twitter.com/traders_insight ~~~~ Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

The Real Reason Why the SEC Might Be Going After Ethereum

On March 20, Fortune reported that the SEC was investigating the Ethereum Foundation and was looking for legal ways to label ETH as a security. Sam Enzer, partner at Cahill Gordon & Reindel, and Greg Strong, partner at DLx Law joined Laura to discuss everything about the investigation and its implications. The guests speculate about the hidden motivations behind the SEC's investigation and discuss the likelihood of the approval of spot Ether ETFs. They also discuss the recent ruling in the SEC vs Coinbase case, where the judge dismissed claims that Coinbase's wallet was acting as an unregistered brokerage, but allowed the rest of the suit to proceed. Lastly, they touch on the devastating impact on the crypto industry if the SEC were to win a case alleging Ether is a security and what they are looking out for in the next couple of weeks and months.

Modular March EP 16: Where Eclipse & SVM Fit in The Modular Thesis

Typically, you wouldn’t think of Solana having a strong footing in the modular thesis. After all, the design choices they have elegantly pioneered (credit where credit is due) revolve around scaling a single state machine. This simply won’t scale to billions of users, and they will need to modularize. However, the extremely performant and extensible Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) is an effective tool to build an extremely fast rollup atop Ethereum. We can all be friends here, right? Welcome to today’s Modular March presentation, where we take our first dive as a team into the fascinating world of Eclipse and its modular approach to blockchain scalability and security. For those who’ve been around the block(chain), you know the drill: scalability often comes at the cost of complexity or security. Yet, Eclipse offers high throughput without the mess of state fragmentation via their flexible architecture. They’re mixing the best of both worlds – Solana’s speed and Ethereum’s security, with a splash of Celestia for that decentralized data layer cherry on top. We enjoyed this presentation with Sydney while also trying to understand where the tradeoffs or weaknesses in this design lie. We found some edge-cases but what was most interesting was the application possibilities as a result of using the SVM. We had some solid takeaways, you’ll enjoy this.

Alex Masmej Talks $DEGEN: Fueling Drakula's Growth and the Onchain Creator Economy

Join us in this episode as we sit down with Alex Masmej, the brain behind Drakula and a key player in the farcaster ecosystem. From his early days of conceptualizing Showtime as the 'Instagram of NFTs' to pioneering Drakula, Alex's journey is nothing short of remarkable. Drakula, now making waves as the 'TikTok of Web3', has seen an explosive start with over $30M in transactions in just two weeks, introducing a new and engaging way for fans to support video creators. Alex returns to the podcast to share the lessons learned from pivoting Showtime to creating Drakula, highlighting the strategic moves, go-to-market strategy, and the decision to adopt $DEGEN as the native currency of the app. I hope you enjoy our conversation and our genesis episode on Pods!

Why EigenLayer May Be the Most Innovative New Ecosystem Since Ethereum

Sreeram Kannan, founder of EigenLayer, and Olaf Carlson-Wee, founder and CIO of Polychain Capital, an investor in EigenLayer, say that the developer ecosystem around EigenLayer is sprouting up very fast, which reminds Carlson-Wee of the developer excitement in Ethereum’s early days. They discuss the potential of EigenLayer, which uses a restaking mechanism to allow ETH stakers to reallocate their staked ETH and Liquid Staking Tokens (LSTs) to bolster security for other protocols. They cover how it could turbocharge Ethereum's rollup scaling roadmap and enable Ethereum to become a stack of decentralized software as a service providers. Additionally, they discuss the potential risks associated with restaking as well as how EigenLayer could work with AI.

Ep 50 - Graeme from Stack

We're joined by Graeme to deep dive on onchain points and their $3m seed round lead by Archetype. We cover everything you need to know about the points meta.

How, in 7 Weeks, Bitcoin ETFs Reached Inflows That Took Gold ETFs 3 Years

In this episode, Eric Balchunas, senior ETF Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, discussed the performance of Bitcoin ETFs since their launch two months ago. Balchunas noted that the ETFs' performance exceeded his expectations, with a faster and more intense "second wind" than anticipated. He attributed this to a combination of asset managers buying in, retail interest, and the "ETF effect" where the knowledge of incoming flows encourages non-ETF investors to buy. Balchunas also predicted that BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF would likely be the most successful of the nine new spot Bitcoin ETFs, while also doubting that any of the smaller issuers would bow out. He also discussed the potential for spot Ether ETFs, but was less optimistic about their success compared to Bitcoin ETFs.

Ep.19: Memecoin Supercyle, Crypto ETFs with Alongside, Financial Nihilism, AI on Zora, L2 Wars

A weekly rundown show where extremely online individuals broadly explore (romanticize, even) new consumer internet experiences. Join us live and online on Fridays @ 10AM PST live.seedclub.xyz 00:01:11 We have Kel with us - the real next L1 trade is a memecoin supercycle 00:10:44 Where do you see this memecoin trend going in the next 3, 6, 9 months? 00:13:25 Austin from Alongside Crypto 00:18:10 What’s changed with this cycle to get people excited about investing in indexes 00:29:14 Enjoy launched the very first memecoin ever on the Zora network 00:36:20 Some fun new AI updates on Zora and Jacob’s post on convergence of AI and crypto 00:39:48 Travis Kling on financial nihilism 00:53:59 The bull case for Web3 social and Farcaster as a powerful go-to-market tool 00:54:45 Get in babes, we’re going to Brand New by Boys Club at SXSW and there’s a zine 00:59:52 The struggle with hyper financialized social apps Hosts: Jess Sloss & Cheryl Douglass Web VJ: Peacenode None of this is financial or tax advice.

Famed White Hat Hacker Samczsun on How to Improve Crypto Security

Well-known white hat hacker and head of security at Paradigm samczsun recently took the wraps off a new security organization called the Security Alliance (SEAL) that offers a 911 hotline for immediate response to security threats, runs war games to simulate potential security incidents, and provides a safe harbor agreement to protect white hat hackers from legal liabilities. He joined Unchained to discuss why he and his fellow white hat hackers decided to start the Security Alliance and how it operates, how the safe harbor agreement works, the measures he takes to maintain his anonymity and why, the top security measures people in crypto should take to protect themselves, and what attack areas in crypto Sam still considers “scary.”

How Decentralized Social Network Farcaster Hopes to Eventually Get to One Billion Users

In the two weeks since Farcaster introduced its Frames feature that allows developers to easily add mini apps to users’ posts, the decentralized social network has become the talk of Twitter, now X, and increased its user base by ten times, according to co-founder Dan Romero. Romero joins Unchained to discuss why Frames has become so popular, the philosophy behind Farcaster and its client Warpcast, why the crypto component behind Farcaster is being kept to a minimum, how Apple’s new Vision Pro could lead to the creation of a 3D social network on Farcaster, how he and his fellow co-founder’s background at Coinbase helped shape their decisions about building Farcaster, and his vision for eventually getting Farcaster to a billion-plus users.

Ep.18: Perl & Fantasy Social, $Enjoy, Decentralized Social, Blast, Software Companies as Lifestyle Brands

A weekly rundown show where extremely online individuals broadly explore (romanticize, even) new consumer internet experiences. Join us live and online on Fridays @ 10AM PST live.seedclub.xyz Hosts: Josh Cornelius & Jess Sloss Web VJ: Peacenode Production: Cheryl Douglass Development: David Hurley Operations: Merna Makar

Ep 48 - Oscillator

We’re joined by RAC and Jack Spallone to unpack their plans to make onchain music data globally accessible in the company’s first podcast!