"Taming the Wild West" with Serpin Taxt, founder of Ethos | ZEROPOD S2 E14
Welcome back to another episode of ZEROPOD, this one featuring Serpin Taxt, the ambitious young founder of a new protocol called Ethos, which aims to help solve the age-old problem of who to trust (and who not to) in the onchain space. Host Toady Hawk talks about his childhood, his career in web 2, and his goals for Ethos, namely, to tame the wild, wild west of the crypto space… just a bit. So without further ado, let’s go learn about the mythos behind the Ethos. —- Timestamps: 00:00 - The $9B Problem: Scams, Trust, and the Wild West of Crypto 02:25 - Welcome to ZEROPOD: Meet Serpin Taxt, Founder of Ethos 05:00 - Inventor Dreams and Web2 Career 08:00 - Escaping B2B SaaS 11:00 - Discovering Ethereum: Interoperability and Smart Contracts 13:30 - When Crypto Finally Clicked 15:00 - Inspiration from Friend.Tech and the Birth of Ethos 17:00 - Reputation is Everything: Why Trust Signals Matter 19:10 - Realizing a Bigger Vision 21:00 - A Wild West Without Accountability 24:00 - Proof-of-Stake for People: Ethos’s Core Mechanism 26:30 - Avoiding Mob Rule: Risk, Reputation, and Social Slashing 29:00 - Open Moderation and Algorithmic Challenges 31:00 - Reviewing ETH Wallets, Twitter Accounts, and Beyond 33:30 - Identity, Anonymity, and the Risk of Sockpuppets 36:00 - Using Ethos in the Wild: Kaito, Bots, and Reputation vs. Attention 39:00 - Why It's Hard to Call Out Scammers (but Why We Must) 42:00 - The Power of Named Reviews vs. Anonymous Drama 44:00 - NFT Ethics, Gotcha Culture, and the Chaos Incentive 46:00 - Social Slashing 101: How It Works in Ethos 49:00 - Toward Financial Slashing: The Next Big Risk Layer 51:00 - Onboarding: Slow Growth 53:00 - Staying Power: What Keeps Users Coming Back Daily 56:00 - Finding People to Vouch For (and How to Ask for Vouches) 58:30 - Using the Chrome Extension for Discovery and Reviews 1:00:00 - Integrations 1:02:00 - Building Influence Onchain: Ratings for Businesses, Not Just People 1:04:00 - Alpha Drop? Business Leaderboards Are Coming 1:06:30 - Why Ethos Launched on Base 1:12:00 - The Token Question: Contributor XP, Incentives, and Future Possibilities 1:14:25 - Wrap-Up --- Podcast recorded by Toady Hawk, edited by Toady Hawk and Santhosh. Hosted by Toady Hawk. Music by Toady Hawk, SuperTightWoody & Suno AI. Produced by Zero Rights Media. This content is zero rights reserved (cc0), please remix and reuse it in any way you like!
Choreographing a stronger community with Clarence Ford
Clarence Ford started out as an athlete; first as a competitive hockey player, then transitioning to dance as a choreographer for the world-renowned Cirque du Soleil. After seeing the power of community-building first-hand within Cirque du Soleil, Clarence embarked on a journey of creating circus programming for underserved youth in Toronto. He launched a non-for-profit called Square Circle, with a mission to “help students develop communication, interpersonal, artistic, and physical skills in a safe, collaborative, and fun environment”. Through educational partnerships and community workshops, Clarence hopes to build out his business by tapping into as many youth groups as possible in Toronto and beyond. On this week’s episode, Clarence sits down with Fred and Derek to discuss new avenues to explore expansion and growth of Square Circle. They speak to building a solid foundation for his business - from considering a strategic board, to finding mentorship, and building community as a new entrepreneur. Finally, they discuss strategies on how to manage burn out while navigating multiple priorities to get your business off the ground.
Inside the Buz Economy: How $BUZ is Empowering Onchain Growth
This episode welcomes Joe Vezzani, Co-Founder and CEO of LunarCrush and the Buz Economy. Joe’s back on the pod, and this time, we’re diving into a big new collaboration with Buz, where collectors can earn $100,000 in incentives across 10+ episodes. We discuss how the Buz Economy is building a data-driven ecosystem to accelerate projects in crypto, AI, and frontier tech by leveraging social analytics and rewarding community engagement. Together, we break down what it takes to grow an onchain audience, how collectors can earn $BUZ, and what’s next for Buz and LunarCrush. I hope you enjoy our conversation.
Art, Music and Festival Culture with Refraction — Malcolm, Raf, Greg
Malcolm Levy, Raf Katigbak and Greg Liburd are co-founders of Refraction. An artist-owned community leading the next wave of digital art, music and culture — online, onchain and IRL. They all have extensive backgrounds in media, culture, festivals, films, brands. As artists, designers, writers, producers and creative people. Raf was early at VICE. Greg did a bunch with Jordan. Malcolm was the Director of the New Forms Festival 2001-16, and Curator of CODE Live during the 2010 Olympics Games. Today we reveal that Refraction and UFO are teaming up via our radio station. And exclusive alpha is shared for the future of Refraction for the first time on this show. Sponsors: Your crypto wallet for everything onchain — zerion.io Create, distribute and monetize on your own terms — paragraph.xyz Higher is a lifestyle — aimhigher.net Home of onchain ticketing — onopen.xyz Where group chats make more money — lore.xyz
Ethereum Blob Market Spikes
The Ethereum blob market experiences a spike. ENS releases the ENSv2 roadmap. LayerZero launches its ZRO token airdrop. And Tally introduces the Tally Protocol. Read more: https://ethdaily.io/491
Building $DEGEN: Jacek on Internet Culture, Web3 Social, and Skin in the Game
This episode welcomes Jacek, the founder of Degen, or as many know it as Farcaster’s culture currency that’s made waves across web3. We spend the hour digging through his founder journey, from working in trad fi to entering crypto and eventually birthing a passionate community predicated around tipping. This is a great conversation covering his humble beginnings, internet culture, and building the future of web3 social. I hope you guys enjoy our conversation.
Skin in the Game with Nick Tomaino
We're joined by Nick Tomaino - GP of 1Confirmation to talk about the evolution of crypto art and onchain culture. We chat through their investment in DEGEN and why Music NFTs haven't clicked.
The Origin of DEGEN with Jacek
We're joined by Jacek - the founder of DEGEN to unpack his journey launching the biggest token on Farcaster. We dive into the vision for Degen Chain, the new season of tip allowances, RainDrops and what its like to be a token founder in 2024.
Inside the Frame: David Furlong on Frames.js and Farcaster's Latest Developments
On this episode of the Mint Podcast, we explore the world of Frames.js with its founder, David Furlong. David provides an in-depth look at what Frames are and discusses their potential directions and innovative use cases. We also consider the possibility of integrating Frames across various platforms, including Gmail and traditional Web2 products. During the conversation, David expresses his insights on Farcaster, discussing the network's growth and the emerging opportunities for both communities and developers within the ecosystem. We discuss the development of various tools and platforms within Farcaster, such as Channel moderation, Farcon, Drakula, Supercast, and Bountycaster. Additionally, we examine the adoption of $DEGEN as the primary tipping layer of Farcaster, exploring the rationale behind its integration and its implications for users and builders alike. I hope you enjoy our conversation!
The Creator's Guide to Web3 Social ft. Stani Kulechov
Mint Season 6 episode 18 welcomed the founder of Aave and Lens Protocol, Stani Kulechov. Throughout the hour we discussed: - His vision for web3 social - How creators use crypto to build communities - How creators make money on Lens - User-generated content as an asset class - Migrating collectors from other chains onto Lens - How to use the lens social graph outside of their protocol ....and so much more. I hope you guys enjoy our conversation.
Understanding Onchain Distribution and the Evolution of Web3 Marketing ft. Brian Flynn
This episode welcomes Brian Flynn, CEO of Boost.xyz, to discuss the future of earning crypto. Brian shares his insights on the evolution of crypto marketing, highlighting the shift to onchain strategies and the use of token incentives as a cost per action (CAC). He also delves into Boost's vision, the importance of growth for crypto-native businesses, and the role of viral NFTs. I hope you enjoy our conversation. Timestamps: 00:00 - Introduction and Background 08:07 - Boost: Facilitating Onchain Distribution 15:08 - The Power of Onchain Distribution 35:18 - The Value of Attention in the Crypto Space 41:20 - The Profile of an Ideal Growth Marketer in Web3
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
Publish Everything Onchain with Cooper Turley
Cooper is the founder of Coop Records, an onchain record label and the host of Invest in Music, the first podcast that published on Pods. In this episode we talk about: - His thesis around onchain music - The parallels with onchain media - The potential rewards for publishing onchain - Why he’s all in on Farcaster - How we bring millions of users onchain without speculation Thanks for tuning in. Mint this episode on Pods - top 3 collectors will earn a shoutout in the next episode. We’ll see you onchain.
Ep 55 - Carlos of Farcaster Index
We're joined by Carlos of Farcaster Index to chat all things FC including DEGEN, onchain social graphs, memecoins, clients and much more. He shares his experience running a DAO for 3 years and what's next for him and Moonlight.
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.
The role the DA layer plays in building web3 super apps
Excited to have Michael Heinrich, co-founder of 0G Labs, discussing the role of super high performant data availability plays in building the consumer apps of the future in web3.
#167 - LUCAS CAMPBELL
Lucas is the founder of Pods — a platform for onchain podcasts. Pods launched in private beta in Q4 2023 and since then, has onboarded over 30 podcasts and over 250 episodes on the platform. Prior to Pods, Lucas was the first employee at Bankless, where he led the newsletter for 3 years and launched Bankless Collectibles — the first instantiation of podcast NFTs. Follow Lucas on Farcaster @0xl. I'm excited to partner with Pods to release this as our first episode onchain on Base. 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!
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!
Modular March EP 10: Endless Modular Application Possibilities with Lagrange
A core fundamental primitive of blockchain is the unlocking of usecases which are not possibly in any other type of system. We’ve heard a lot of this and we believe the technology stack is being built as we speak which will facilitate an array of “breakout apps” atop of it. In today’s piece, we set out to find out what type technological design constraints are present in the current modular ecosystem as well as the necessary solutions. If you’ve been following us for awhile, you know the Lagrange team from our zkAcademy. If you are newer here, you’re in luck. Andy and Rob sat down with Ismael, co-founder of Lagrange, to learn why zk coprocessors are crucial in enabling offchain computation for data queries and processing tasks that are too intensive for standard smart contracts. By creating a decentralized network for ZK proving and prioritizing access to complex onchain information within the modular ecosystem, Lagrange is playing a crucial role in the modular thesis. Let’s have a great week and continue to push forward as part of Modular March.
Ep 52 - Drakula with $ALEX Masmej
Alex Masmej returns to chat about the launch of Drakula - an onchain tiktok. We talk about Farcaster alignment and how he’s using tools like Privy and Pimlico to build a mainstream consumer app.
Modular March Episode 7: Chain Abstraction for The Modular Future with Near
In a world of 1000s of rollups and chains, the problem to tackle is unification of these otherwise isolated execution environments. In today’s Modular March presentation, we sit down with NEAR founder Illia to take a look at their data availability layer, account aggregation, and chain abstraction toolkit. We ask Illia about the potential of NEAR DA, how sharding really works for the L1, and his plans to grow adoption for the DA solution compared to others on the market. However, what was particularly interesting to us was this idea of account aggregation whereby enabling a single wallet to participate across multiple crypto experience, NEAR is building a better end user experience. Illia went on to illustrate his larger vision for chain abstraction of the modular future and how he sees this playing out in the near future. NEAR will continue to play an important role in connecting the modular expansion at the user facing level, in today’s presentation you’ll learn how they plan to do this.
Mert Steelmans Ethereum, Unpacks Firedancer, and Talks Solana L2s
Imran and Qiao bring on Mert Mumtaz (Helius Labs) to discuss Ethereum, Firedancer, Solana L2s, and more. No BS crypto insight for founders. Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:17 Welcome to Good Game 03:05 Mert Steelmanning Ethereum 08:44 Mert's Solana Prediction 10:54 Mert's Estimate on Firedancer's Timeline and Throughput Improvement 15:12 Thoughts on a Narrative Regarding Consumer Apps 17:02 Thoughts on What's Happening in The Layer 3 World 20:38 Layer 2 on Solana? 29:22 "There Are Other Ways to Decentralize" 30:18 Mert's Decentralizing Approach 31:55 MEV Comparison Between Ethereum and Solana 35:34 Calling Out The BS Mert Had Seen Recently 39:47 "The Whole Modular Narrative is Getting Out of Control" 40:47 Could There Be a World Where Solana Turns Out To Be in Ethereum’s Position? 43:42 The Two Hottest Narratives Right Now in Crypto 50:48 Mert's Favorite Apps on Ethereum
3AC's Kyle Davies on Why He's Crypto's Lloyd Blankfein and Why He's Not Sorry
Few crypto figures have been as vilified as Kyle Davies, the co-founder, along with Su Zhu, of crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, which imploded in mid-2022, losing $3 billion and bringing many pillars of the crypto industry down with it. Davies and Zhu have been accused of, among other things, lying about 3AC’s assets as the firm was imploding, trying to borrow money when the firm was insolvent, and seeking funding from the Mafia, all of which Davies denies. But he remains unapologetic about 3AC’s demise, saying most, if not all, companies eventually go bankrupt, and that 3AC had a “pretty spectacular” ten-year run. He joined Unchained to explain why he and Su Zhu were ordered to prison in Singapore for non-compliance with the liquidation proceedings, Zhu’s “six weeks meditating” (in prison), where he’s living now, why he and Zhu went to Bali after the bankruptcy, his $25,000-a-month fee for consulting for crypto bankruptcy exchange OPNX, his and Zhu’s current work advising crypto derivatives platform OX.FUN, and what he wishes he would have done differently in terms of 3AC’s wind down.
Modular March EP 5: Value Accrual in The Modular Thesis with Tarun Chitra
The value accrual model in the modular stack is akin to that of the rise of the early internet. According to Tarun, founder of Gauntlet and a prominent angel investor, we will see more and more specialized usecases for applications which are highly expressive. As a result of this, the need for a modular stack becomes more and more apparent. We really enjoyed this conversation which drew inspiration from the evolution of the internet and computing to paint a clearer picture of the modular future. We’ve been quite deep in the technical weeds during Modular March (exactly where we want to be), so it was refreshing to host a discussion that goes beyond technicalities and instead touches on the practical application layer of modular blockchains. Hope you enjoy and feel free share with your friends who are trying to answer the question “why modularity?” & “where does the value accrue in the modular stack?” for the future of blockchain scaling.
Ep 45 - Jagwar Twin
Jagwar Twin joins us to unpack the success of his hit song "Bad Feeling". We dive into the Hall of Mirrors and the hero's journey to being an artist in 2024.