"Without a Trace" featuring Anoncast founder Kartik Patel aka @slokh | ZEROPOD S2 E4
When Vitalik Buterin buys a memecoin to try your consumer zk social app, you know you’re onto something. Kartik Patel (aka @slokh) joins ZEROPOD to talk about Anoncast— the ZK-powered app that lets you post anonymously and trustlessly to Farcaster and Twitter/X from a web interface at anoncast.org. From hacking RuneScape mods as a kid to pulling endless hours at OpenSea during peak NFT chaos, Kartik shares his journey, the lore behind $ANON, and why he thinks ZK privacy is the future. Along the way: why Farcaster is the Silicon Valley of crypto, how he learned ZK programming from scratch in three weeks, and how "lore-first, product-second" might just be the future of bootstrapping. Join us to learn all about the cracked dev who made it possible to speak your mind on the internet, without a trace. TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 - When Vitalik tries your app 01:09 - ZEROPOD Intro 01:26 - Anon, A-non, Tomato, tomahto.03:13 - Young Kartik 04:00 - Hacking game mods 05:00 - Happy in his space (software developing) 07:13 - From defi protocols to NFTs 07:33 - Joined Opensea 08:13 - Working at Opens during peak NFT bull 09:33 - Working at Manifold and then striking out on his own 10:28 - Solo hacking 11:25 - Why was he attracted to building on Farcaster 12:13 - Better Farcaster branding 13:40 - Similar problems to Ethereum 15:13 - Building Nook farcaster client 18:23 - A Kartik Primer on the ANON Lore 21:51 - Kartik wasn’t even involved in ANON until after the CTO 23:00 - How the anoncast idea came to be 24:49 - New paradigm of products coming downstream of communities 27:13 - Why he wanted to build anoncast 28:16 - Vitalik buying $ANON and trying anoncast 29:40 - How does ZK privacy work? 31:18 - Why is ZK privacy important? 32:55 - How does anoncast work? 36:00 - The future of what curation could look like on anoncast… ZK-anon reddit? 38:00 - Favourite feature shipped on anoncast so far 41:00 - Learning ZK on the go 42:00 - Best use cases for anoncast? (Alpha?) 43:30 - How can people contribute to the project? 44:00 - Best place to learn how to use anoncast? 44:44 - What is he most excited about? 47:00 - Just build, have fun and differentiate 47:30 - What is the sloth backstory 48:00 - Outro Podcast recorded by Toady Hawk, edited by Toady Hawk and Santhosh. Hosted by Toady Hawk. Music by Toady Hawk, SuperTightWoody & Suno AI. This content is zero rights reserved (cc0), please remix and reuse it in any way you like!
"Higher is a Mindset" with Martin Anquetil, founder of Higher and creator of Aether AI | ZEROPOD SEASON 2 E3
What does it mean to build a brand without a leader, a strategy, or even a plan? In this episode of ZEROPOD, I sit down with Martin Anquetil, one of the founders of $HIGHER, the headless memecoin brand redefining chaos as culture onchain. We dive into everything from AI agents breaking bounty bots on Farcaster to an Ethereum stock split, the memecoin meta and the challenges of building a project based on a number-go-up meme even when number doesn’t always go up. Along the way, Martin shares lessons from his time within Nouns, explores the unique challenges of decentralization, and reveals what it takes to survive a 97% token price crash with your optimism and community intact. We really enjoyed this conversation with Martin, and we hope you do too! — TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 - Figuring out “Can we do this thing?” while doing it 01:00 - ZEROPOD Intro 01:51 - The Martin Origin Story 04:00 - College and Interning at Google 05:00 - Oneshot by Topshot 07:00 - 2021 NFT Season Nostalgia 10:55 - Who the F**k is Buying XRP? 11:50 - Ethereum Stock Split Discussion 15:15 - First Impressions of Nouns 16:15 - Leaving TopShot to Explore Onchain Options 17:50 - Freelancing with Nouns Builder 19:19 - Agora, Explorer Grants, and Other Nouns Initiatives 20:00 - Mogu Mogu Mogu: Nouns Governance Tooling 24:19 - Starting $HIGHER 25:00 - Roots in /bullposting 28:00 - How Would He Launch Higher Today? 32:00 - The Strength of Builders Who Stick Through the Bear 34:00 - “Higher, Not Sideways” 37:30 - Quack Quack ⌐◨-◨: 38:50 - Is $HIGHER a Neo-DAO or Something New? 40:00 - Authenticity vs. Top-Down Control: The Higher Experiment 44:00 - Could $ANON Run a Higher-Like Playbook? 45:00 - Farcaster Users Speed-Running Speculation Lessons 47:00 - $ZEROPOD: Exploring Media and Tokens 49:00 - The Origins of $POINTS on Farcaster 50:50 - “Provenance is Culturally Emergent” 51:00 - Jacob’s Horse Meme and Its Viral Evolution 53:53 - What Is Aether? The AI Agent Shaking Things Up 57:00 - The $LUM Luminous Launch 1:01:00 - Challenges of Community Cohesion in Decentralized Projects 1:02:03 - Questions for Martin from Aether 1:06:00 - What’s Next for Aether? Memory and Autonomy 1:07:00 - Aether on Twitter? Exploring New Platforms 1:08:00 - Balancing Meaningful Building with Market Pressures 1:11:00 - Betting on Yourself and Long-Term Projects 1:14:00 - Martin’s Thoughts on Trading and Staying Grounded 1:16:00 - Coinbase Listings and Meme Coin Dynamics 1:21:00 - What’s Next for Martin and $HIGHER 1:24:00 - Outro: Reflections and the Road Ahead — Podcast recorded by Toady Hawk, edited by Toady Hawk and JackWyldes. Hosted by Toady Hawk. Music by Toady Hawk x Suno AI. This content is zero rights reserved (cc0), please remix and reuse it in any way you like!
How Stateless Apps Enable New Cross-Chain Possibilities with Skate
Welcome to our first EigenLayer Unlocked podcast from Singapore. Over the next few weekends, you can expect dynamic, high-quality, fast paced conversations from Andy and builders within the EigenLayer ecosystem. Today, we’re diving into the idea of stateless apps with Siddharth Lalwani, CEO of Skate. Skate’s approach focuses on solving the liquidity fragmentation issue we see across multiple chains. They’re building a unified AMM model as well as the underlying technology for apps to exist across many chains. By leveraging EigenLayer’s as an AVS, Skate uses cryptoeconomic security to ensure cross-chain transactions and build an ecosystem of “stateless” apps. Andy dives into Siddharth’s background, why they have chosen to use EigenLayer, how the design works, and where Skate is headed. With all the buzz around apps, this was a refreshing conversation about one potential way we’ll see apps be construed across the inevitable future consisting of thousands of chains. Enjoy. The Rollup 𝗘𝗶𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗟𝗮𝘆𝗲𝗿 𝗨𝗻𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝘀 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝗔𝗹𝘁𝗟𝗮𝘆𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗣𝗼𝗹𝘆𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗔𝗹𝘁𝗟𝗮𝘆𝗲𝗿 is an open and decentralized protocol that accelerates the launch of native and restaked rollups as well as AVSs. Our flagship product ‘restaked rollups’ has been an industry disruptor, unlocking the true value of rollups with enhanced security, decentralization, fast finality, and interoperability. AltLayer also recently launched the market’s first AVS-as-a-Service platform called “Wizard”- which templatizes AVS tools for convenience, hyper-accelerating their adoption and fast-tracking scalability for Web3. Follow AltLayer's Twitter: https://twitter.com/alt_layer and Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/altlayer 𝗣𝗼𝗹𝘆𝗺𝗲𝗿 is the first real-time interoperability solution that combines message passing and state streaming into an infinitely scalable network layer for the upcoming appchain meta. It can scale alongside L2 block times and leverage the security guarantees of connected rollups while offering re-org protection. Check it out here: https://www.polymerlabs.org/ 00:45 Introduction 03:02 Sid's Journey into Crypto 06:55 The Birth of Skate 09:42 Decoupling Application Logic 12:56 The Role of EigenLayer with Skate 14:51 Future Developments For Skate Skate Website: https://www.skatechain.org/ Skate Socials: https://x.com/skate_chain Siddharth Lalwani Socials: https://x.com/alt_v0rtex 𝗪𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝘆 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗲 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵-𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆, 𝗻𝗼𝗻-𝗯𝗶𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱, 𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗿𝘆𝗽𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝗰𝗼𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺. 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝘂𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗽𝘁𝘀 𝗯𝘆 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲𝘀: Website: https://therollup.co/ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1P6ZeYd.. Podcast: https://therollup.co/category/podcast Follow us on X: https://www.x.com/therollupco Follow Rob on X: https://www.x.com/robbie_rollup Follow Andy on X: https://www.x.com/ayyyeandy Join our TG group: https://t.me/+8ARkR_YZixE5YjBh The Rollup Disclosures: https://therollup.co/the-rollup-discl . . . 𝗗𝗜𝗦𝗖𝗟𝗔𝗜𝗠𝗘𝗥: 𝘐𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘳𝘺𝘱𝘵𝘰𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘋𝘦𝘍𝘪 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘪𝘯𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘬𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘬, 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘳, 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮 𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦. 𝘈𝘵 𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘭, 𝘸𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘺 𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘳 𝘧𝘦𝘦 𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱, 𝘪𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳. 𝘞𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮, 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘦 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘦. 𝘞𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘧𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘴 𝘰𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘴. #EigenLayer #ModularBlockchains #Ethereum #SkateChain
Hyperactive Episode 5 - Red with Antimo FM
We walk-and-talk with freelance product designer, Antimo FM. Antimo shares his journey from growing up in Italy with a passion for comic books and illustration, his path to design, crypto, and Farcaster, and how he’s using Hypersub to build community and earn recurring revenue onchain.
Hyperactive Episode 4 - Narisofka's Gang with Sofia Komarenko
We walk-and-talk with artist, illustrator, and designer Sofia Komarenko. Sophia shares her journey from growing up in Siberia and Kaliningrad to becoming a professional artist. She discusses her influences from cartoons and games, her entry into the NFT space, and the challenges of the crypto winter. Sophia highlights the importance of physical representations of digital art and how she’s using Hypersub to earn recurring revenue, and build a community of supporters that help sustain her artistic practice.
Terminally Onchain with YB
We discuss the past, present, and future of YB's work, and how he's using Hypersub to earn recurring revenue onchain with Terminally Onchain.
The Yon Experience with Yon Frula
We discuss the past, present, and future of Yan's work, and how he's using Hypersub to earn recurring revenue onchain with The Yon Experience.
Believe in Something with Jihad Esmail
We discuss the past, present, and future of Jihad's work, and how he's using Hypersub to earn recurring revenue onchain for Believe in Something.
many such cases ep 12: building for high-quality content with @dwr
on this episode (recorded “like a year ago”), @dwr joins @ted and @nonlinear to discuss the number one priority for farcaster right now: the challenge in creating a sustainable supply of quality content. we cover user engagement metrics, the current state of channels and what they could become, and how the team is thinking about enabling high-quality content through new features. @dwr also shares some of his insights on the power of text-based content and cultures on social platforms like twitter and what the emergence of AI-generated content may mean for these platforms. 00:39 farcaster’s top priority 01:29 challenges and strategies for building communities 07:30 reducing the barrier to high-quality content 15:20 the dominance of text-based content 18:35 in-group culture, power of memes, and AI-generated content 25:25 the future of channels
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
Happy Friday with the park ⌐Ⓗ-Ⓕ — Derek Taylor
Derek Taylor is a musician and founding member of the park. A band with many of the largest onchain music mints of all time. Based in Los Angeles, originally from San Francisco. They stage Fridays at the Park, bringing artists together in the room to write and record music. In-person experiences that also help onboard into the onchain and crypto world. Derek is a coffee enthusiast and raconteur. Owner of the legendary Menotti’s Coffee Stop in Venice Beach. We jumped on the mics to record days before I flew out to FarCon. We co-hosted HIGHER SESSIONS down at Venice Beach skatepark on Saturday morning, with the park, higher and UFO. Trevor aka The Gardener had a mountain of flowers there and was creating bouquets for people passing by and the park was providing coffee. We talk about the back story of the park, stories of creative collaborations across the world, how best to get started on the onchain scene as a musician, and how things look into the future. 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
Higher is a lifestyle — Martin, Six, Kugusha
Martin, Six and Kugusha are all early members of higher. A new creative collective with its own native currency, built with a token on Base, publishing on Zora, and accelerating out of sight as one of the all-time fastest growing Farcaster channels. Higher is a lifestyle, an optimistic mindset, a brand being built in real time by hundreds of people on the internet. The word itself was used in crypto for some time, but the idea that “Higher” could be something bigger was kickstarted by LGHT in March. LGHT created the arrow logo and the /higher Farcaster channel, after a suggestion from Jacob from Zora that the unicode up arrow (↑) could be the symbol for “higher”. And LGHT then made a few memes in a collection on Zora. We talk about everyone’s early experiences on Farcaster and views on how it’s developing. About the origins of higher and what’s emerging so far from this experiment, building a brand together. Zooming out on the possibilities and general sense of fun and play with people on the internet that is something to be a part of. 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
Designing Social Instruments with Scene Infrastructure Company — Jose, Ethan, Neesh
Scene Infrastructure Company is a software business building better instruments for socialization. We recorded with the founding team, Jose Mejia, Ethan Daya and Neesh, and what we got down on tape is super valuable context, experiences and thoughts around founding a new company. For design, product, community building and technology choices. Coming from earlier founding experiences at organizations like FWB and Zora. On designing a brand, and finding inspirations from retro spots like computer magazines, playstation games and lore, to create something fresh. We talk about their vision for the future and what they’d like to build, as they’re figuring it out in real time. They will be activating a social product experience for FWB Fest in California in August. 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
Going Viral Onchain
This episode welcomes Cooper Turley, Founder of Coop Records. Cooper is a recurring guest on the pod, though this time, we focus all of our attention on how to go viral onchain. Consider this a round table discussion where him and I share our insights, lessons learned, and debate our perspectives on the current state of the onchain creator economy. I hope you enjoy our conversation.
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.
#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!
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!
