Sid Powell is the CEO & Co-Founder of Maple Finance. Maple is transforming capital markets through technology and count traditional finance and crypto-native firms as customers. Joe McCann guest hosts. 00:35 - What is Maple? 01:32 - How does Maple determine Credit worthiness? 02:55 - Expanding the addressable market 04:35 - Who uses Maple and how they get started 08:18 - Defaulting and the recapture of collateral 13:21 - Maple's advantages against challenges lenders face in crypto 16:45 - Wh...
Jul 05, 2022•42 min•Ep. 69
Noah Prince (Co-Founder/ CEO, Strata Protocol) and Austin Adams (Lead Protocol Dev, Metaplex Studios) sit down with Austin Federa to discuss the integration of Strata's Dynamic Pricing Mint tool into the Metaplex Program Library. 00:51 - What is Strata? 02:12 - Challenges when launching a token 04:43 - Why is Strata more successful than competitors? 06:15 - Fundraise and the changing use cases of tokens on Solana 08:47 - Changing mentalites around the function of tokens 10:48 - How is Metaplex's...
Jun 14, 2022•37 min•Ep. 68
Brett Harrison is the President of FTX US, a US-regulated cryptocurrency exchange. Prior to joining FTX US, Brett was Head of Semi-Systematic Technology at Citadel Securities, where he managed technology for the firm’s Options, ETF, OTC, and ADR trading globally. He began and spent the majority of his career at Jane Street, where he led the firm’s algorithmic trading system development. 00:34 - The role of FTX.US’ president 01:24 - About FTX 02:55 - Nontraditional brand marketing 08:05 - Educati...
Jun 07, 2022•40 min•Ep. 67
Welcome to a special episode of the Solana Podcast focusing on Crypto & National Security featuring Ari Redbord (Head of Legal and Government Affairs, TRM Labs) and Sigal Mandelker (former Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence). Amira Valliani (Policy Lead, Solana Foundation) guest hosts. 00:09 - Intros 02:11 - Origin Story 05:53 - Correspondent Banks 07:37 - Why crypto resonates personally 09:54 - Use cases of Crypto in humanitarian applications 12:13 - Lo...
May 24, 2022•36 min•Ep. 66
Kanav Kariya (President, Jump Crypto) joins the Solana Podcast to discuss his optimism for the future and the many areas in which Jump Crypto is innovating in the crypto and blockchain space. Austin Federa (Head of Communications, Solana Labs) guest hosts. 00:49 - What is Jump? 03:07 - The path to operationalizing crypto 06:00 - Optimism for Crypto 10:49 - Discovering and Building in Crypto with Jump 14:24 - Personal Journey at Jump 16:43 - What's being built at Jump? 17:55 - Reasons to want to ...
May 03, 2022•56 min•Ep. 65
Chris Osborn is the Founder and CEO of Dialect, a smart messaging protocol that powers seamless, on-chain messaging experiences, starting with wallet-to-wallet chat and dapp notifications. Joe McCann guest hosts. 00:49 - Origin Story 02:06 - What is Dialect? 05:59 - What are the blockers in Web 3.0? 07:46 - Why Solana? 11:11 - Looked into other ecosystems? 13:52 - What is the process to use Dialect? 22:31 - Using Solana Pay with Dialect 27:22 - In-game messaging 28:36 - Dialect's operations and ...
Apr 27, 2022•39 min•Ep. 64
Nigel Eccles is the co-founder and CEO of Vault Laboratories. VAULT is a new creator platform that uses the power of Web3 to unlock the next generation of fan experiences. Joe McCann guest hosts. 00:32 - Origin Story 04:48 - Vault 09:47 - Use case of Vault 14:38 - User experience in Web 3.0 18:01 - Why choose to build on Solana? 24:01 - BetDEX 25:51 - FanDuel vs BetDEX 27:41 - Regulation and user experience 31:04 - Youth as an inspiration? 32:48 - SAMO 34:42 - Exciting Projects on Solana DISCLAI...
Apr 12, 2022•39 min•Ep. 63
Tristan Frizza is the Co-Founder & CEO of Zeta Markets, an under-collateralized DeFi derivatives platform, powered by Solana and Serum. Matty Taylor (Head of Growth at Solana Labs) guest hosts. 00:26 - Origin Story 03:08 - Winning the Solana Hackathon 05:59 - What is Zeta? 08:49 - What's appealing about options? 11:17 - Why is Zeta more successful than other options projects? 16:44 - Using open-source primitives vs. building 20:15 - The front-end 24:22 - Mobile user experience 28:49 - Rapid ...
Mar 29, 2022•41 min•Ep. 62
Ahmad & Danial Abbasi are the co-founders of Syndica, a Web 3.0 blockchain infrastructure company focused on the Solana ecosystem. 00:35 - Background in Crypto 02:09 - Why Solana over other platforms? 04:10 - User Experience and Web 3.0 06:16 - What is Syndica? 08:54 - Syndica and Web 3.0 12:33 - Syndica’s focus on infrastructure 14:36 - Differentiating from other providers 16:55 - Syndica and the data 18:29 - Their user base 20:03 - Plans on offering validator services? 22:05 - Best practic...
Mar 15, 2022•42 min•Ep. 61
On a special episode of the Solana Podcast, Sergey Vasylchuk (CEO, Everstake) talks about Aid for Ukraine, a DAO created by Everstake and endorsed by the government of Ukraine and Anatoly Yakovenko to support Ukraine during the ongoing crisis — and how it came together on Nation. 00:38 - Intro 02:51 - Origin of the initiative / How it works 06:25 - Ukrainian government receiving FIAT currency 09:13 - Banking, a legacy system 10:04 - News on the ground 12:39 - What can people do to get involved D...
Mar 04, 2022•16 min•Ep. 60
In this episode, Dan Albert (Executive Director), Lily Liu (President) and Mable Jiang (Board Member) discuss the role of the Solana Foundation in advancing the Solana protocol and ecosystem with support and initiatives around the world. Austin Federa (Head of Communications, Solana Labs) guest hosts. 0:43 - Intros / Roles 3:13 - The appeal of working at the foundation level 07:48 - Establishing scope for the foundation 12:42 - What’s working in the ecosystem? 20:01 - From the ecosystem to the f...
Mar 01, 2022•44 min•Ep. 59
In this special Payments episode of the Solana Podcast, Austin Federa guest hosts a conversation between Jeremy Allaire (CEO, Circle) and Sheraz Shere (Head of Payments, Solana Labs). They discuss merchant payments, stablecoins and Solana Pay: the newly released, open, and free-to-use payments framework built on Solana. 00:45 - What is Circle? 03:35 - The use case for stablecoins and the mechanisms to build them 09:34 - Solana Pay 13:42 - Integration of USDC and Stable Coins 18:45 - How could So...
Feb 08, 2022•36 min•Ep. 58
Vasiliy Shapovalov (Tech Lead, Lido), F.P. (Co-Founder, Socean) and Ella Kuzmenko (Product Manager, Stake Pools & Delegation Program, Solana Foundation) chat with Anatoly about the complexity and game theory surrounding stake pools, decentralization and censorship resistance. 00:10 - Intro 01:38 - Collaterals, maximizing censorship resistance 07:40 - APYs and investors 09:31 - How to get penetration across DeFi 14:58 - Governance in a liquid stake pool 18:23 - Automation vs. programmatic on-...
Dec 14, 2021•46 min•Ep. 57
Live from Breakpoint 2021, Ali Yahya (a16z) moderates a discussion about wallets, custody and the User Control Layer with Brandon Millman (Phantom), Filip Dragoslavic (Solrise) and Maria Phillips (Slope Finance). 00:10 - Intro 02:32 - Custodial vs. Non-custodial models for keys holding 07:11 - Education is key 11:37 - Building on top of user-controlled layers 16:48 - Unbundling Wallets 20:04 - Mobile vs. Desktop DISCLAIMER The information on this podcast is provided for educational, informationa...
Dec 07, 2021•24 min•Ep. 56
Live from Breakpoint 2021, Austin Federa (Solana Labs) moderates a discussion about the transfer layer and cross-chain bridges with Hendrik Hofstadt (Jump Crypto), Bryan Pellegrino (LayerZero), Alex Smirnov (deBridge) and Andriy Velykyy (Allbridge.io). 00:10 - Intro 02:50 - The importance of bridges not relying on Trust 04:28 - Moving wrapped assets 12:00 - Capital Efficiency of Bridges 14:02 - Future of bridges 16:28 - Integration of bridges DISCLAIMER The information on this podcast is provide...
Dec 02, 2021•20 min•Ep. 55
Live from Breakpoint 2021, Brendan Eich sits down with Anatoly Yakovenko to discuss integrating Solana into the Brave Browser, the huge potential for a decentralized search engine and NFTs as an entry point to the metaverse. 00:09 - Intro 00:54 - Integrating Solana in Brave 08:00 - Challenges with creating the browser 09:23 - How to scale crypto to the general public 11:57 - A Decentralized search engine 14:46 - NFTs as entry point to the metaverse 16:35 - Mobile vs. Desktop 18:00 - Languages an...
Nov 30, 2021•25 min•Ep. 54
Daffy Durairaj is the co-founder of Mango Markets and is currently working full time as a developer in service of the Mango DAO. 00:28 - Origin Story 04:44 - Seeing the order book 10:20 - The idea behind creating Mango Markets 15:38 - Going from creating smart contracts to creating Mango 17:32 - How big is the DAO? 20:01 - The Launch 29:15 - VCs and the launch 32:43 - Decentralization and getting stuff done 34:55 - Will DAOs ever compete with big tech companies? 40:43 - What’s next for Mango Mar...
Nov 23, 2021•43 min•Ep. 53
Live from Breakpoint 2021, Alexis Ohanian sits down with Raj Gokal to discuss web3 and the $100 million fund to support decentralized social media projects on Solana. 00:10 - Intro 2:20 - Announcement of Seven Seven Six and Solana Foundation collaboration 9:53 - GM, Twitter, #FreeRaj 14:31 - Discussing Web 3.0 and the future of decentralized social media 18:04 - User experience and building on Solana 22:48 - New types of governance and delegation 25:59 - How crypto can change the way we see the ...
Nov 16, 2021•30 min•Ep. 52
Tommy and Taylor are the founders of PsyOptions, a DAO developing the leading options primitives on Solana. 00:09 - Introduction and Origin Story 04:04 - What are the challenges / improvements in Solana? 11:49 - Integration of Serum v3 14:32 - Adoption of PsyOptions 17:19 - Architecting the system 22:11 - Liquidity mining vs. options trading 26:27 - Background in trading options 28:05 - DeFi vs. Traditional finance products 30:56 - Gaming as a market 32:56 - Exciting things out of the hackatho...
Nov 02, 2021•41 min•Ep. 51
Larry Cermak joined The Block as one of the first employees with the mission to provide professionals with accurate information about crypto. He now leads a 30-person research team that delivers insights to institutional customers. 00:09 - Intro 00:20 - Larry Cermak’s origin story / His work at The Block 08:25 - The fundamentals of Bitcoin 16:03 - The value of SushiSwap 19:35 - Investing based on Memes 23:42 - Market Value for future gains in Crypto 26:12 - Will NFTs be backing internet money? 2...
Oct 26, 2021•44 min•Ep. 50
Packy McCormick is the author of the tech/web3 newsletter Not Boring and runs Not Boring Capital. 00:09 - Intro 01:34 - What are people building in the world of crypto / What does ‘Not Boring’ invest in 09:36 - Ownership in Crypto 16:00 - Conversation around Play-to-earn 19:06 - The regulatory aspect 22:14- How does Anatoly balance his time 23:54 - Thoughts on DAOs 29:33 - Network Effect and defensibility in Crypto 32:18 - Centralizing in Crypto 35:20 - Solana in relation to DeFi, the cultural a...
Oct 12, 2021•44 min•Ep. 49
Jonathan "Moshe" Schemoul is the founder of aleph.im, a cross-chain p2p storage, computing network and first decentralized indexing provider for Solana. 00:36 – Intro & how did Jonathan Schemoul got in crypto 02:09 – What is Aleph and how does it work? 06:48 – Is Aleph database a blockchain? 09:20 – Understanding core nodes and Aleph’s economics 11:22 – How does Aleph interact with DNS? 15:29 – How does Aleph get verification of certificates? 21:44 – How does Aleph check integrity of computa...
Oct 05, 2021•44 min•Ep. 48
Jeff "Jiho" Zirlin is the Co-Founder of Axie Infinity, an NFT-based play-to-earn online video game. 00:23 – How it started through CryptoKitties? 02:41 – What is Axie Infinity? 04:13 – Game design and constant iteration 05:52 – What is a blockchain game? A mix of social network, gaming and the start of a new economy 13:15 – Why is crypto important to Axie? 17:24 – Building and relying on your community 20:47 – Is the future of gaming the metaverse and user-owned assets? 22:22 – The feasibility o...
Jul 29, 2021•45 min•Ep. 47
Yutaro Mori & Grace Kwan are the Co-Founders of Orca, a user-friendly cryptocurrency exchange built on Solana. 01:15 – About Orca and its vision 09:48 – What’s the future of DeFi? 20:48 – A little bit about Orca’s roadmap 25:50 – What does Orca’s team look like? 32:11 – The internet hasn’t changed much, people grew into it. How will crypto grow more present in our life? 36:22 – Solana and zero knowledge proof 40:02 – Orca’s next features planned for Q2 and Q3 43:46 – How does Orca plan on gr...
Jun 25, 2021•47 min•Ep. 46
George Harrap is the co-founder of Step Finance, a platform for Solana DeFi users to track their portfolio performance. Before Step, George was the CEO of Bitspark. 00:29 About George Harrap and mining 05:03 From Bitcoin to DeFi, how can crypto solve currency issues in the world 18:27 STEP Finance’s vision for the next five years 21:20 Censorship resistance and layer 1s 27:11 Hackathon: what would you like to see created? 30:30 Thoughts on Rust and why it was the better choice for Solana 38:08 W...
Jun 07, 2021•44 min•Ep. 46
Kevin Rose is a partner at True and a serial entrepreneur best known for founding Digg and Revision3. Most recently, he founded Oak, a guided meditation app, and Zero, an app for tracking intermittent fasting. 00:08 – Introduction of Kevin Rose, Modern Finance and the story of Reddit vs. DIGG 06:04 – From DOS to Windows, where are we in the evolution of crypto 07:50 – Crypto is here to stay. Could we see countries getting into it in the future? 14:47 – The NFT craze 19:58 – NFT: dynamic art and ...
May 10, 2021•52 min•Ep. 45
Jason Choi is a General Partner at Spartan Capital, one of Asia’s first crypto funds. As Spartan Capital’s first employee, Jason helped scale the fund from $9M to $200M within 3 years, and supported the launch of Spartan’s $50M DeFi-only venture fund to back world-class teams shaping the future of finance. 00:23 – Getting into crypto and about Spartan Capital 04:33 – How does Spartan Capital invests? 11:47 – Next wave: building for current users vs future adopters? 19:47 – DeFi and the yield far...
May 03, 2021•54 min•Ep. 44
We are excited to have Dan Gunsberg, Co-Founder of Hxro, sitting down with us for Episode 41. During this discussion, Dan talks about his history in traditional finance, how this experience guided him to building out Hxro, the importance of community, and the powerful disruptions he believes are going to happen over the next few years. 00:25 – Dan’s crypto story and what’s Hxro? 05:38 – Centralized crypto exchanges vs legacy exchanges 15:07 – Community capitalism 24:11 – Community building aroun...
Apr 19, 2021•40 min•Ep. 42
In this episode, AlphaRay discusses the origin of Raydium, working with Solana and FTX, fusion Pools, the importance of communities, and the future of decentralized governance. 00:25 - The story behind Alpha and Raydium 10:26 - What are Fusion Pools? 15:07 - Teaming up with FTX/Serum and being among the first to build on the Solana blockchain 19:29 - Solana communities 25:52 - Thoughts on future governance features 29:57 - Closing thoughts, what’s next? DISCLAIMER The information on this podcast...
Apr 12, 2021•34 min•Ep. 41
Anatoly and Santiago sit down to cover the stages of crypto, the major benefits of decentralized finance, on-chain transparency, the future of decentralized collaboration, and plenty more. ☀️ 00:31: Who is Santiago Santos, and why crypto? 09:07: At what stage are we in crypto? Are finance applications the equivalent of the internet in the 90s? 14:32: DeFi benefits: crypto lending, automatic investor profiles, transparency, and more 31:43: Is decentralization the future of collaboration? 38:45: C...
Apr 05, 2021•44 min•Ep. 40
