On this episode AVB sits down with David Lachmish, co-founder of IKA (previously Dwallet Network). IKA is the fastest parallel MPC network launching on Sui. I really enjoyed this conversation as it has a really natural flow, covering, among many things: * How adversity creates excellence and comfort breeds mediocrity. Why everyone should spend at least one year living in a culture different from where they grew up in. * An analysis of the current web3 landscape - why web3 is fundamentally a cybe...
Feb 02, 2025•1 hr 44 min•Ep. 72
Conversation with Santi, the legend behind the Crecimiento movement in Argentina. Crecimiento is a movement to transform Argentina into the Crypto Capital of the world. Some of the things we covered: * The History and Anatomy of the Pop-up City Movement: from Mu and beyond. * What makes Argentina unique: bottoms up adoption and top down support. * Crecimiento origins, insights from last two popups * What to expect for the upcoming pop uppers city in March * and A LOT more Resources * Join the Sp...
Jan 28, 2025•1 hr 52 min•Ep. 71
On this wide ranging conversation we sit down with Maria Yarotska, Hackathon Headmistress of the NEAR Ecosystem, contributor at DevHub. Some of the topics we cover and stood out to me: * Anatomy of a hacker: tales from an experienced hackathon organiser on what makes some teams thrive and others burst in flames. * Maria's Origins: attending a Space Tech hackathon that changed her life. * Thoughts on different approaches to hackathons. In particular, her answer to what she would do if she had unl...
Jan 28, 2025•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 70
Conversation with Illia Polosukhin (co-founder @nearprotocol) also known on the streets as The Black Dragon, recorded live during [Redacted] Bangkok 2024. Illia does A LOT of public appearances and interviews. On this interview we break norm and rather than focus of the tech (the WHAT) we focus instead on Illia's journey (Who and Why). Even though we only had 1 hour, the result has far exceeded our expectations. Some of the highlights: * Illia reads in Megabytes. How his life changed when someon...
Nov 16, 2024•52 min•Ep. 69
Wide ranging conversation with Eric Winer, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Managing Director at Pagoda. What makes this podcast special is that it was recorded just a few days after the announcement of several spinouts and the rest of Pagoda sunsetting came out. Which sets the scene for a very honest and insightful Eric. Some of the topics we cover and personal highlights: - Eric has been very early and led massive growth at Gemini and Nifty Gateway. Common thread: taking familiar user experi...
Aug 25, 2024•1 hr 50 min•Ep. 68
This is the second conversation we have with Cameron Dennis, although the first one never got released as it was deemed too spicy! Cameron was one of the earliest contributors to NEAR Inc, spearheading Business Development and eventually recruiting a BD team. He's outlasted several NEAR Foundation CEO's, even it as some point he parted ways with NF due to a 'lack of culture fit'. A ruthless hustler. Cameron provides unique insights into many things. Some of my personal highlights: 1. Evolution: ...
Aug 18, 2024•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 67
Wide ranging conversation with Romain Despoel, an associate at Polymorphic Capital. Romaind and AVB met at ETH CC Brussels 2024 and immediately hit if off. Some would say that sharing across two hackathons in such a short timeframe would bring any two people together, but we believe it is due to their shared past growing up in Venezuela that they have developed a strong friendship. Some of the things we talk about that stood out to me: - We open by discussing Venezuela. Romain's brief sting ther...
Aug 05, 2024•1 hr 45 min•Ep. 66
Wide Ranging conversation with Nick Havryliak, co-founder at Assisterr. Assisterr is a Data Provenance Protocol & Marketplace of domain-specific Small Language Models (SLMs) owned by the community. Summary In this episode we discuss the convergence of Web3 and AI. They delve into Nick's background in consulting, product management, and his journey into Web3 and AI. Nick elaborates on the limitations of Large Language Models (LLMs) and explains the advantages of using Small Language Models th...
Jul 28, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 65
Wide ranging conversation with Mario Reder. Mario is an engineer at Orderly (on-chain perps), lead dev at Shitzu (NEAR's OG memecoin and most active community). Some of the topics we covered include: - How we was lured from being a web2 developer to web3 thanks to WASM - The beauty and nuance of Rust language - The origins of Shitzu: how AGT managed to get him onboard - Memecoins & Fundamentals.... - Alpha on everything Shitzu has been building, plus a major launch coming up! Resources Deleg...
Jul 17, 2024•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 64
Zahid is the founder of Jutsu. Jutsy is the co-pilot of web3 enabling and empowering developers to be 10x more efficient! Some of the topics we cover on this wide ranging conversation: 1. Just origins: feeling the pain points at ETH Denver 2023 hackathon 2. Jutsu evolution: hackers using it and winning in the wild 3. Philosophical musings on AI: defining Agents, challenges for adoption and opportunities. 4. Core infrastructure of Consumer application? What are the differences and why it matters ...
Mar 18, 2024•2 hr 14 min•Ep. 63
Resources Blog Post 'Nearcon: the Post Protocol Era' - https://thecryptospace.substack.com/p/nearcon-the-post-protocol-era-is Nearcon 2023 Panel: DAOs and Collective Intelligence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj2PpoZW47g&t=14431s The Big V Value Thesis - https://x.com/DrNickA/status/1749062167188349052?s=20 'Why? The purpose of the Universe' by Dr Phillip Todd Factory DAO - https://www.factorydao.org Follow on Socials Dr. Nick - https://twitter.com/DrNickA Factory DAO - https://twitter.com...
Feb 11, 2024•1 hr 39 min•Ep. 62
On this podcast we sit down with Boris Polania, from NEAR DevHub. Some of the topics we cover are: - Boris background: challenges as an entrepreneur and frustrating with the political class in Venezuela - Complexity Science and DAOs - DevHub role and initiatives to growing the NEAR ecosystem - and more! Resources - DevHub Home Base on BOS - https://near.social/devhub.near/widget/app Follow on Social Boris - https://twitter.com/HackBoing NEAR DevHub - https://twitter.com/NEARDevHub AVB - https://...
Jan 29, 2024•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 61
Jonathan and Edward are co-founders at Meteor Wallet, one of the main and rapidly growing wallet in NEAR ecosystem. Prior to founding Meteor, Jonathan joined Edward in NEAR Tinker Union, a rich NFT community focused on the technology, innovation and product. Resources Meteor Wallet Website - https://meteorwallet.app/ NEAR Tinker Union (NTU) Website (Stake) - https://tinkerunion.com/stake/ Buy NTU - https://www.tradeport.xyz/near/collection/tinkerunion_nft.enleap.near Follow on Socials Edward Twi...
Dec 27, 2023•2 hr 3 min•Ep. 60
Bonus Special Episode: Cross-posting the first episode of the DevHub Unplugged Podcast, a new series produced by DevHub Link to Original Podcast: https://youtu.be/Ke5c3GS5-KU Subscrite to DevHub Unplugged: DevHub Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@NEARDevHub Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/24Ns7EaHzEhMl8OQqrkomg Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/devhub-unplugged/id1720735707?uo=4 Google Podcasts - https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy50cmFuc2lzdG9yLmZtL...
Dec 17, 2023•27 min•Ep. 59
Peter (CEO) and Jasper (CTO) are co-founders at SEDA Protocol, a base layer focused on interoperability. You may know them from Flux, their prior First Party Oracle protocol - Flux. On this pod, we waste no time and we go DEEP into the future of decentralised infrastructure and what would be required for mass adoption. The promise? Chain abstraction. ALPHA WARNING Some of the things we cover include: * Defining key terms such as blockchains (multiple), oracles and bridges using tons of useful an...
Dec 05, 2023•1 hr 39 min•Ep. 58
David Weinstein is the current Chief of Staff at NEAR Foundation. Some of the topics we cover on this wide ranging conversation with David: * David Background - from great intellectual input at a large financial firm to optimise tiny credit card margins to working at LinkedIn, Circle, and now NEAR Foundation * Road to Self-Actualisation: where do classic philosophy meets modern day problems? * Classical philosophy meets AI: what would Marcus Aurelius say? * Death and Rebirth: the cycles of growt...
Nov 26, 2023•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 57
Wide ranging conversation with Peter, co-founder at NEARWEEK, the OG newsletter of the NEAR ecosystem. Some of the topics we cover on this conversation include: * How high levels of trust in government in Denmark have shaped the web3 landscape there. * Role of adversity in hustle and ambition * Getting things done * NEAR ecosystem: evolution, challenges and opportunities. * Branding * and more! Subscribe to NEARWEEK and claim weekly free cover NFT: https://subscribe.nearweek.com Resources Heroes...
Nov 16, 2023•1 hr 35 min•Ep. 56
Erica Kang is the founder of KryptoSeoul, a leading community building team in South Korea made up of professional communicators, marketers, and analysts. Some of the topics we cover on this wide ranging conversation include: * Origins of KryptoSeoul: transitioning from Korean Corporate world to crypto. * Importance of Brand and Reputation: how to identify and filter out bad actors while building trust * Korean Culture: what is meant for innovation, challenges for global cooperation and governan...
Oct 23, 2023•1 hr 36 min•Ep. 55
Kendall Cole is the founder and CEO at Proximity Labs, also known over time as the 'Defi Arm' of NEAR Ecosystem. On this wide ranging conversation with Kendall, you can actually hear the energy and the tone in the room change as time goes on. As we keep hitting him with quirky jokes, and asking genuine questions from every angle, Kendall finally starts to open up and share some top tier insights and alpha. Some of the topics discussed include: Unconventional Origins of NEAR Protocol. Unlike othe...
Oct 02, 2023•2 hr 28 min•Ep. 54
Riqi is the co-founder of Paras, Arkana and Akoma and one of the five NEAR Community Treasury Trustees. This podcast was recorded in person, at the Paras HQ in Jakarta on September 4, 2023. This is a wide ranging, wholesome, at time hilarious conversation where you can see Riqi and AVB become best friends in real time while talking about: * The Origins of Paras: to elevate NFTs beyond digital art. * The Origins of Akoma and why they had to rebrand from Paras Comics * Growing Akoma into 100s thou...
Sep 27, 2023•2 hr 13 min•Ep. 53
Mike Purvis is an engineer, builders, and awesome human being. Early NEAR Core, co-founder at Croncats, and current contributor to Cosmos. Some of the topics we cover on this wide ranging conversation with Mike: Origins Story - Mike joining NEAR early days (2020) - working alongside founding team, hustle beast mode on. Serendipity - magic happens when people are bored together. Importance of IRL event - we are getting a castle in Burgundy! Founder’s Journey - difference between being a salaried ...
Sep 13, 2023•2 hr 25 min•Ep. 52
PlayEmber is a mobile games studio with over 100 million downloads. PlayEmber is making web3 easy & rewarding for players, developers & creators. Their web3 team are building the infrastructure and games to mass onboard web2 games into web3. they are already Top20 Blockchain Game and still in private beta. On this wide ranging conversation with PlayEmber cofounders Jon and Hugo, we cover: * On being a data driven organisation: how games are born and killed. * Games as art of commodities?...
Aug 29, 2023•2 hr•Ep. 51
Web3 Plug is the mastermind behind many great projects on the NEAR ecosystem and beyond. Plug agreed to come on the Wild User Interviews podcast as long as he could remain anonymous. Masked up and constantly moving in the middle of the night at an undisclosed location, we do DEEP... Some of Plug's publicly disclosed affiliations include: co-founder at Minority Programmers, Chief Decentralisation Officer @ Banyan Collective, & Blunt DAO. Some of the topics we cover: Origins of Minority Progra...
Aug 24, 2023•1 hr 59 min•Ep. 50
Some of the things we cover: * State of the NDC - airing and listing grievances from a Builder's perspective (Diving deeper into The Viral Tweet). * Anatomy of a Revolution: AVB got sacrificed first for speaking out, now moderates are coming forward with a silent majority behind us. * What happens when a chain's main product become's governance? Incentive design. Admins overpowering the will of Builder's in what was once a Builder's Blockchain. * Ideological Battles: the Socialists versus the Me...
Aug 15, 2023•2 hr 16 min•Ep. 49
Wide ranging conversation with Carolin Geier, co-founder at Mintbase and one of the five NEAR Community Treasury Trustees. This podcast is a short one but packed with goodies where we come, among other things: * The beginning: from German Parliament researching 'Distributed Ledger Technology' to meeting Nate working on Blockchain and NFTs. * Changing landscape from lots of talks and unfulfilled promises in 2018 to today * Role of Mintbase in NEAR - infra enabling many other projects to build on ...
Aug 07, 2023•49 min•Ep. 48
Alex Chiocchi is the Chief Product Officer at Pagoda. Prior to joining Pagoda, Alex was en early LinkedIn employee, founded and exited an AI startup (that used one of Illia's open source libraries), and worked at Kraken. On this wide ranging conversation we cover many things, including: * What makes a good product - frameworks for building successful applications. * Tension between Product and Engineering. * Challenges of building towards a long term vision while also trying to survive in short ...
Jul 30, 2023•1 hr 50 min•Ep. 47
Podcast Recorded July 3, 2023 Illuminfti is the co-founder of Anti-social Labs and a core contributor to the NEAR Digital Collective (NDC) Governance Working Group (GWG). This is a wide ranging, unfiltered, and at times spicy conversation where we cover: * Illuminfti Journey: from College in US to startup ecosystem in UK * Crypto Counterculture. * Insights into NFTS on NEAR - Post Mortem. * Complex relationship between Governance, Culture & Economics * How to attract and retain the best tale...
Jul 19, 2023•1 hr 48 min•Ep. 46
Didier Pironi îs an OG of NEAR ecosystem. Previously served as Product Manager at REF Finance, the leading DEX on NEAR. Current he is co-founder at PikeSpeak, advanced analytics tool. Some of the topics we cover on this wide ranging conversation: * Journey from Consultant at PWC to becoming a web3 Builder * The impact that working at Techstars and being surrounded by other founders had on him. Importance of role models. * Differences in business environment and culture between UK and France * Th...
Jul 06, 2023•1 hr 35 min•Ep. 45
Podcast recorded live in Seoul as part of the ETH Seoul and Asia Buidl 2023 tour. Discover the untold potential of Web3 as we navigate the world of blockchain technology with Agwn, the founder of Lidium – a Web3 education venture in Korea – and co-organizer of ETH Seoul. Together, we'll examine the unique aspects of Korea's history and culture that make it a fertile ground for crypto adoption, while also delving into the importance of education in this new era of decentralization. Join our thoug...
Jun 20, 2023•1 hr 44 min•Ep. 44
Alina Tustanovska is the COO at INC4, CEO of Spaceport Labs, DAO Council member at AirDAO, friend with Open Forest Protocol. Most recently, Alina has been appointed as one of the five NEAR Community Trust Trustees. This is the second instalment of the 'Get to Know the Trustees' Series, episodes where we dive deep to uncover who the stewards of the ecosystem are and what makes them a good candidate. On this wide ranging conversation we cover: * Alina's journey into crypto * How her company starte...
Jun 06, 2023•2 hr 8 min•Ep. 43
