BlockLayer Podcast

In this episode of Blocklayer Podcast , Kenzi Takahashi speaks with Lily Liu, President of the Solana Foundation, about a framework that changes how you evaluate crypto networks: blockchains aren’t best understood as companies — they behave more like cities. Lily is an entrepreneur and investor focused on crypto, with experience as a CFO and operating executive across the U.S., China, and a range...

In this episode of Blocklayer Podcast , Kenzi Takahashi , Diksha Desai , and Sachi Shiokava speak with Harsh Rajat about the real mechanics behind building infrastructure in crypto: how market sentiment changes what founders can ship (and what investors will fund), what it takes to raise in noisy cycles, and how the L1 “wars” look when you’re trying to stay chain-agnostic. Push Protocol bills itse...

Polygon is one of crypto’s most iconic underdog stories — and a big part of that mindset comes straight from Jaynti Kanani (JD). For him, the promise of Web3 is radically simple: if you’ve got a laptop and an internet connection, you can build something real — without permission, pedigree, or gatekeepers. JD puts it bluntly: you don’t need to be public-facing, you don’t need Stanford University, a...

In this episode of Blocklayer Podcast , Kenzi Takahashi , Diksha Desai , and Sachi Shiokava sit down with Jack Lu, CEO and one of the four co-founders of Magic Eden, to talk through the platform’s evolution from a Solana-native NFT marketplace into a broader multi-chain hub — and what that shift says about where NFTs are actually going. Before co-founding Magic Eden, Jack built experience across F...

In this week’s episode of Blocklayer Podcast , Kenzi Takahashi and Diksha Desai sit down with Chris Gonsalves, CEO of Community Gaming, to explore how modern gaming ecosystems are being rebuilt around ownership, on-chain incentives, and community-led competition — and what that means for the next era of eSports. Chris walks through how Community Gaming came to life, the core problems it set out to...

In this episode of Blocklayer Podcast , Kenzi Takahashi and Diksha Desai sit down with Sandeep Nailwal to unpack his journey building Polygon — from early setbacks and inflection points to the long, unglamorous work of earning developer trust at scale. Sandeep shares how he first got pulled into crypto, why Polygon has always treated the builder community as the real moat, and what “community buil...

In this episode of Blocklayer Podcast , Kenzi Takahashi and Diksha Desai speak with Lucas Vogelsang, CEO and Co-Founder of Centrifuge, about one of DeFi’s most important frontiers: bringing real-world assets (RWAs) on-chain — a mission Centrifuge has pursued since the early days of Ethereum. Lucas breaks down what “RWA DeFi” looks like in practice, why it matters for scaling DeFi beyond crypto-nat...

In this episode of Blocklayer Podcast , Kenzi Takahashi speaks with Sota Watanabe about what it’s like building as a Japanese founder in crypto, the factors that most strongly shape Web3 valuations, and why the multichain future is more practical than it is ideological. They also dig into what’s next at Astar — and how the team thinks about positioning smart contracts in a world where ecosystems a...

In this episode of Blocklayer Podcast , Kenzi Takahashi and Diksha Desai speak with Nischal Shetty (Founder of WazirX and Shardeum) about decentralization done right, what real community-building looks like beyond hype, and how to survive long enough in Web3 to actually ship. Before WazirX and Shardeum, Nischal began his entrepreneurial path in 2010 by building a social media product that started...

In this episode of Blocklayer Podcast , Kenzi Takahashi speaks with Andrew Durgee about how Republic is structured, what each part of the business does, and how the team keeps moving through sharp market swings — including the fallout from the Terra collapse. They break down Republic’s multi-entity setup (a holding company alongside Republic Retail, Republic Capital, and Republic Crypto), and the...

In this episode of Blocklayer Podcast , Kenzi Takahashi and Sachi Shiokava sit down with Ciara Sun , Founder & Managing Partner of C² Ventures , for a candid conversation about investing through market cycles, how valuations actually get shaped in Web3, and what it means to build and lead in crypto as a woman. Before entering Web3, Ciara built her foundation as a management consultant at Bosto...

In this episode of Blocklayer Podcast , Kenzi Takahashi sits down with Miles Anthony, Founder of Decentral Games — a project creating on-chain casino experiences designed around aligned incentives, self-custody, and delegated access to yield-bearing metaverse assets. Originally launched in closed beta in September 2019, Decentral Games has expanded into a full suite of titles including poker, blac...