The Defiant

Brendan Farmer is the co-founder of Polygon, which is a project that is focused on scaling Ethereum. Brendan's contributions have been instrumental in the research and development of key scaling technologies within Polygon's framework, including Polygon PoS, Polygon zkEVM, and Polygon Miden. Our conversation begins with an exploration of the foundational elements that constitute the Polygo...

Alex Blania is a cofounder of Worldcoin alongside Sam Altman and Max Novendtsern. Worldcoin is aiming to become the world's largest digital identity and financial network, giving ownership to everyone. Worldcoin could be considered the frontrunner in terms of ambition, leveraging unique methods to accelerate the widespread adoption of cryptocurrency technologies globally, to a point where crit...

⚠️IMPORTANT NOTICE ⚠️ Today we're joined by Chris Amani, who's the CEO of Terraform Labs. Our conversation with Chris unfolds in two parts. Initially recorded on January 17th, we begin by catching up on the latest developments and the new strategic direction of the Terra ecosystem following its collapse in May 2022. Intriguingly, just days after our initial dialogue, Terraform Labs announc...

Today we're joined by Mustafa Al-Bassam, CEO and Co-Founder of Celestia Labs. 15 years after Satoshi, we finally have what a blockchain actually is Celestia provides the ability to publish data and make sure that data is available. Celestia had what many are calling one of the best launches of 2023, and they are the first Data Availability Layer live today. In our conversation we get into how...

Matt Hougan is the CIO of Bitwise, which is a crypto index fund manager and one of the issuers of Bitcoin ETFs. Hougan is a renowned figure in the financial sector, known for his expertise in cryptocurrency and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). In our conversation we get into Matt's initial reaction to the BTC ETF launch, the expected inflows for 2024, and the often underestimated impacts of these...

Today we're joined by Jason Bailey, Co-Founder and CEO of ClubNFT. ClubNFT provides solutions to help collectors analyze, monitor, and protect their NFT collections. Jason is an O.G. in the NFT space and today he shares many stories from back in the day. He was an early collector on SuperRare. He created the first NFT IRL drop at Christie's art event back in 2018. He'd been Red Pilling...

Illia Polosukhin is the Co-Founder of NEAR Protocol, which is a sharded, proof-of-stake, Layer 1 blockchain. Originally conceived as an Artificial Intelligence endeavor, NEAR underwent a transformation, pivoting its focus to become a crypto project. We begin our conversation by exploring NEAR's shift into crypto, and later gain deeper insight into NEAR's core principles, underlying technol...

Jameson Lopp is the CTO of CasaHODL, a company specializing in Bitcoin security solutions. He has played a pivotal role in developing products and services that empower individuals to safeguard their digital assets. Jameson is a globally recognized voice from his written work on cybersecurity, privacy and the social implementations of Bitcoin. Trigger warning for those in the Ethereum community an...

Chris Bradbury is the CEO of Summer.fi (previously oasis.app). Summer.fi is the 6th largest DeFi protocol that enables users to borrow, lend, and multiply assets across multiple DeFi protocols. In our conversation we dive into the basics of Summer.fi, the rebrand from oasis.app, learn about popular strategies within the platform and their risks, UX updates, competition, and much more. 0:04 Intro t...

Paradigm announces the launch of the Paradigm Policy Lab, a collaborative space for academics, policy experts, lawyers, and technologists in the crypto sector. The lab, a first in the field, focuses on research and analytical thinking applied to policy in the crypto world. Over the last year, Paradigm has become a policy leader, involved in legal battles, hosting discussions, and publishing resear...

Matcha recently launched cross-chain swap functionality, allowing users to swap one asset on a particular chain for an new asset on a separate chain with one transaction. Cross-chain swaps on Matcha are available on 7 chains: Ethereum, Optimism, Polygon, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Base and BNB Chain. 1:05 Will's background 4:41 Matcha origin story 8:30 USP of Matcha 11:30 Cross-chain swaps 19:13 Bri...

Today we're joined by Arjun Bhuptani, founder and CEO of Connext Labs. We get an in-depth look at Connext, an important component in the Web 3 stack. In a world of many Layer 1s and Layer 2s, connecting the chains is so important, especially doing it in a secure way. We get into how they approach security, we dive into the nuance of Vitalik's post on bridging, we talk about rollups-as-a-se...

David Gogel is the VP of Strategy and Operations at the dYdX Foundation. In today's podcast, David will discuss the recent milestone of the foundation operating on its independent app chain. This transition involved multiple stages and intriguing tokenomics mechanisms, marking a significant moment for the organization. In our conversation, we will delve deeper into the evolution of this move a...

This conversation between The Defiant and Rune Christensen was recorded during Devconnect 2023 in Istanbul. Chapters 0:28 Why Rune is in Istanbul 1:02 Crypto Adoption in Türkiye 5:03 Interest for DeFi in Türkiye 8:09 Emerging Markets 10:50 Regulatory Landscape in Türkiye 24:15 MakerDAO Rebrand 27:51 MakerDAO Endgame Update 33:57 MakerDAO's Exposure to T-Bills vs Macro Conditions 38:00 Differen...

This conversation between The Defiant and Vitalik Buterin was recorded during Devconnect 2023 in Istanbul. Chapters 0:18 First time in Türkiye? 1:20 Significance of crypto in Türkiye 3:40 Key takeaways from Türkiye 4:56 Türkiye as a crypto hub 7:20 Vitalik's favorite Turkish dish 8:25 Ethereum roadmap update 12:03 Can the roadmap be dynamic? 14:25 Dencun upgrade 16:34 Rollup risks & costs...

The cryptocurrency world has been buzzing with news of a potential Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) in recent weeks. The idea of a Bitcoin ETF has been around since 2013, with early proposals like the one from the Winklevoss twins facing repeated rejections by the SEC. However, the recent optimism stems from BlackRock's involvement in the application process. This prominent financial institu...

This week's podcast features a number of interviews we conducted in Romania, during the xDay conference hosted by MultiversX. In this podcast, we will hear from Beniamin Mincu - founder of MultiversX Bogdan Ivan - Romanian Minister of Digitalization Sheraz Ahmed - Managing Partner at Storm Partners Sunny Aggarwal - Co-Founder of Osmosis Sergiu Biriș - Head of Product at MultiversX Grigore Rosu...

Darren Langley is the general manager of Rocket Pool which provides liquid staking services for ETH holders. Liquid staking on Ethereum has been a major trend this year as it enables ETH holders to earn rewards by staking on the Ethereum network while additionally allowing stakers to seek financial opportunities with their staked ETH. In our conversation, we will get into the Rocket Pool story sin...

Lucas Vogelsang is the founder of Centrifuge, a credit platform that brings Real World Assets onchain. Real World Assets (RWAs) have been a growing sector in DeFi over the last year. In our conversation, we’ll talk about how RWAs bridge the gap between tradfi and DeFi, how the process of beginning on institutional lenders and matching with real-life borrowers works, what protections are in place i...

Alex Shevchenko is the CEO of Aurora Labs, which is a Layer 2 scaling solution built on Near. Alex has a doctoral degree in math and physics. Today, we get into the details behind Aurora Labs, the difference between Aurora Cloud and the Aurora EVM, how they have survived the market crash, Alex's vision of Ethereum Layer 2s, his conviction in an AppChain future, and so much more. We begin our c...

Today we're diving deep into the mind of Spencer Bogart, who is a partner at Blockchain Capital. Spencer has played a pivotal role in shaping the landscape of decentralized technologies and digital assets over the last decade. We get into his journey impact in the blockchain sector, their investment thesis around the controversial WorldCoin, how he's continued to thrive among many economic...

This week, we were joined by Christian Montoya, Senior Product Manager for Metamask Snaps Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments. Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channe...

Erik Marks is the director of product for permissionless innovation at MetaMask. MetaMask, the popular non-custodial wallet owned by Consensys, has been in the spotlight following the launch of Snaps on open beta. You can think of Snaps as plugins that allow developers to add new and different apps that we can use in MetaMask. One of the biggest implications of this is that Snaps will connect Meta...

Sean Li is the CEO and Co-founder of Magic Labs, which is a wallet that enables passwordless login and Web3 onboarding without seed phrases. Despite not being as well known as other Web3 wallets, Magic Labs recently raised $52M from PayPal Ventures, onboarded mainstream brands like Mattel and 7-Eleven, and have over 25 million wallets installed. In our conversation, we will dive into how they'...

Weekly Recap is your one-stop show for the most compelling news of the week, brought to you by the writers at The Defiant. This series delves deeper into our reports, revealing further insights and perspectives that help you make sense of the latest developments. Every Friday, we go live on our YouTube channel, offering a unique mix of analysis and commentary. Stay informed and ahead of the curve...