The Endofunctor

🎙️What if leverage did not require liquidations at all and yield became something you can actually trade in real time? In this episode, Alex sits down with Alan from Covenant Finance to unpack a different way to think about DeFi markets. Instead of isolated positions and liquidation driven risk, Covenant treats risk like a banking system does through tranching , turning the “equity side” into a fu...

🎙️What happens when a DeFi protocol turns its launch into a global competition? In this episode, Alex sits down with PBJ , co founder of Perpl, to share everything happening as they move toward mainnet. This includes a high stakes testnet trading tournament with real prizes, possibly even PBJ’s car. PBJ also explains how Perpl is reimagining on chain trading by opening up their market making SDKs,...

🎙️What happens when the economics of blockchains collide with their technical limits? In this episode, Alex Watts sits down with Max Resnick, Lead Economist at Anza , to explore the invisible costs of scaling blockchains. They dive into state rent, compression, and validator incentives—unpacking why memory growth and transaction propagation are not just engineering challenges but economic design c...

🎙️ Exploring Anoma, where intents guide the system and users choose what to reveal. What if a blockchain worked more like an operating system than a ledger? And what if instead of submitting transactions you could simply express your intent and let the network figure out how to make it happen? In this episode of The Endofunctor, host Alex Watt sits down with Apriori (Patrick) from Anoma to explore...

🎙️What does it take to build a decentralized exchange that trades with the speed of a CEX, but the fairness of DeFi? In this episode, Rohan, co-founder of Kuru , breaks down how his team is designing one of the first fully onchain orderbook DEXs on Monad — and why this chain’s unique performance opens up a new design space for trading. Kuru’s mission is clear: create a trading venue that is capita...

🎙️Navigating Incentives, Risk, and Outlandish Bets with Figment Capital In this episode, host Alex Watt sits down with Jim Parillo , Managing Partner at Figment Capital, to demystify the inner workings of venture capital in crypto. From how VC partnerships are structured to the real meaning of “carry,” Jim shares candid insights on incentives, risk, and founder–investor dynamics. The discussion co...

In this episode we sit down with Matthew (aka the based rollup guy) co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Spire to unpack the philosophy and technical design behind based rollups and why they might be the most powerful unlock for composability since flashbots From his roots running MEV bots in cloud terminals before he had a credit card to helping define the architecture of Spire’s rollup stack...

In this episode, we sit down with Hyunsuk Kang , founder of Standard , to explore what it means to build not just infrastructure but identity, story, and community into the heart of a DeFi protocol. Standard is building a fully onchain CLOB (central limit order book) on Monad, complete with smart contract-level execution logic, slippage controls, and gas-aware design. But the real unlock isn’t jus...

Inside Mace: The Aggregator Powering Capital Efficiency on Monad In this episode, we sit down with Aritz and Harm from Mace , one of the most technically advanced aggregators in the Monad ecosystem, to unpack how they’re building capital-efficient infrastructure for the next generation of DeFi. We cover everything from the transition from Solana to Monad, to how Mace is architecting its off-chain...

This episode dives into the story behind Curvance , the most active lending protocol on Monad’s testnet. We sit down with its founder to explore how his background in TradFi shaped the design of a high-performance DeFi protocol. From navigating one of crypto’s toughest bear markets to building on Monad’s cutting-edge architecture, it’s a conversation full of insight, challenges, and unexpected mom...

🔊 What’s really under the hood of Monad? And why are top builders paying close attention? In this episode, we’re joined by James Hunsaker , CEO of Category Labs and one of the earliest minds behind Monad, for a no-fluff deep dive into the technology and economic design that’s pushing Monad to the frontier of high-performance blockchains. We explore everything from future blockspace markets and ME...