The Gwart Show | Blockspace Media

Annanay Kapila, CEO & Founder of QFEX, joins us to talk about his journey from high-frequency trading at Flow Traders and Tower to building a revolutionary exchange platform. We discuss how crypto market structure solves traditional finance inefficiencies, his Y Combinator experience, regulatory strategy, 100X leverage mechanics, prediction markets, and why sports betting actually works. Launching...

Kaledora Linn, Co-Founder at Ostium, joins us to talk about revolutionizing onchain trading by bringing traditional finance assets like stocks, commodities, and FX to DeFi through perpetual contracts. We explore why perps are superior to tokenization for trading, the evolution from single-asset to cross-asset platforms, how macro news drives modern volatility, capital efficiency challenges, and wh...

DeFi Dave, Head of Growth at Cap Money, joins us to talk about how Cap found product-market fit for restaking. Dave breaks down Cap's three-sided marketplace connecting stablecoin users, market makers (operators), and risk takers. Operators access undercollateralized loans backed by restaked ETH/BTC, paying 8-11% to beat their strategies. If they fail, risk takers eat the loss—users stay protected...

Gordon Liao, Head of Research at Circle, discusses the explosive growth of USDC to a $50 billion market cap. Gordon also explains how stablecoins are revolutionizing cross-border payments, the regulatory landscape shaping crypto, Circle's strategic IPO timing, and why blockchain-based payment rails will disrupt tradfi. Subscribe to the newsletter! https://newsletter.blockspacemedia.com Notes: • US...

Austin Federa, founder of Double Zero, joins us to talk about building a new internet optimized for blockchain. We dive into how Double Zero uses private fiber networks from trading firms like Jump to reduce jitter and latency for validators, why proof-of-utility beats proof-of-stake for infrastructure, how they secured a rare SEC no-action letter, and the wild token launch that had everyone screa...

Facundo Werning, former Tether country manager for Latin America and now at Agora, joins us to talk about his journey from Argentine policy work to the front lines of the stablecoin wars. We dive deep into how stablecoins actually work in emerging markets, why Agora is positioning itself as the credibly neutral alternative to Tether and Circle, the real state of crypto adoption in Argentina, and w...

James Christoph explains why MicroStrategy can't be replicated, DATs are doomed, and crypto markets are more efficient than people think. Plus: Celestia's inflation problem, Ethena's systemic risks, and why Hyperliquid nailed their stablecoin strategy. Subscribe to the newsletter! https://newsletter.blockspacemedia.com NOTES: • MicroStrategy's structure makes it impossible to blow up • DATs tradin...

Mallesh, formerly Special Mechanisms Group and Rice University joins us to talk about his move to Tempo, Stripe's new payments-first blockchain. We dive into why they built another L1, multi-stablecoin architecture, MEV challenges in payments, with credible neutrality Subscribe to the newsletter! https://newsletter.blockspacemedia.com Notes: • Tempo is designed for fast finality payments • Stablec...

Eric Yakes, venture capitalist at Epoch Ventures, joins us to talk about Bitcoin's path from digital gold to banking system integration. We dive deep into his 130-page report on Bitcoin banking, stablecoin dynamics as Trojan horses for Bitcoin adoption, and why he believes we're heading toward a hybrid financial system that bridges traditional finance with crypto innovation. Subscribe to the newsl...

Rory Murray, Director of Digital Asset Management at Cleanspark, joins us to discuss his journey from global macro investing to leading Bitcoin mining operations, the Griid acquisition, cost structures, hedging strategies, and how the business is evolving into a hybrid energy‑finance powerhouse. Subscribe to the newsletter! https://newsletter.blockspacemedia.com Notes: Clean Spark: “America’s Bitc...

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce joins us to talk about the evolving crypto regulatory landscape—from the Clarity Act and the Howey test to protocol ownership, governance tokens, and the challenges of MEV. She shares insider perspectives on market‑structure bills, self‑custody, and what regulators really care about in decentralized finance. Subscribe to the newsletter! https://newsletter.blockspacem...

Anatoly from Solana joins us to talk about the recently launched Seeker phone and its strategy to break Apple/Google's 30% monopoly through crypto-native distribution. We dive deep into Hyperliquid's centralized matching engine vs Solana's decentralized approach, Bitcoin as digital gold vs investment, the meme coin phenomenon, and why hardware might be key to building alternative app ecosystems. S...

Welcome back to The Gwart Show! Today, Benedict Brady, former quant trader and founder of Meridian joins us to talk about Solana's dark pool ecosystem, Jupiter's market dominance, the move from traditional AMMs to sophisticated trading infrastructure, MEV wars, and how his AI-powered trading assistant is changing crypto trading interfaces. Timestamps: 00:00 Start 00:19 Benedict intro 02:32 Solana...

Welcome back to The Gwart Show! Today, Alex B from Ark Labs joins us to talk about the Ark protocol and Arkade implementation - a Bitcoin layer 2 that uses transaction batching and virtual UTXOs to scale Bitcoin beyond Lightning. We explore how Ark competes with roll-ups, enables Bitcoin capital markets, and could transform Lightning's UX while maintaining self-custody. Alex explains the technical...

Felix Jauvin, Macro Economist and host of Forward Guidance podcast, joins us to talk about the regime shift from monetary to fiscal dominance, why Bitcoin and risk assets are hitting all-time highs despite high interest rates, the treasury company revolution led by MicroStrategy, and why "hyper gambling your way to wealth" has become a rational strategy in our current economic environment. Subscri...

FILL OUT THE SURVEY BY CLICKING HERE Welcome back to The Gwart Show! Today, Josh Lim from FalconX joins us to talk about the massive boom in corporate crypto treasury vehicles. We talk about how these deals work, from management teams and investment bankers structuring vehicles to raise capital, to the 45-60 day liquidity windows and 2-6x NAV premiums investors are seeing. Josh explains the Michae...

FILL OUT THE SURVEY BY CLICKING HERE Welcome back to The Gwart Show! Today, Christopher Goes, early Ethereum contributor and IBC protocol creator, joins us to talk about why Ethereum failed as a world computer, the organizational chaos at Cosmos (including a CEO who declared himself Jesus), privacy solutions like Narmada, intent-based systems, and how crypto shifted from idealistic public goods to...

FILL OUT THE SURVEY BY CLICKING HERE Welcome back to The Gwart Show! Today, Carl Dong, founder of Obscura VPN and former Bitcoin Core developer at Chain Code Labs, joins us to talk about his transition from Bitcoin development to building privacy infrastructure. We discuss his work on reproducible builds, supply chain security, the funding dynamics of Bitcoin development, and why he created the fi...

FILL OUT THE SURVEY BY CLICKING HERE Welcome back to The Gwart Show! Today, Robert Chang, crypto trader and prolific Twitter shitposter, joins us to talk about his wild ride through crypto's highs and lows - from being a Luna lunatic to losing everything on Hyperliquid, navigating AI agent metas, getting rugged by VCs stealing his ideas, and why internet capital markets might just be elaborate pok...

FILL OUT THE SURVEY BY CLICKING HERE Welcome back to The Gwart Show! Today, Doug Colkitt, co-founder of Fogo and Ambient Finance joins us to talk about building the fastest Solana-based blockchain for trading. Doug explains why order books are winning over AMMs, how Fogo's 21-validator set enables 40ms blocks, and why verifiability matters more than full decentralization for perp DEXs. Subscribe t...

Welcome back to The Gwart Show! Today, Liam from Through (formerly Fire Dancer engineer) joins us to talk about building a high-performance L1 blockchain from scratch. We dive into why Solana has structural limitations, his leaderless consensus design, proof-of-burn mechanisms, and why economic security is overrated. Plus takes on trading, Fire Dancer's progress, and the future of DeFi. Subscribe...

Welcome back to The Gwart Show! Today, Bitcoiner Post Capone joins us to talk about the risks of OP_CAT activation, MEV extraction concerns on Bitcoin, how increased expressivity could lead to mining centralization, the promise of scaling solutions like Arc and Spark, and why constrained covenants like CTV might be a better path forward than unlimited expressivity. Subscribe to the newsletter! htt...

Welcome back to The Gwart Show! Today, Wilson Huang from DRW Cumberland joins us to talk about the explosive growth of Bitcoin options markets, why crypto volatility attracts both miners and hedge funds, how ETFs are reshaping institutional adoption, and why traditional finance principles are finally making sense in digital assets. We dive deep into market structure, OTC trading, and the future of...

Welcome back to The Gwart Show! Today, Smac, partner at Compound VC, joins us to talk about why stablecoins have become the dominant crypto narrative despite being "boring fintech," DePIN opportunities in energy and water networks, venture capital market structure issues with massive fund sizes, the lack of creativity in crypto development, and why most social crypto apps are features not companie...

Welcome to The Gwart Show! Today, Ethereum bull Ryan Berckmans joins us to dissect Ethereum's current strategy and why he believes it remains on the right path despite recent challenges. Ryan explains the "hub and spokes" L1+L2 model, arguing that communication failures—not technical problems—damaged ETH sentiment. He breaks down why L2 growth combined with L1 scaling will drive Ethereum toward be...