The Outlier Ventures Podcast

Today on Founders of Web 3, we talk to Juan Benet of Protocol Labs, the founder of Filecoin, an open-source cloud storage marketplace, protocol, and cryptocurrency, built to make the web more secure, and efficient. Jamie Burke and Juan Benet discuss the future of the decentralised Cloud, the new data economy, data as an asset for DeFi, IPFS and decentralised storage for NFTs, and their exciting ne...

We talk to Johan Unger of Meme.com, the home of meme markets and trend exploration. Meme.com uses crypto and entertainment to measure the value of content, and aims to rewards users for curating and discovering social trends. Jamie and Johan discuss building startups in Europe, the creation of Marble.cards, the importance of community, the advent of meme stocks, and tokens, like AMC, GameStop and...

Today on Founders of Web3, we talk to Itamar Lesuisse of Argent, the open-source crypto-wallet designed for DeFi, allowing you to earn, exchange & invest. We discuss the mainstream adoption of DeFi, and DeFi protocols, and the first hurdle of adoption by crypto-users. Empowering users to control and prosper from their digital assets and identity, competitors as a consideration for development, and...

On this episode of FOW3, we're talking to Tegan Kline, co-founder of Edge & Node, comprised of the team behind The Graph Protocol, they create and support protocols and dApps that empower individuals, developers, and look to move humanity further into a decentralised web. We discuss sub-graphs, the importance of Open APIs, strengthening The Graph Protocol through indexer and delegator adoption, th...

In this episode of Founders of Web 3, we talk to Jim McNelis, (j1mmyeth). As the founder of NFT42, we discuss the importance of bringing NFTs fully on-chain, how the current state of the technology is like ‘painting on cave walls with mashed berry juice’, and how IPFS is analogous to BitTorrent. We also discuss the dangers of onboarding large brands to unrefined tech, the importance of creator roy...

Cameron Bale is the founder of NFT.Kred - a platform designed to create simple channels to market for Non-Fungible Tokens and Digital Assets. He talks about onboarding influencers and celebrities to the NFT market, creating events and communities for technological adoption, and enterprise onboarding. We discuss solving the three problems for NFT adoption, accounting for an emerging space for the m...

Alexander Mitrovich, founder of Unique Networks talks about their NFT Palette modules, solving for the Ethereum gas problem, the importance of a flexible blockchain, democratizing NFTs, and how Unique Networks will provide the platform for the future of NFTs to be brought to the mass-market. We also talk about their continued success with Substrapunks, building a wallet and NFT marketplace on Polk...

Jack O’Holleran talks about how they have navigated various market cycles, deliberately not launching a token during 2017 ICO mania but still securing the backing of the likes of Mulitcoin, Winklevoss Twins and Galaxy Digital to go on to make it easier for any developer to build on Ethereum through layer 2 SKALE blockchains. We talk about their continued success with over $2.7 bn staked, making it...

This episode, we speak to Arjun Bhuptani, co-creator of MolochDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) created to fund Ethereum 2 grants, and to help solve the coordination problems in funding open-source protocols. We discuss how most problems stem from coordination, the importance of funding public goods, cost of legal documents vs automated systems allowing for anonymous funding, and...

In this Founders of Web 3 special, Jamie Burke reads his recently published thesis, 'The Open Metaverse OS' a collaborative piece, from across the Outlier Ventures network, discussing the future of NFTs, DeFi and Web3. The book proposes an antidote to Web2, and a thesis, for how we can achieve an Open Metaverse. The text version can be read at: https://outlierventures.io/research/the-open-metavers...

We talk with Joe Lallouz about Bison Trail’s recent acquisition by Coinbase, and why it is a net good for the wider crypto ecosystem. As a serial founder, who has now enjoyed multiple exits we hear about the process of an M&A from the inside, and explore Bisom Trail’s continuing mission to not just serve the biggest corporations in the space, like Coinbase or Facebook Libra, but the longtail of dA...

Vivek, Executive Director of Polkadex, discusses how, by leveraging the benefits of building on Polkadot and taking the best of centralised exchanges such as order books and combining it with innovations in DEX's, they have created a hybrid model which tackles industry challenges in price slippage, impermanent loss and democratises DeFi, by removing fees and front running.

Jamie talks to Sandeep who founded Matic Network, now Polygon, about building a layer 2 network for sidechains, rollups and blockchains in a mission to fix Ethereum’s transaction limitations. We discuss Sandeep’s road to a billion dollar network, Web 3 communities in India, multi-blockchain solutions, scaling, and the difficulties of a one-stop-shop for dApp developers.

Today, we talk to Ryan Gill, co-founder of Crucible Network who are pioneering direct-to-avatar commerce in the Metaverse. We discuss the importance of innovations in self-sovereign identity (SSI) and verifiable claims standards to ensure Web 3 and the Metaverse is more open and not limited to a handful of platforms. We discuss the idea of a 'metagame for the metaverse' where its citizens can use...

We talk to Sam cofounder of Arweave about their radically different approach to DApps (decentralized applications) as DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations), how he believes they will displace Web 2 platforms and companies entirely, how this vision fits with current data regulations such as GDPR in Europe, and the social mission behind The Permaweb; allowing us to remember and preserve valu...

We talk to Amir who (alongside Shawn Fanning of Napster fame) founded Helium the world's first peer-to-peer wireless network and their decade journey to flip the telco model and create a people’s network, inspired by Bitcoin and Filecoin, to what are now 17963 Hotspots globally including partnerships Salesforce and Lime. We talk about how they pivoted their company, built their own blockchain and...

We explore crossing the 'crypto chasm', enabling hundreds of billions of dollars to flow from CeFi to DeFi by solving the problem of ‘The 3 Cs’: Capital, Connectivity and Control. We look at the pragmatic approach of Alkemi's cofounders, who describe their team as the living embodiment of the yin and yang required to understand, communicate and serve the needs of CeFi whilst innovating at the edge...

We discuss with Alex Atallah, founder and CTO of OpenSea, how the NFT market has evolved as an asset class over the last couple of years, and its various segments from art (which he believes is the ‘reference app’ for NFTs) to collectibles, virtual land and social tokens to the debates around on-chain metadata and decentralisation and its trade-offs.   We explore how NFTs are becoming increasingly...

Jason Teutsche is a heavy hitting academic in computer science and mathematics who has spent a large part of his career exploring distributive systems security and incentive design. Since writing a paper with Vitalik Buterin of Ethereum on the IICO (Interactive Initial Coin Offering) which explored new token distribution models not based on rampant price speculation seen at the time (back in the I...

Brian, cofounder of Kava makes the argument for taking a more permissioned and curated approach to acting as a gatekeeper when onboarding users into formally trusted and verified DeFi protocols - if we want to mainstream the space and its usage. We also discuss how DeFi will break dominance from Ethereum and become 'more DeFi', including a greater focus on Bitcoin protocol.  

Alex is a true crypto native, founding several startups since graduation. We talk about Rarible’s learnings as the first tokenized NFT platform, with $RARI as the first NFT governance token. We discuss their commitment to permissionlessly serving the long-tail of creators, progressive decentralisation and NFTs as an asset class from price discovery, fractionalisation to indices. 

Aleksander cofounder of Axie Infinity talks about how they built the number one blockchain game in the world, now experiencing exponential growth, the design thinking beyond its tokenomics and governance and why they started with community over platform. We discuss considerations in designing for a digital economy, built around play-to-earn, how to balance and reward productive capital and work in...

Robby Yung is CEO of Animoca Brands, a leading mobile gaming studio and publisher who have millions of users and a raft of licensing partnerships with major brands globally. They pivoted their business entirely to blockchain when they became convinced it enabled an entirely new category of gaming they call ‘Meta Games’ based on powerful in game economies that combine NFTs (Non Fungible Tokens) and...

We discuss the importance of AMMs (Automated Market Makers) and DEX (Decentralised Exchanges) to crypto, especially the role of Balancer Smart Pools to allow for price discovery and the bootstrapping of liquidity for new token projects. We discuss the unstoppable nature of DeFi, how to design or at least accommodate for its attack vectors, flash loans as a feature, and how the world of DEXs will i...

Aaron is a law professor, serial founder and CEO of Open Law, the project behind The LAO (Legal Autonomous Organisation) which pioneered a DAO with a ‘legal wrapper’ to reduce and manage liability and risk for operators. The LAO now functions as an investment vehicle for several prominent Web 3 Founders, as well as advisors to the Moloch and Flamingo DAOs. He describes applying open source princip...