The Pirate Pod

In this episode of PiratePod, Keli Callaghan interviews Ivan Ko, founder of Resolv, discussing the evolving landscape of stablecoins and the innovative architecture of Resolv. Ivan shares his journey from traditional finance to the decentralized finance (DeFi) space, highlighting the gaps he identified in the stablecoin market and how Resolve aims to address them. Coming on the heels of a consiste...

In this episode of PiratePod, Keli Callaghan interviews Joseph Onorati from DeFi Development Corp, discussing the evolution and future of Digital Asset Treasuries (DATs). With DFDV's stature as the best-performing US stock of 2025 so far, the chat explores the market potential, competitive strategies, and the role of DATs in ecosystem participation, particularly focusing on Solana. Joseph sha...

Andrew and Andy of HypurrFi join Keli Callaghan for a conversation on Hyperliquid, a L1 with a focus on retail and professional traders due to the fact that it is one of the most liquid venues for trading perpetuals - made possible with its high throughput and deep liquidity. HypurrFi is a prominent decentralized lending protocol native to Hyperliquid. With fast and organic growth in recent months...

In this episode of PiratePod, Colton Conley and Keli Callaghan chat with Nick from Mellow Protocol, a leading player in the DeFi space focusing on modular liquid staking. They discuss Nick's background, the evolution of the DeFi landscape, Mellow's innovative products, and the importance of institutional partnerships. The conversation highlights Mellow's unique vault architecture, r...

Fresh off MainNet and TGE, Francisco Agosti of Tanssi Network and Thiago Rüdiger of the Tanssi Foundation join the Pirate Pod to dive into why app chains are the future of blockchain development and deployment, insights and challenges (and triumphs!) of launching a mainnet and token, ecosystem growth and more. The conversation dives in on how Tanssi is making application deployment faster and more...

Bhaji Illuminati, the CEO of Centrifuge , joins the Pirate Pod to discuss the evolution and current state of Real World Assets (RWAs) and the maturation of the digital asset landscape. Bhaji shares insights on the challenges and opportunities in tokenization, the tailwinds of the regulatory landscape, institutional readiness and the technological innovations that Centrifuge is implementing. The di...

Arrington Capital is expanding its leadership team, recently appointing Ravi Kaza as CIO Partner and Colton Conley to Partner. Having joined Arrington Capital’s investment team as a Principal in 2023, Colton has been successful in identifying early-stage web3 investments and has run point on some of the most exciting investments in the fund’s recent history – such as Redstone , Rilla , Space and T...

In this episode of the Pirate Pod, Keli Callaghan interviews Hal Smith Steves, co-founder of Rilla, a decentralized streaming infrastructure company. They discuss Hal's journey into the crypto space, the challenges faced by the streaming industry, and how Rilla aims to disrupt the current model by utilizing peer-to-peer technology. The conversation covers the market size for sports streaming,...

This episode is all things Zero Knowledge Proofs in a deep dive with Wyatt Benno and Houman Shadab from NovaNet who joined Keli Callaghan from Arrington Capital. NovaNet is the first full decentralized proving network, focused on making Zero Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) portable and accessible for browsers, consumers devices and other constrained environments.  Wyatt and Houman explore the intricacies...

In this episode, Shardeum Founder Nischal Shetty chats with Keli Callaghan about a new smart contract platform that linearly scales using dynamic state sharding. Nischal shares his journey into the crypto space, the evolution of the crypto market in India, and the importance of community engagement and education in driving adoption. He discusses the unique features of Shardeum, including its user-...

In this episode of the Pirate Pod, Keli Callaghan interviews Sergey Gorbunov, CEO of Interop Labs and co-founder of Axelar Protocol, discussing the evolution of blockchain interoperability, the needs of retail (seamless access) and institutions(increasing demand for interoperability), and the role of stablecoins - especially when it comes to the the impact of the regulatory landscape. Sergey expla...

In this episode of the Pirate Pod, Keli Callaghan interviews Julio Vieira, founder and CEO of Kluster. AI , a decentralized platform that enables developers to run and fine-tune large AI models using a global network of GPU providers. Julio shares his journey into the Web3 space, the challenges of GPU shortages, and how Cluster aims to provide cost-effective AI solutions through adaptive inference...

In this episode of the Pirate Pod, Keli Callaghan interviews Charles, the founder of Nifty Island, a blockchain-powered UGC gaming platform that allows players to create and customize their own game worlds. Charles shares his background in crypto and his vision for the future of gaming, emphasizing the trend of player-created content and the democratization of game development. He discusses the un...

Albert Castellana, cofounder of GenLayer ( https://www.genlayer.com/ ), chats with Keli Callaghan about his company is revolutionizing smart contracts through the introduction of Intelligent Contracts that leverage AI for decision-making. Albert shares his background in crypto, the evolution of smart contracts, and the limitations of current systems. He discusses how Genlayer's unique archite...

Chandra Duggirala , founder of Portal to Bitcoin , sits down with Keli Callaghan to discuss the advancements in Bitcoin's utility through Portal, a cross-chain decentralized exchange. Chandra shares his journey from medicine(?!) to crypto, going back to his realization of the importance of eliminating custodial risks in trading. The conversation explores the evolution of custody in the crypto...

Shady El Damaty, one of Holonym’s co founders, sits down with Keli to explore what privacy-preserving identity means - where every person is empowered with a key that only they can control to unlock rights to their digital person.  Shady shares his journey from academia to deep decentralized tech, discussing the challenges of data sharing in scientific research and how it led to the creation of Ho...

In this episode of the Pirate Pod, Michael Arrington (x.com/arrington) and Ron Palmeri (x.com/RonP) discuss TrainSpot, a new AI data marketplace focused on the intersection of content and ownership. They explore the implications of data ownership, the legal landscape surrounding content usage, and the challenges faced by content creators in monetizing their work. The discussion also touches on the...

Konstantin Tkachuk chats with Keli Callaghan about the new startup he has recently co-founded: Titan Network, a new incentive layer for global idle resources. The Titan Network team has a vision for being the one-stop show for DePIN cloud services and joins the podcast to outline how they are making it a reality for people to take available resources they own and put them to work and be rewarded f...

In this episode of the Pirate Pod, Keli Callaghan sits down with Jacob, the founder of Glacis Labs, a company pioneering cross-chain communication to facilitate the seamless exchange of data. Jacob shares his journey into Web3 (via JP Morgan, Lido, Near, and more), the challenges faced in cross-chain messaging, and the security issues that arise from current systems - including those driven by fra...

In this episode of the Pirate Pod, we sit down with Amir Sarhangi and Craig DeWitt from SkyFire , a payment network for AI agents to make autonomous transactions. The team sits down with Keli Callaghan as they announce their fundraise and what they plan to do as the main driver of a fundamental shift in how the internet and technology transacts. Having worked together previously (Ripple), Craig an...

Join us on the Pirate Pod for an exclusive deep dive with Luke Youngblood, founding contributor to Moonwell ( https://moonwell.fi ). In this episode, we explore the intricacies of Moonwell’s “lending made simple” approach that has propelled it to become one of the leading DeFi projects on Base, with a market size of nearly $400M.  Luke brings a unique perspective and wealth of experience from his...

In slight a deviation from our norm, Todd Hollow-Bist joins the Pirate Pod from Pathwise Leadership (https://pathwiseleadership.com/), a graduate-level psychology program for teams and business leaders. Todd joins Keli (Arrington Capital) to discuss the importance of understanding personality styles and how they impact business leadership and team dynamics. Personality styles are not disorders but...

The founders of Intensity Labs join the Pirate Pod to talk about Shogun, an intent-centric project that aims to provide a superior trading experience by focusing on user-friendly interfaces and cross-chain trading. Their approach includes a peer-to-peer matching system called Coincidence of Wants (COW), single-sided vaults and the use of existing pools and aggregation services. During this episode...

Founders from Drosera ( www.drosera.io , @DroseraNetwork ) and Lockchain( www.lockchain.ai , @lockchain_ai ) join us for a conversation that should be paramount to all (though maybe not the most glamorous): how the web3 security landscape has evolved. These two experienced leaders discuss their unique approaches, being mindful of web2 operational security practices, cost models, the application se...

Arthur Hayes joins Michael Arrington for a discussion on the current geopolitical arrangement and his prediction on the coming shift to a new system. The episode covers the interconnectedness of volatility and Bitcoin, how the macro world revolves around this, fiscal dominance and central bank’s current decision making, the importance of energy costs, what these two leaders are doing about holding...