Web3 with Sam Kamani

In this episode, I sit down with Tom, co-founder of Ratehopper.ai, to dig into one of the most underrated problems in DeFi — people are overpaying on their loans and leaving yield on the table. Tom walks me through the journey from mining ETH in 2015, to building APY Vision with 70,000 users, to now launching an AI agent platform that automatically deploys borrowed funds into liquidity pools to pa...

--- EPISODE DESCRIPTION --- In this episode, I sit down with Alex Dominguez, who is building SafeBets, a prediction market platform with one massive twist: you never put your own money on the line. Alex breaks down why Polymarket and Kalshi are getting banned in over 53 countries and sued by 19 US states, and how SafeBets is stepping into that gap. He shares how the platform launched today at the...

In this episode, I sit down with Vitali, co-founder of EasyStaff.io, a freelance payroll and marketplace platform processing over 20 million euro per month across its ecosystem. Vitali shares his journey from mining Bitcoin in Russia back in 2012 to building a multi-product fintech platform with a real, functioning DAO at its heart. We dig into why most DAOs fail to get participation, how EasyStaf...

I sit down with Omar, co-founder of Noya.ai, to explore how his team is building at the intersection of AI and DeFi. We talk about how Noya evolved from an omni-chain yield aggregator into a full-stack agentic platform, combining a data layer, analytics engine, and execution rails all in one MCP. Omar shares how they hit 1,000 downloads in just two days with zero paid marketing, why he believes in...

 sat down with Chan, founder of Tessera Labs, to explore how they are tearing down the walls around private equity investing. Chan spent over a decade at Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and Credit Suisse before doing a PhD in computational finance at Imperial College London. He saw first hand that the best returns in private markets were locked behind accreditation requirements, massive minimum tickets,...

I sat down with Hudson Jameson, Head of Ecosystem at CertiK, to talk about the future of blockchain security. We covered everything from his early days mining Bitcoin in his dorm room to coordinating Ethereum upgrades and now leading ecosystem growth at the world's largest blockchain security audit firm. Hudson dropped an exclusive announcement about CertiK's upcoming AI Auditor tool that...

I sat down with Oliver from CMT Digital to discuss what they look for in crypto founders before investing. We covered their unique approach as both a trading firm and VC, the intersection of AI and blockchain, why stablecoins will win for micropayments, and Oliver's contrarian take that crypto DApps will become invisible. CMT has been in crypto for nearly a decade and manages four funds focused on...

I sat down with Mehdi Lebbar, founder of yo.xyz (Yo Labs), to talk about how they're revolutionizing yield in DeFi. After raising over $10 million, Mehdi and his team built the Exponential Risk Framework—the best predictor of DeFi pool safety in the world. Pools rated A or B have a 0% probability of losing your money. We dive into how they assess risk across protocols, chains, and assets, why AI a...

In this episode, I sit down with Renee Davis from OpenMatter to explore the intersection of AI agents and blockchain infrastructure. We discuss why 51% of internet traffic is already agents, the critical security vulnerabilities in tools like OpenClaw, and how multi-party computation (MPC) enables privacy-preserving machine learning. Renee explains why crypto is essential for the agent economy—hin...

In this episode, I sit down with Tony from Sumex, an OG who's been in crypto since 2016. He shares how they're tackling one of crypto's biggest problems: fragmentation. From managing 20 browser tabs to trade across exchanges, to juggling wallets across different chains, crypto is a mess for most users. Tony walks through how Sumex aggregates CEXs, DEXs, DeFi protocols, and analytics in...

I sat down with Jonathan Claudius from Asymmetric Research to talk about the security landscape in Web3. We covered the new vulnerabilities emerging from LLMs and AI agents, the easy wins every founder should implement today, and why security can't be confined to a two-week audit window. Jonathan shares real examples from their work with the Interchain Foundation, explains how to balance shipp...

In this episode, I sit down with William Quigley, co-founder of WAX and co-founder of Tether. We go deep into what is actually happening in crypto right now. We talk about stablecoins, gaming, startup strategy, market cycles, and why founders need insight more than hype. William shares hard-earned lessons from building early crypto products and explains where real value may come from next. This is...

I sat down with Guy and Kate from Fhenix to talk about something that's been missing from crypto since day one: real privacy. They're building a privacy co-processor using Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) that lets you compute over encrypted data without ever exposing it. We covered why privacy is finally getting product-market fit, how institutions need confidentiality for payments and...

I sat down with Adebola from the Tezos Foundation at ETH Denver to explore what's new in the Tezos ecosystem. We covered Etherlink, their EVM Layer 2 rollup that brings Solidity developers into the Tezos world. We talked about Uranium.io, their tokenized uranium project that gives retail investors access to alternative assets. And we went deep on AI agents, how they're changing development...

I sat down with Kat from Space and Time to talk about what real institutional adoption actually looks like. While crypto Twitter feels bearish, banks like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs are hiring entire teams focused on digital assets. Space and Time has already onboarded over 100,000 students in Southeast Asia for verifiable education credentials, shipped a zero-knowledge proof for databases, and i...

I sat down with Dewey and Igor from Function Space at ETHDenver to discuss how they're building something fundamentally different in prediction markets. They're not creating another venue like Polymarket or Kalshi. Instead, they're building the primitive layer underneath - enabling developers to create numerical range forecasting markets for anything from Tesla's quarterly revenue to Apple's iPhon...

In this episode, I speak with Phil from Augur about why prediction markets still matter and why decentralization in crypto still matters even more. We unpack Augur’s long history as one of the earliest projects in crypto, why it lost momentum during high-fee Ethereum days, and why the team believes now is the right time to return. Phil explains how Augur is rebuilding around a modular oracle, how...

I sat down with Shady from HUMAN.TECH during Consensus Week in Hong Kong. We talked about how he entered Web3 through neuroscience, why HUMAN.TECH is focused on putting humans at the center of technology, and what digital rights should look like in an AI-driven world. This episode goes deep into self custody, decentralized identity, wallet infrastructure, sustainable token economies, and why timin...

In this episode, I sit down with Shresth Agrawal, co-founder of Pod Network, to unpack why the world needs yet another Layer 1. We go deep into MEV, front-running, and why today’s blockchain markets are still unfair. Shresth explains how Pod is building a purpose-built L1 designed for high-performance, MEV-free markets. We break down how auctions replace traditional transaction ordering, how Pod c...

Prediction markets are having a big moment. Platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi have brought them into the spotlight. But most prediction markets still follow a simple format: a binary outcome. Yes or no. Win or lose. In this episode, I sit down with Philip from Trendle.fi to explore a new approach. What if prediction markets were not just about outcomes? What if you could actually trade attentio...

I recorded this episode live in Hong Kong with Wish Wu, Co-Founder and CEO of Pharos Network. We dive deep into what it really takes to build next-generation blockchain infrastructure. Pharos is an EVM-compatible Layer 1 hitting 20,000 TPS on testnet. But speed is not the real story. The real story is their focus on connecting Web2 and Web3. Not just users. But capital. Assets. Institutions. Wish...

In this episode, I sit down with Kenneth Shek from Animoca during Consensus Week in Hong Kong. We talk about what it really takes to drive mass adoption in Web3. Not hype. Not narratives. Real users. Kenneth shares how Moca Network is building the identity layer for the future of programmable money. We go deep into AI-native infrastructure, stablecoins, loyalty systems, and why distribution is the...

I recorded this episode live at ConsenSys in Hong Kong with Sukdeep Bhogal, Founder of Veera. We dive deep into how Veera is building a full-service Web3 neobank. Their goal is simple. Make crypto easy enough for anyone to use. Even your mom. Sukdeep shares how they raised over $10M. How they plan to onboard the next 100 million users. And why user experience matters more than flashy infrastructur...

I’m recording live from Hong Kong during Consensus week with Glenn and Nikola from the TON Foundation. In this episode, we break down how TON is building payment infrastructure for Telegram’s 1+ billion monthly active users. We talk about TON Pay. A crypto commerce solution built for developers and merchants. We explore stablecoins. Real-world adoption. Developer experience. Regulation. And what i...

Insurance is a multi-trillion dollar industry. Yet in crypto, real protection is still rare. In this episode, I sit down with Ralf Taner from Nexus Mutual at the Digital Asset Forum in London. We unpack how on-chain insurance actually works. Why it matters more than ever. And how Nexus has already underwritten over $6.5 billion in risk. We talk about DeFi exploits. Exchange bankruptcies. Instituti...