🎙️ METACAST: Top Crypto Podcasts of April 2023

May 4th 2023

Check a quick overview of what we’ve been listening to last month!

TL;DR

Vitalik Buterin and Sadhguru: Consciousness and technology are one.
Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer joins Bankless to discuss why Coinbase is Suing the SEC.
The Ethereum Foundation’s Tim Beiko explains why Shapella matters and what challenges devs are tackling next.
Ryan, David, Tim Beiko, Justin Drake, and Anthony Sassano unpack everything you need to know about Shanghai-Capella: ETH Staking Withdrawals.
Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake and bloXroute Labs CEO Uri Klarman assess the current state of MEV.
The Defiant hosts were joined by the dynamic Ethereum KZG Ceremony Duo, Carl, and Trent of the Ethereum Foundation.
From Ooki to Maker, lawyers Gabriel Shapiro and Fatemeh Fannizadeh discuss how DAOs are responding to legal scrutiny.
Brian Quintenz and Nic Carter delve into how US regulators are targeting the crypto industry.
A contentious hearing last week pitted House Republicans vs. SEC Chair Gary Gensler. Listen to what stood out to crypto lawyer Jason Gottlieb.
Zero Knowledge host Anna Rose sits down with Zac Williamson, the CEO of Aztec to dive deep into the history of Plonk, one of the most important proving systems to emerge in the last 5 years.
In the sequel to the Bankless 1st AI conversation with Eliezer Yudkowsky, the Bankless hosts bring you a thought-provoking discussion with Robin Hanson, a professor of economics at George Mason University and a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University.
The move into Web3 with Aptos’ Avery Ching.
FHE and ZKPs with Sunscreen’s Ravital Solomon.
Tim Galebach, a founder of Uqbar, discusses the different design choices involved, from Hoon programming DevEx to a hybrid ZK-optimistic rollup.
Nick Johnson’s journey from Google to Ethereum, ENS roadmap, & cancel culture.
The Epicenter hosts joined by Jose Macedo, founder of Delphi Labs, to discuss the history of Delphi Digital, their learnings from incubating projects, and the vision behind Mars’ ‘Red Bank’ DeFi products.
Ryan Zurrer, a founder of Dialectic AG, discusses the crypto investment landscape and the evolution of the industry from BTC to P2E gaming.
Itay Vinik is the Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer at Equi, an alternative investment platform that brings investment strategies to accredited investors, returns to the Bankless to answer the question: can the Fed thread the needle between inflation and recession?
Bringing institutions and businesses to DeFi with Sidney Powell, the co-founder and CEO of Maple Finance.
The Epicenter hosts were joined by John Letey, founder and CTO of KYVE Network, to discuss the challenges and use cases of decentralized data storage and how blockchain interoperability could benefit from it.
Push Protocol’s Harsh Rajat talks on-chain ChatGPT, driving growth in Web3 & Web3 UX.
The hosts of the DeSci Podcast were joined by ValleyDAO’s Co-founder, Albert Anis, and Communications Lead, Morgan Richards.
Anirudh Pai, Partner at Dragonfly, shares with us what it means to invest at the frontier, building an actual city with Praxis, 2 overlooked verticals that are likely to take off in the future.
Leaving Web2 with Sriram Krishnan, the GP at a16z Crypto.
The State of Crypto with Eddy Lazzarin, the CTO of a16z Crypto.
Consensus 2023 recap.
And much more!

Vitalik Buterin and Sadhguru: Consciousness and technology are one:

It is only through deep inner development required of every individual, that they can confront the grand global challenges. It is only when we upgrade ourselves, that we will be able to harness our technologies, and do so responsibly, for the goodness of the world. To discuss this and more, the hosts have facilitated a historical conversation between the two visionaries — Sadhguru, a famous yogi, mystic and founder of Isha Foundation, and Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum shaping the future of the blockchain industry. The two leaders discovered in real time, during the interview, that consciousness and technology are inextricably intertwined. Universal decentralized intersectional identities that blockchain enthusiasts are campaigning for have at their core the same principles and values as the cosmic identity of an ancient yogic tradition: they dissolve the ego and make identities multilayered. Sadhguru and Vitalik discuss that technology is merely an extension of a human being in the outer world, and agree to unite efforts to help billions of people fully realize their human potential and put technology at service to that higher purpose.

Unchained

Gary Gensler vs. Crypto: What Will the SEC Attack Next? A pair of crypto lawyers offer their thoughts on the SEC’s recent actions.
Coinbase’s Legal Action Against the SEC: How It Will Likely Unfold: This former SEC Advisory Committee lawyer says Coinbase is playing “deep chess” against the SEC. Who will win?
‘Is ETH a Security?’ Why Gary Gensler Couldn’t Give Congress a Straight Answer: A contentious hearing this week pitted House Republicans vs. SEC Chair Gary Gensler. Here’s what stood out to crypto lawyer Jason Gottlieb.
Why MEV Will Always Be Controversial: Two of Ethereum’s leading thinkers dive deep into the current state of maximal extractable value. Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake and bloXroute Labs CEO Uri Klarman assess the current state of MEV. Hear them disagree about the path forward for making Ethereum fairer for all its economic actors.
Shapella in the Rearview: After Major Upgrade, What’s Next for Ethereum?: The Ethereum Foundation’s Tim Beiko explains why Shapella matters and what challenges devs are tackling next.
Are DAOs Strong Enough to Survive the Regulators? From Ooki to Maker, lawyers Gabriel Shapiro and Fatemeh Fannizadeh discuss how DAOs are responding to legal scrutiny.
Rep. Emmer on Why He Believes Gary Gensler Is a ‘Bad-Faith Regulator’: Representative Tom Emmer says that Sen. Warren was ‘dancing on the grave’ of Silvergate Bank and calls Gary Gensler a ‘bad-faith regulator.
Is the Government Trying to Kill Off Crypto in the US?: Brian Quintenz and Nic Carter delve into how US regulators are targeting the crypto industry, and explain why they believe crypto does not pose a threat to the traditional financial system.

The Chopping Block:

Bankless

Why Coinbase is Suing the SEC with Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer: Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer joins Bankless to discuss why Coinbase is Suing the SEC. Why did they choose to respond to the SEC’s Wells Notice to Coinbase in the way they did? Is Gary playing 4D chess or is he just embarrassing and pushing U.S. crypto innovation outside of the U.S.?
How to Solve AI Alignment with Paul Christiano: Paul Christiano runs the Alignment Research Center, a non-profit research organization whose mission is to align future machine learning systems with human interests. Paul previously ran the language model alignment team at OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT.
Eliezer is Wrong. We’re NOT Going to Die with Robin Hanson: In this highly anticipated sequel to the Bankless 1st AI conversation with Eliezer Yudkowsky, the hosts bring you a thought-provoking discussion with Robin Hanson, a professor of economics at George Mason University and a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University.
Shanghai-Capella: ETH Staking Withdrawals with Tim Beiko, Justin Drake, and Anthony Sassano: Ryan, David, Tim Beiko, Justin Drake, and Anthony Sassano unpack everything you need to know about Shanghai-Capella: ETH Staking Withdrawals.
Will the Fed Thread the Needle? with Itay Vinik: Itay Vinik is the Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer at Equi, an alternative investment platform that brings investment strategies to accredited investors. Itay returns to the Bankless to answer the question: can the Fed thread the needle between inflation and recession?
Death of the Dollar?! with Lyn Alden: Lyn Alden is one of crypto’s favorite macro commentators and also a frequent returning guest to the Bankless program.
Leaving Web2 with Sriram Krishnan: Sriram Krishnan is a GP at a16z Crypto and a defector from Web2 to Web3. Formerly a Product Lead at Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat, Sriram has seen basically everything there is to see in the world of Web2, and especially Web2 social.
a16z Crypto CTO: State of Crypto 2023: The hosts are talking about the State of Crypto with Eddy Lazzarin, the CTO of a16z Crypto. The 2023 a16z Crypto Report was published last month and discussed a number of topics, including developer activity, transaction volume, users, and so much more.
Bull or Bear? Crypto Market Analysis with Ledger from UpOnly: Ledger from UpOnly joins Ryan and David without Cobie or an appendix. However, Ledger brings the heat. He gives his takes, predictions, and everything in between on all things ETH, BTC, Shitcoins, Gensler’s grilling, and macro.

Rollups:

Zero Knowledge

Episode 273: History of Plonk, Noir, and the building of Aztec 3: Zero Knowledge host Anna Rose sits down with Zac Williamson, the CEO of Aztec. Anna and Zac dive deep into the history of Plonk, one of the most important proving systems to emerge in the last 5 years. Zac explains how the initial ideas came to be, how it was developed with co-author Ariel Gabizon, and how the system has evolved over time, branching out into many different iterations of Plonk, leading up to his recent work on Goblin Plonk. The conversation also touches on Aztec’s cutting-edge technology stack, including their Noir zkDSL and their planned private programmable L2, Aztec 3. Zac shares his insights on the state of ZK applications and folding schemes, and provides a glimpse into the future of the ZK space.
Episode 272: The Move into Web3 with Aptos’ Avery Ching: Anna Rose interviews Avery Ching, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Aptos Labs. They cover Avery’s working history, including his time working on Meta’s Blockchain project, what this experience meant to him and how this led to the creation of Aptos. They discuss Aptos as it stands today, Avery’s experience of building in the current market and the unique qualities of the Aptos project.
Episode 271: Between Two ZK Events with Nico and Guillermo: Anna chats with ZK Podcast regular Guillermo Angeris, Head of Research at BCC and Nicolas Mohnblatt], Researcher and Cryptographer at Geometry. This was recorded on April 3rd 2023, the day between the ZK Hack Lisbon hackathon and the zkSummit9 event.
Episode 270: FHE and ZKPs with Sunscreen’s Ravital Solomon: Anna Rose chats with Ravital Solomon, founder of Sunscreen. They cover her interest in lattice-based cryptography and how this paved the way for her work on FHE, starting with her time at NuCypher then followed by her startup Sunscreen. They dive into the challenges involved when building with FHE as well as exploring the power in combining ZKP and FHE. They also discuss the early emergence of lattice-based zero knowledge proofs.

Epicenter

Jose Macedo: Mars Protocol — Red Bank’ Credit on Cosmos via Osmosis #493: The end of 2022 and beginning of 2023 were marked by centralized institutions failing: from CEXes to CeFi itself, the contagion spread quickly in over-leveraged and opaque entities. Amidst this chaos, (crypto)people turned their hopes, once again, to DeFi. However, in the lack of traditional enforcing mechanisms, not even battle-tested decentralized lending protocols could find a solution to provide under-collateralized loans, aka credit. Mars Protocol, with its unique hub & outposts architecture, aims to answer this need in the Cosmos ecosystem, by deploying on Osmosis and tapping into its deep liquidity. From manual leverage to credit and yield farming, Mars will feature a wide suite of DeFi products. The Epicenter hosts joined by Jose Macedo, founder of Delphi Labs, to discuss the history of Delphi Digital, their learnings from incubating projects and the vision behind Mars’ ‘Red Bank’ DeFi products.
John Letey: KYVE — Decentralized and Accessible Data Storage #492: We often take data storage for granted, but the rise of centralized storing facilities (i.e. AWS, GCP, Azure, etc.) hangs over like Damocles’ sword. When it comes to blockchains, full nodes store that network’s complete data history. Even if storage costs are set to decrease as technology evolves, so do blockchains accumulate more data over time. An interesting solution would be to create a decentralized backup for blockchain data and Arweave is a prime candidate for it. There is but a missing link represented by uploading and validating different blockchains’ data. This is where KYVE steps in, offering a decentralized validating solution to verify uploaded blockchain data and even retrieve it from Arweave, on demand. This also extends to off-chain data, opening new possibilities for data availability and scalability. The Epicenter hosts were joined by John Letey, founder and CTO of KYVE Network, to discuss the challenges and use cases of decentralized data storage and how blockchain interoperability could benefit from it.
Tim Galebach: Uqbar — Smart Contracts on Urbit #491: Building a truly decentralized, peer-to-peer network, based on a built-in identity system, limits the ecosystem’s interoperability with the outside world. Onboarding developers and users to Urbit was only the first hurdle. On-ramping crypto was a whole different & daunting task. Uqbar set out to build an execution layer on top of Urbit, enabling smart contracts, which would ultimately settle, via a ZK rollup, on Starknet. The Epicenter hosts were joined by Tim Galebach, founder of Uqbar, to discuss the different design choices involved, from Hoon programming DevEx to a hybrid ZK-optimistic rollup.
Ryan Zurrer: Dialectic AG — A Decade of Crypto Ventures: From BTC mining to P2E gaming #490: Considering the abundance of cryto projects launching constantly, making sound investment decisions requires both ample experience in the space, as well as a reliable network. Predicting future trends in such a volatile industry is a skill very few possess, especially since narratives evolve at a rapid pace. Ryan Zurrer is one of the OG participants and investors in the blockchain industry, with an experience of more than 10 years and an impressive portfolio of investments. From BTC mining to ICOs, DeFi and more recently NFTs & play-to-earn gaming (P2E), Ryan has witnessed all the major cycles in crypto. The Epicenter hosts were joined by Ryan Zurrer, founder of Dialectic AG, to discuss the crypto investment landscape and the evolution of the industry from BTC to P2E gaming.
Barry: Dymension — Modular Blockchains and RollApps #489: When it comes to scaling blockchains, there are 2 main types of off-chain solutions: sidechains and L2s (i.e. rollups, state channels). These are all intended to scale monolithic L1 blockchains. However, the core functional layers of a blockchain could also be reinvisioned as customizable building blocks. This idea led to the creation of modular blockchains, which handle execution, consensus and data availability separately from one another, thus considerably increasing throughput. Dymension is a Cosmos modular blockchain hub that acts as a settlement layer for RollApps (app-specific chains). Sebastien was joined by Barry, Head of Product at Dymension, to discuss the advantages of developing modular blockchains, their scalability and how RollApps integrate into this environment.

Blockcrunch

Analyst Hour: Michael Li on Stablecoins: Stablecoins, as the name suggests, was thought to be stable — that is, until the recent USDC depeg drama where the supposedly rock-solid stablecoin traded from one dollar to eighty-five cents as one of the major custodial banks went under. Can we still trust major stablecoins like USDC or USDT? If not, what are some alternatives? In this episode, Michael who wrote a 20-page research article on stablecoins for the Blockcrunch VIP subscriber breaks down for us issues with current stablecoins, up-and-coming decentralized stablecoins, and the relevance of stablecoins in 2030.
Finding 3x vs 200x bets: Secrets of a NFT Trading Fund — Spencer, Spencer Ventures, Ep. 238: Have you ever wondered how professionals invest and trade NFTs? How is it that some are seemingly able to time the market perfectly and accurately value something that supposedly trades on cultural relevance and memetic desire? In this Blockcrunch episode, Spencer Sand-Gordon, Founder of Spencer Ventures, an NFT-only crypto fund demystifies NFT trading and shares with us about entering and exiting NFT positions, how to build investment theses for NFTs, the future of NFT markets.
Why 2023 Is the Year for Ronin — Aleksander Larsen, Sky Mavis, Ep. 237: In 2021, Axie Infinity took the world by storm as the world’s most popular Play-to-Earn game with 2.7 million concurrent users at its peak. It also shocked the world a 2nd time in March 2022, albeit for a negative reason as its Ronin bridge suffered the largest bridge exploit of all time with $600M lost, Though users were made whole, confidence levels are inadvertently impacted. Despite everything and the current lull period for crypto-gaming, Sky Mavis has been diligently building behind the scenes and recently launched a few critical updates that could kickstart the next wave of crypto-games. On Blockcrunch, Aleksander, Co-Founder of Sky Mavis shares with us making users whole after the $600M exploit, decentralization of Ronin, future of Ronin & crypto gaming.
Contrarian Crypto Theses for the Next 20 Years — Anirudh Pai, Dragonfly Capital, Ep. 236: Crypto has always been likened to an echo chamber, where crypto-natives reinforce their beliefs over and over again with others on Twitter. Anirudh Pai, Partner at Dragonfly, shares with us what it means to invest at the frontier, building an actual city with Praxis, 2 overlooked verticals that are likely to take off in the future.

The Defiant

Ethereum Name Service: Nick Johnson’s Journey from Google to Ethereum, ENS Roadmap, & Cancel Culture: The Defiant hosts were joined by the man behind ENS — the Ethereum Name Service. They get into the details behind the ENS roadmap, including the latest V3 announcement, what it was like for Nick to go from Google to the Ethereum Foundation to founding ENS and the inside scoop on last year’s drama with Brantly and the current culture at ENS and so much more. But first, Nick is going to tell us the founding story of ENS and how he managed to go from Google to Ethereum to founding ENS.
Bringing Institutions and Businesses to DeFi: Maple Finance’s Sidney Powell: Sidney Powell is the co-founder and CEO of Maple Finance. Maple is a DeFi platform that offers uncollateralized loans and facilitates interactions between institutional borrowers and lenders. In our conversation we dive into Sidney’s background, how uncollateralized loans work, how the bear market affected Maple, the benefits of blockchain-based financial systems, and much more.
Push Protocol’s Harsh Rajat talks On-Chain ChatGPT, Driving Growth in Web3 & Web3 UX: Harsh Rajat is the founder of Push Protocol and a leading figure in the world of decentralized messaging. Push Protocol is an exciting messaging protocol that utilizes the power of decentralized networks to create secure, private, and efficient communication between dApps and Web3 users. In this conversation he dives into Harsh’s background, the founding story of Push Protocol, their business model, the intersection of Web3 and AI, challenges in Web3 UX, and much more.
KZG Ceremony Duo Summons The Ethereum Road Map: The Defiant hosts were joined by the dynamic Ethereum KZG Ceremony Duo, Carl and Trent of the Ethereum Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting Ethereum and related technologies. With Carl and Trent, we dive into the KZG ceremony, why it’s important for scaling Ethereum, the ETH roadmap, demystify jargon like Dank Sharding, IP 4844, and they talk about the culture of the Ethereum Foundation, why Ethereum has become a bit more adversarial with time, how they plan to continue scaling without sacrificing decentralization or censorship resistance and so much more.

The DeSci Podcast

AthenaDAO: Reimagining and Empowering Women’s Health: In this episode of the DeSci Podcast, the hosts are talking with Laura Minquini, who is leading AthenaDAO, a community-led movement that is improving female reproductive health through the identification, financing, and support of research projects that are working on its potential cures. They talked about Laura’s story, the global panorama of the problem that she is solving, and the journey and projections of the organization that she founded and bio.xyz helped shape.
ValleyDAO on Building a Sustainable Future with Synthetic Biology: In this episode, the hosts of the DeSci Podcast were joined by ValleyDAO’s Co-founder, Albert Anis, and Communications Lead, Morgan Richards. In this video, Albert Anis and Morgan Richards provide a deep dive into the interesting field of Synthetic Biology, and the significant role that ValleyDAO plays in driving innovation in this area. They also explored the traditional funding model for Synthetic Biology and the difficulties it presents for researchers. They then emphasize the need for a new, decentralized approach to funding and the importance of collaboration in the research field.