Squads Labs is a core contributor to Squads Protocol, the leading multisig infrastructure on Solana. In addition to helping maintain the protocol, Squads Labs makes the Squads platform, an institutional-grade multisig platform for Solana-based teams. The Squads platform helps web3-native teams manage and secure digital assets on-chain. To learn mor…

Axelar is for Web3 what Stripe is for mobile and internet applications: it works on the back end, connecting various networks into one-click experiences for all users. Come listen to co-founder Sergey Gurbunov on what purpose Axelar plays in an ever-expanding web3 world with various L1 & L2 blockchain ecosystems.…

What an episode! Avery joins us and tells us his story of helping to launch Aptos from the early innovations of Meta's former project, Diem and Libra. This is a technical deep dive into what makes Aptos different from other blockchains, like Ethereum or Solana. We discuss their choice not to slash (negative economic incentives others have used), sh…

Robert, a real OG legend and co-founder of Compound, joins us today on Base Layer for a special show, introducing his new company, Superstate. Superstate is an asset management firm modernizing the infrastructure of investment funds. They offer investment products that benefit from the speed, programmability, and compliance advantages of blockchain…

Austin Federa joined me for a great conversation about what Solana learned over the past year to harden their infrastructure as they see surges in interest in their NFT & DeFi ecosystem, plus how their phone, the Saga, has been doing in the market to redefine how blockchains can not just be software, but hardware running digital asset codebase. Mor…

Built as a minimal extension to existing Ethereum software, OP Mainnet's EVM-equivalent architecture scales your Ethereum apps without surprises. If it works on Ethereum, it works on OP Mainnet at a fraction of the cost. How has Optimism jumped to become the infrastructure for new consumer apps like Farcaster? Hear from Ben in what I am calling a m…

Algorand, a layer one blockchain first brought to market by esteemed cryptographer Silvio Micali, is going through rapid transformation, from the developer language it uses to mechanisms of incentivizing validator work and much more. All of this can be found in more detail here. John, Algorand CTO, joins us to talk through these points and the effe…

In 1908, Henry Ford unveiled the first Model T. In the span of 116 years, we have entered the next phase of the automobile -- car owners getting ownership of their automobile information and data. DIMO is a new company that aims to be empowering rather than confusing or limiting— stating that apps and connected devices should serve people first ins…

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform that delivers a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to scale digital asset operations securely through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks ser…

Rene, the co-founder of Celo joins me for a great conversation about all the happenings there. Recently, Celo has moved to become an L2, so we talk about the why and what that entails. We also discuss their partnership with Opera, a browser touting 500M monthly active users. With this partnership, we also discuss MiniPay, a new initiative to bring …

I had such a great conversation with Luigi, who heads up business development & ecosystem at Ava Labs. We discussed everything from the initial design of Avalanche to the growth of Evergreen subnets, which could lead to companies like JP Morgan, Citi, and others directly connecting on the blockchain. We also discussed their work in Gaming, with upc…

What a show! Illia, co-founder of Near and CEO of Near Foundation joins us to talk about massive shifts in the way we think about blockchains. From their new Blockchain Operating System to FastAuth and more, we discuss in-depth about the new user experience coming to digital assets - taking away the backend complexities of blockchains from the ever…

Asta Li, co-founder at Privy, joins me for a fantastic talk about the movement happening in digital assets, focused on building delightful consumer-centric products. Privy is the easiest way for developers to onboard all users to web3, regardless of whether they already have a wallet, across mobile and desktop. At Privy, the team spends a lot of ti…

SKALE is a limitlessly scalable, fast, on-demand blockchain network with zero gas fees, allowing quick deployment of interoperable EVM-compatible chains without compromising security or decentralization. SKALE is a fully decentralized, open-source, community-owned network. Listen to CEO Jack O'Holleran talk about their work and their 2024 vision to…

What a show! Marc, the CEO of Polygon Labs, joins me to break down all the new elements of Polygon 2.0 and how they aim to build an empire in the blockchain industry. You'll learn about many new pieces to the puzzle, including CDK, zkEVM, Miden, validiums, and much more. Here, you can learn about Polygon 2.0, from vision to design.…

Immutable is a global leader in gaming on a mission to bring digital ownership to every player by making it safe and easy to build great web3 games. The Immutable Group consists of the Immutable Platform, the preferred developer platform for building & scaling web3 games on Ethereum, and Immutable Games, a global leader in web3 game development and…

In 2022, storms worldwide caused more than 130 billion U.S. dollars in damage. Cybercrime is predicted to cost the world USD 8 trillion in 2023. We are starting to see demand for insurance against these events outpace supply. The reinsurance market was valued at $560 billion as of 2022. A solution is needed to meet these new demands with new source…

What an episode! Evan Cheng, formerly working on Meta's Diem and digital asset infrastructure, is now Co-Founder of Mysten Labs, which has brought to the market Sui, an L1 blockchain. Evan sheds light on key differences in the architecture and design of Sui vs. Ethereum and other blockchains. What is an account vs. an object? Why is that important …

Sreeran Kannan, Founder of Eigenlayer, is an assistant professor at the University of Washington, Seattle, where he runs the information theory lab focussing on information theory and its applications in communication networks, machine learning, and blockchain systems. He was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, and a v…

“If Messenger, Telegram, and WhatsApp were built with XMTP, everyone could use their preferred app. You could use Messenger to message your dad on WhatsApp and to message your friend on Telegram. And one day, if you all decide to use the same app, you could do so seamlessly with all your messages and contacts available in your interoperable inboxes…

Join me for a fantastic conversation with Megan Knab, co-founder of Franklin. The company was launched in 2022 to help Web3 founders manage their teams better. Franklin facilitates teams to be paid in USD, crypto, or a mix of both. For companies based in the US, Franklin manages the required tax compliance so that builders can focus on building. Th…

Happy 2023! The show will be rolling out some phenomenal founders who are building, yes, in this "winter" or bear market...whatever you want to call it. Innovation is still happening! Evan, the CEO, and founder at Mintify, joins us to discuss how they have been building one of the best platforms to discover, analyze and trade NFT economies with a s…

Join us for a great show with Josh Katz, founder of YellowHeart, which aims to we harness Web3 to revitalize ticketing, and empower fans, artists, and sports teams. Utilizing the latest and greatest in Web3 technology, our team of industry experts works with you to build long-lasting and engaged fan communities, collect revenue on secondary sales o…

It's good to be back after a few months' hiatus! It's been busy on our side, but many new shows and content are coming out soon! Today we start with Amir and Craig from SuperMojo, a new investment from our early-stage fund that, at its core, is a financing platform designed to make digital assets more accessible for users. The platform facilitates …

We are so excited to have Rachel and Giel, the co-founders of GoodGhosting, on with us for the show. A part of the Endeavor portfolio, GoodGhosting helps users to make saving easy, fun, and rewarding. They create social savings games that use blockchain technology to reward dedicated savers. They are about improving users' financial habits by helpi…

What an amazing, fun, and thought-provoking chat I recorded with Brooks Brown, Creator at NOR. Brooks has an amazing history, ranging from working at Lucas Arts to the production team of Avatar. His team is world-class as well and they are building one of the best new games in Web3. What makes a great game? How do you build digital asset economic s…

Christian from Evaluate Market joins me to discuss their work on building one of the best and easiest to use NFT Portfolio tracking tools in the world. Evaluate.Market allows NFT collectors to track and manage their portfolios and discover new projects across multiple NFT marketplaces and blockchains. Since March 2021, the website has had over 1 mi…

It's been a while, but the show is coming back more frequently! Ian joins us from Mojito, which grew to fame by building the Metaverse Marketplace for Sotheby's in 2021. We had a great conversation about how iconic businesses and brands are working with Mojito to think about and deploy their NFT and Metaverse strategies. Why? There are billions of …

So happy to have Joao and Matt on the show to talk all about BAYZ! We got to meet the team last year as they started to build one of the best play-to-earn gaming guilds in the world that helps members earn money by playing video games and being part of a global gaming community. We discuss their focus on e-sport influencers (some big news there) an…

What a great show! Matty joins me to discuss how Solana has been able to grow with the use of some of the most exciting and involved hackathons in digital assets. We also discuss their use of "hacker houses" which aim to help developers learn key coding languages in Solana development. Lastly, we discuss Riptide, their newest hackathon that already…

Michael joins us for a great dive in Fantom which, according to Michael, is a high-performance, scalable, and secure smart-contract platform. It is designed to overcome the limitations of previous-generation blockchain platforms. Lachesis, its revolutionary aBFT consensus mechanism, allows Fantom to be much faster and cheaper than older technologie…

Brian joins me on Base Layer to discuss one of the most interesting projects in the digital asset ecosystem currently, Rabbithole. In this portal, one learns how to use varying functions in digital assets, from staking digital assets on DeFi platforms to buying your first ENS (Ethereum Name Service). A user goes on "quests," and as they do, they es…

Always great to have Sergey join me on the show to talk about Chainlink's role in various sectors, whether DeFi, Gaming, and in this case, Web3. This has been a topic of heated exchanges between those in digital assets and those defending Web2, such as the founder of Twitter. Sergey discusses how and why Web3 will evolve to become the dominant forc…

Three leading YGG SEA executives - Evan Spytma, CEO & Co-Founder, Irene Umar, Co-Founder and Indonesian Country Manager, and Daniel Wang, Chief Investment Officer join me for a conversation about their mission of creating one of the largest and most sustainable P2E virtual economies in the world. YGG SEA provides a bridge between games and players …

Krystal Yang joins me for a conversation about her journey to founding Ignite Tournaments, one of Arca Endeavor's investments. Ignite Tournaments is a tournament layer platform that sits above a native blockchain game deployed in mobile format. The platform combines esports tournament organization, streaming services with instantaneous payouts in c…

It's been a while! A lot of shows coming out soon, so be on the lookout. Today we put out a show we recorded with Fvckrender, one of the most sought-after NFT artists today. Has worked with clients like Lil Nas X, Lebron James, Puma, Christian Dior, and Spotify, while being featured at Christie's and Sotheby's. We delve into his background as well,…

Peter Ing joins me for a conversation about his past experiences and his journey to founding BlockchainSpace, one of Arca Endeavor’s investments. Blockchain Space is a gaming accounting and payments software firm that provides player management and in-game financing tools. Peter has 15 years of experience in FinTech and remittance firms, and has be…

Nick joins me for a fascinating discussion on Upshot which is a question and answer protocol. It leverages a new field of mechanism design called peer prediction to incentivize people to answer questions honestly. Its purpose is to reliably and efficiently pair honest answers to questions. This enables and improves a number of exciting use cases su…

Carson, a multi-time founder, joins us on Base Layer to discuss all the things they are building at Lattice, Arca Endeavor's second investment. Lattice brings the Bloomberg "RFQ" function (request for quote) to the world of digital asset trading, which is aiming to optimize price discovery and removal of human error. This should be a pivotal moment…

Michael joins us to discuss Star Atlas, one of the most talked-about P2E, blockchain-based games coming to market. Star Atlas is a virtual gaming metaverse based in the year 2620. The metaverse introduces a unique gaming experience through the combination of both traditional core game and blockchain mechanics, which Michael discusses along the jour…

Pat White and Amy Kalnoki join me for a special Base Layer episode as we discuss Bitwave, a tax and accounting platform that digital asset projects are flocking to. Why? Bitwave has developed special tools to focus specifically on the implications of DeFi activity like staking, yield farming, and more. Bitwave is the first investment in our new ven…

Today, a big show highlights some work we have done at Arca, the firm I have helped build over the last three years. Rayne Steinberg, our CEO, joins me on the show today to navigate the news we are dropping and what it entails for the future. Fascinating stuff - I can't wait for you all to listen!By David Nage | BlockWorks Group

Scott, the CEO of Candy Digital, recently came on Base Layer to talk about building one of the most interesting NFT based sports collections to date. The world learned about sports NFT's via NBA Top Shot, but what Candy is building is different - adding experiences like throwing out the first pitch or being able to meet the players of the team you …

Ahmed joins me on the show for a great discussion on the build-out of Biconomy, a project I was lucky enough to know about in the earliest of days. Today, Biconomy seeks to accelerate web3.0 adoption by making all its components more composable, interoperable & usable. Tomorrow, Biconomy is the foundation of how transactions and chain interaction t…

Zach joins me on the show to talk about his road to helping build Mintable, a marketplace where people can find, sell and mint their own NFT's. We talk about the "mom experiment" -- creating a user interface that eliminates some of the technical complexities so more people outside the box could enjoy participating in this new world. We also talk ab…

Sebastien, the co-founder of The Sandbox, joins me for a must-listen on the state of blockchain-based gaming. Over the past two years, this industry has seen exponential growth, from daily active users (DAU's) of some games eclipsing 1 million players to new metaverses that should make any diehard Minecraft or Roblox player take a look. Listen to a…

Base Layer is back with Alex Svanenik from Nansen, a research platform used by professional investors in Digital Assets. With Nansen you can see where funds are moving to, identify new projects or tokens, and trace transactions down to the most granular level. Listen in on the three-year journey to build this platform and where it's going in the fu…

Derek joins me on the show to talk all about Moonbeam which is a blockchain project built back in January 2020 as a way to tackle cross-chain interoperability challenges, it is an Ethereum compatible smart contract parachain (and we discuss what that means) on Polkadot. For those who are not familiar with Polkadot, it is a multi-blockchain platform…

Founded in 2014, Bitso, the Mexico City-based company offers multiple cryptocurrency products and services to more than 2 million customers across Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil. Pablo Gonzalez, the Co-Founder of Bitso joins me to discuss their offering which includes: the Bitso App which lets users buy, sell, send, or receive bitcoin and 8 other cr…

Gabby joins me for one of the most inspiring conversations I've had on the show to date. In late 2020, Yield Guild Games set out on a mission to introduce as many people as possible to the concept of play-to-earn. Just eight months later, they have witnessed countless life-changing success stories as a result of the money earned by playing NFT game…