In this episode of Deeply Intents, I chat with Jim Chang (0xJim), product guru from LI.FI. We begin the episode by answering the question, why do we need interop? Next we dive into the nuances of intent bridges, solvers, order flow auctions, MEV, and filler vaults. Thereafter, Jim explains the necessity of and philosophy behind Ethereum's Open Intents Framework (OIF). Directly after, we break down how the Ethereum Interop Layer (EIL), the OIF, and Ethereum governance interact. Later we discuss learnings from building products in 2025, including how to build distribution from zero and whether building a personal brand on Twitter is helpful towards these ends. We conclude by discussing Jim's passion for thrift shopping.

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I chat with Trent Van Epps from the Ethereum Foundation. In particular, we discuss Trent's work as an organizer of Protocol Guild. We begin by discussing what Protocol Guild is, why projects care, and membership. Next, we unpack the motivations for funding the Ethereum Commons, drawing lessons from Linux, and explore various funding mechanisms. Later, we break down the Compensation Insights for Ethereum Core Developers report. We conclude the episode by discussing the next 5 to 10 years of Protocol Guild and upcoming Ethereum upgrades.

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I chat with James Prestwich of init4, the team behind Signet. This episode is a masterclass on rollups. To begin the episode, James breaks down exactly what a rollup is while taking us through a history that includes Bitcoin, roll_ups, Plasmas, minimum viable merged consensus, and sovereign rollups. Thereafter we unpack Signet, including lack of a proving system as a feature, conditional transactions, instant bridging, and application-controlled execution. We continue by discussing Signet's sequencer design featuring decentralized block building. Later we discuss unexplored rollup designs by reviewing init4's article titled "(Re)Based Rollups" which unpacks possible rollup fork-choice rules. We finish the episode by discussing building products on Ethereum, the philosophy behind building developer tools, and history repeating itself in Bitcoin.

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I chat with Peter Watts, founder of Relay Protocol. We begin the episode by discussing Peter's journey from music to Reservoir to Relay. Next, we spend time digging into Relay, its architecture, resource locks, vaults, DEX meta-aggregation, and MEV strategies. We finish out the episode by unpacking B2B distribution, reliability & SLAs, and product market fit.

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I speak with Jeremy Ornelas of Heliax, the company behind Anoma and Namada. We begin the conversation by discussing the history of Erlang and Elixir, as well as what makes Elixir a good fit for Anoma. Next, we break down the dominion of Anoma, broadly outlining the distributed operating system vision. Thereafter, we discuss Anoma's Controller system in detail, which draws design inspiration from GenServers in Erlang. Later, we discuss the nuances of building hackable systems and shipping viable products. We conclude the conversation by discussing object systems, elegant system design, and the future impact of LLMs on developers.

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I talk to Shoaib Ahmed, researcher and engineer for Cycles Money / Informal Systems. We begin the episode with Shoaib's background, including his time working on SlockIt. Thereafter, we begin to unpack Cycles Money, discussing the concept of bringing liabilities on-chain, examples of debt-clearing cycles, and different types of settlement. Later, we discuss QuanTEEum, a new research paper published by Shoaib. Here we discuss the notion of quantum money and a marketplace for decentralized quantum compute. We conclude the episode by discussing the Cosmos ecosystem and trade-offs between building products and protocols.

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I chat with Nikita, CEO of Barter. In this conversation, we begin by discussing Nikita's background in Ethereum DeFi. Next, we discuss how solvers work, hooks and composability, and liquidity provision. Thereafter, we discuss Superposition, which provides a fundamentally new approach to decentralized trading and liquidity provision. From there, we discuss liquidity, distribution strategies, and product philosophy. We conclude the conversation by discussing some best practices for BD and general optimism about Ethereum DeFi.

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I chat with Ole Spjeldnæs, Founder and CEO of Delta Network. We begin the episode by discussing Ole's background in mathematics and what led him to blockchain. Next, we unpack Delta by discussing verifiability, shared state, and architectural affordances, including Domains. We finish up the conversation on Delta by discussing Byzantine eventual consistency, design philosophy, and credible neutrality. Thereafter, we discuss the product and go-to-market philosophy before concluding with a discussion refuting crypto dogma.

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I sit down with Sid Gandhi, CEO of Payy. We begin the conversation discussing Sid's product background at Apple and how that led him to build Payy. We then discuss Private payments, proof of lineage, and the particulars of Payy wallet and network. Thereafter, we spend time discussing product strategies, including ideal customer profiles, market segments, and finding product-market fit. We conclude the conversation by outlining the trade-offs associated with adding product features and following industry narratives.

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I have a conversation with 0xprincess, founder of NuConstruct. We begin by diving into 0xprincess' journey through the world of arbitrage and the notorious dark forest, examining how MEV competition on Ethereum has evolved into today's competitive landscape. For the centerpiece of our discussion, 0xprincess breaks down TOOL (Trustless Orderflow Operations Layer), which effectively transforms Ethereum into a one second blocktime chain without requiring protocol modifications. After the TOOL deep dive, we examine ePBS (enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation), which leads to a thoughtful discussion on the EIP process itself, what works and how to improve it. Following this, we discuss the unique attributes that make Ethereum special, particularly its credibility. We close the episode with reflections on pseudoanon culture in crypto.

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I talk to Josh Bowen [founder of Astria]. We begin the conversation discussing Josh's background as an SWE at Google and his experience working on The Graph and Celestia before founding Astria. We discuss shared sequencers, the regulatory environment, and existential questions around use cases. Next, we move to a robust discussion on product design, application categories, vertical integration, and regulatory arbitrage. Later, we discuss live and dead players, as well as upcoming trends such as mobile apps and spend-focused adoption strategies. We conclude the conversation on MEV metagames, including the minutiae of PBS auctions.

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I sit down with Murat Akdeniz (founder of Primev). We begin by discussing Murat's background in tracking FX rates of the USD against the Turkish Lira. Next, we dive into MEV-Commit, including the Devcon lore, applications you can build with MEV-Commit, and application-specific sequencing. Murat then schools us on everything product. In particular, product-centric building, advocating for the user from the research process to implementation, along with some general product management best practices. Later, we discuss the MEV redistribution trade-off and design space and the impact of regulatory reform on tokens. We finish the conversation on a light note where Murat shares his experience as a dad.

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I sit down with Ellie Davidson (Head of R&D at Espresso). We begin the episode by discussing Ellie's background working on products for Vanguard, her passion for technology, and her early time at Espresso as a consensus researcher. Next, we spend some time breaking down the different flavors of sequencing before getting into balancing Ethereum coordination with her role at Espresso. After, we spend some time on the Open Intents framework by discussing the ideal use cases for intents and solver economics. We end the episode by discussing Ellie's experience building the Compassable Podcast and how to maintain neutrality on the microphone.

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I chat with Joshua Baker [Co-founder of Aori]. The conversation is action-packed. We begin by discussing Josh's background in market making and then move to unpacking DEX design. Next, we spend some time understanding intents in the context of single-chain and cross-chain applications, including bridging risks, finality, and market microstructure. From there, we spice things up by deconstructing Arbitrum's Time-Boost, where Josh shares his spicy yet correct takes. Later, we discuss the challenges of shipping viable products, product philosophy, and distribution. We close the episode by examining Ethereum in the context of vibes-based analysis.

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I speak to Tabasco [COO of Particle, Chief Yapping Officer of UniversalX] about his journey in crypto, starting with mining Doge coin and building Discord bots. After, we spend time discussing the latest in conference trends and how to do better (reflecting primarily on ETH Denver). We converse on how to survive and thrive in this market by building great products. Later, we spend time unpacking chain abstraction, standards, and disrupting incumbent service providers, including product-led growth and customer acquisition strategies. In the final segment, Tabasco discusses his personal North Star and why he continues to build in crypto.

In this episode of Deeply Intents, I talk to 0xTaker (MEV janitor at searcher.dev) about his journey in crypto beginning with Bitcoin, progressing to building exchanges, operating as a market maker, and co-founding Aori. 0xTaker takes us down the MEV rabbit hole. We converse on welfare maximization, ASS, and Intents. Later, we spent time discussing chain abstraction through the lens of user experience, coming out on the other side with a discussion on culture and protocol development. We also discussed tokens. In particular, their different use cases. In the final segment 0xTaker opens up about his personal philosophy of building remote startups, autonomy, and purpose.

In this episode of Deeply Intents, we chat with Vaibhav Chellani, co-founder of Socket, about chain abstraction. VC recounts his journey from building Polygon POS to working on Plasma and ZK rollups at the Ethereum foundation to building Socket and Bungee Exchange. The conversation illuminates misconceptions around chain abstraction and replaces them with emergent mental models. In particular, we discuss chain abstracted applications, bootstrapping marketplaces, and the role of transmitters, solvers, fillers, and market makers in counterparty discovery and settlement. We finish by discussing the future of chain abstraction and playing a win-win strategy.

In this episode of Deeply Intents, we sit down with Ankit Chiplunkar, co-founder of OneBalance. We discuss his path from aerospace engineering to resource locks. Ankit breaks down his prior research at Frontier, including MEV, order flow auctions, and the CAKE framework. Next we invest time into discussing OneBalance, resource locks, credible accounts with TEEs and the future of chain abstracted applications. Finally, Ankit shares the secret sauce of how he balances startup life and family time.

In this episode of Deeply Intents, we sit down with Rachin Kalakheti, founder of Twine. We discuss Rachin's background, growing up in Nepal, his natural curiosity, and making his way to Stanford University. Rachin then breaks down multichain settlement — we discuss Twine's ultimate design, define settlement layer, breakdown the nuances of reorgs, decentralized sequencing, light clients, and application use cases in the multichain settlement context. Later, we discuss Rachin's end goals for Twine in the context of changing the world with stable coins and payments on crypto rails. In the final segment, we discuss the nuances of token design and open experimentation. 

In this episode of Deeply Intents, Katia Banina and I discuss her impressive journey from data analytics with the London Stock Exchange Group to the Final Boss at Bebop. We had a wide-ranging conversation about the current state of speculation and trading in crypto markets including pump fun, RFQs, L2s, market makers and AMMs. Later, we focus on crypto meme culture and subculture feedback loops. We finish by discussing crypto use cases and the importance of DeFi. This was a fantastic conversation.