On this episode AVB sits down with David Lachmish, co-founder of IKA (previously Dwallet Network).
IKA is the fastest parallel MPC network launching on Sui.
I really enjoyed this conversation as it has a really natural flow, covering, among many things:
* How adversity creates excellence and comfort breeds mediocrity. Why everyone should spend at least one year living in a culture different from where they grew up in.
* An analysis of the current web3 landscape - why web3 is fundamentally a cybersecurity industry.
* The work of his cracked team of award winning cryptographers and security researchers.
* Back to the basics: the fundamental guarantees of blockchain and how public key cryptography works.
* A masterclass in MPC networks - how they have evolved, different ways of implementing (ZK, FHE) for different use cases.
* IKA novel algorithm for zero trust, mass implementation.
* Use cases for IKA builders
* And a lot more!
Resources
https://ika.xyz
Follow on Socials
https://x.com/AvbNear
https://x.com/d3h3d_
https://x.com/ikadotxyz
Conversation with Santi, the legend behind the Crecimiento movement in Argentina. Crecimiento is a movement to transform Argentina into the Crypto Capital of the world.
Some of the things we covered:
* The History and Anatomy of the Pop-up City Movement: from Mu and beyond.
* What makes Argentina unique: bottoms up adoption and top down support.
* Crecimiento origins, insights from last two popups
* What to expect for the upcoming pop uppers city in March
* and A LOT more
Resources
* Join the Spark Contributors Program https://airtable.com/appENuebGSKMB5sia/pagaH3MszSSMW7GpN/form
* Learn more about Crecimiento https://bento.me/crecimientoar
Follow on Social Media
- Crecimiento https://x.com/crecimientoar
- Wuipod https://x.com/wuipod
- Santi https://x.com/scristobal94
- AVB https://x.com/avbnear
On this wide ranging conversation we sit down with Maria Yarotska, Hackathon Headmistress of the NEAR Ecosystem, contributor at DevHub.
Some of the topics we cover and stood out to me:
* Anatomy of a hacker: tales from an experienced hackathon organiser on what makes some teams thrive and others burst in flames.
* Maria's Origins: attending a Space Tech hackathon that changed her life.
* Thoughts on different approaches to hackathons. In particular, her answer to what she would do if she had unlimited budget blew my mind.
Podcast is Sponsored by @MetaPoolNEARliquidstaking - Thank You!
Follow on Socials
AVB - https://x.com/AvbNear
Wuipod - https://x.com/wuipod
DevHub - https://x.com/NEARDevHub
Conversation with Illia Polosukhin (co-founder @nearprotocol) also known on the streets as The Black Dragon, recorded live during [Redacted] Bangkok 2024.
Illia does A LOT of public appearances and interviews. On this interview we break norm and rather than focus of the tech (the WHAT) we focus instead on Illia's journey (Who and Why). Even though we only had 1 hour, the result has far exceeded our expectations. Some of the highlights:
* Illia reads in Megabytes. How his life changed when someone gave him a CD ROM loaded with 700mb of .txt books fuelling his imagination.
* Wild imagination and builder more from a young age. Not only did Illia start writing his own science fiction books when he was young, he also built a publishing platform to distribute them! Only catch - he never finished any of them as he got bored after he knew how things played out in his head.
* Learning how to code at age 10; importance of family and supportive teachers in school. Building games and keeping cheat codes in summer camp and more!
* Growing up poor, building character. How Ukraine has shaped VALUES.
* Broken internet and role of MATHs, formal verification, and AI agents.
* So much more!
Enjoy
Wide ranging conversation with Eric Winer, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Managing Director at Pagoda.
What makes this podcast special is that it was recorded just a few days after the announcement of several spinouts and the rest of Pagoda sunsetting came out. Which sets the scene for a very honest and insightful Eric. Some of the topics we cover and personal highlights:
- Eric has been very early and led massive growth at Gemini and Nifty Gateway. Common thread: taking familiar user experiences, implementing high standards of delivery and excellence to bring web3 to the masses.
- The ways in which working for a hedge fund are different from building products; money as end goal cf. a real user as end-goal, how this influences team formation (skills and view-point diversity). Finally, we also touched on challenges of Product in an Engineering focused organisation (following up on our previous conversation with Alex Chiocchi, former head of Product at Pagoda.
- Raw, honest assessment of factors that lead to Pagoda dissolution: expensive organisation, on competitiveness and sustainability of NEAR ecosystem of third party providers, founder led organisations and the advantages of smaller, focused teams as startups over larger well funded organisations.
- A breakdown of a lot of Pagoda's services: what they do, importance, challenges going into the future, and opportunities for new providers.
There is A LOT more, including a lot said between the lines. We hope this conversation is well received by all stakeholders involved and that it may be useful in addressing some of the outstanding matters in the best way possible.
Resources
- Blog Post Announcing NEAR One and Chain Abstraction Spinouts
- Future of Pagoda Services Post
- NUFFLE: NEAR DA Spinout
- [Redacted] Hackathon
Follow on Socials
Eric - https://x.com/eric_winer
AVB - https://x.com/AvbNear
Wuipod - https://x.com/wuipod
Pagoda - https://x.com/PagodaPlatform
This is the second conversation we have with Cameron Dennis, although the first one never got released as it was deemed too spicy!
Cameron was one of the earliest contributors to NEAR Inc, spearheading Business Development and eventually recruiting a BD team. He's outlasted several NEAR Foundation CEO's, even it as some point he parted ways with NF due to a 'lack of culture fit'. A ruthless hustler.
Cameron provides unique insights into many things. Some of my personal highlights:
1. Evolution: we are very candid about the Evolution of NEAR ecosystem. With a focus on the lessons learned and practical suggestions on how to move forward, we provide a detailed overview for those who may have been lost or confused along the way.
2. What is NEAR, really? We drill down on the origins story, the pivots, the vision that has always been but nobody knows. NEAR is not just another blockchain, it is THE OPEN WEB.
3. Community Reset: is it time to start a cult?
4. Beyond crypto; this is a race for humanity and superintelligence.
5. NEAR AI is two things: a hub for everyone working on any piece of the AI stack, and the in-house Developer AI
Resources
NEAR AI Masterplan: https://near.ai/
Follow on Socials
Cameron - https://x.com/Cameron_Dennis_
AVB - https://x.com/avbNear
Wuipod - https://x.com/Wuipod
Wide ranging conversation with Romain Despoel, an associate at Polymorphic Capital. Romaind and AVB met at ETH CC Brussels 2024 and immediately hit if off. Some would say that sharing across two hackathons in such a short timeframe would bring any two people together, but we believe it is due to their shared past growing up in Venezuela that they have developed a strong friendship.
Some of the things we talk about that stood out to me:
- We open by discussing Venezuela. Romain's brief sting there when he was 7 and AVB's childhood, along with current electoral fraud.
- ZK Explainer: how it went from something cool but only theoretical Romain learned at uni to cool, real world uses cases in web3.
- Fully Homomorphic Encryption: what it is, how it works, why it is exciting!
- ETH CC Builds and hackathon stories in general. Being a builder is fun. The energy captured on the pod is contagious.
- Tales as a VC: challenges of investing in a Bull Market. Wild valuations, founders taking secondaries, what do people actually do for work everyday?!
- From Infra saturation to mass consumer applications.
- Infra fire round: hot takes on Real World Assets, Social, chain abstraction, DePIN.
We had a blast recording. Hope you enjoy. Let us know what you think
Resources:
Polymorphic Capital - https://polymorphic.capital/
MBD - https://www.mbd.xyz/
FHERMA - Platform for FHE Challenges: https://fherma.io/
Follow on Socials:
Romain - https://x.com/romdespoel
Polymorphic Capital - https://x.com/polymorphiccap
AVB - https://x.com/AvbNear
Wuipod - https://x.com/wuipod
Wide Ranging conversation with Nick Havryliak, co-founder at Assisterr. Assisterr is a Data Provenance Protocol & Marketplace of domain-specific Small Language Models (SLMs) owned by the community.
Summary
In this episode we discuss the convergence of Web3 and AI. They delve into Nick's background in consulting, product management, and his journey into Web3 and AI. Nick elaborates on the limitations of Large Language Models (LLMs) and explains the advantages of using Small Language Models through the Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) process. They also brainstorm innovative applications for community-generated data, such as leveraging past hackathon projects to enhance future hackathons. Throughout the conversation, they explore the importance of maintaining human-centric values in AI development while navigating the evolving technological landscape.
Spicy and Memorable
Things that stood out to me (AVB) and kept me reflecting long after episode was recorded:
* Importance of keeping it human. On dancing, focusing on enjoying life and spreading good vibes.
* How the geopolitical (Ukraine) has shaped Nick's worldview. The West just doesn't get it.
* Approaching Dev Rel with a Product Mindset; leveraging AI to obtain efficiency gains and unlock more value and new use cases.
* The limitations of current LLMs (trained on publicly available data) and how to create incentives for procuring privately held data.
* Cost structure of different approaches to AI: RAG, fine tuning, and own base models.
Resources
Assisterr - https://www.assisterr.ai/
Assisterr on X - https://x.com/assisterr
Nick on X - https://x.com/nick_havryliak
Wide ranging conversation with Mario Reder. Mario is an engineer at Orderly (on-chain perps), lead dev at Shitzu (NEAR's OG memecoin and most active community).
Some of the topics we covered include:
- How we was lured from being a web2 developer to web3 thanks to WASM
- The beauty and nuance of Rust language
- The origins of Shitzu: how AGT managed to get him onboard
- Memecoins & Fundamentals....
- Alpha on everything Shitzu has been building, plus a major launch coming up!
Resources
Delegate to Shitzu Validator - https://shitzuapes.xyz
Trade Shitzu NFT on Mitte - https://beta.mitte.gg/?contractAddress=shitzu.bodega-lab.near
Farm $Shitzu on REF.Finance - https://app.ref.finance/meme
Follow on Socials
Mario - https://x.com/marior_dev
Shitzu - https://x.com/ShitzuCommunity
Protocol Pawns - https://x.com/ProtocolPawns
Shroom Kingdom - https://x.com/shrm_kingdom
Zahid is the founder of Jutsu. Jutsy is the co-pilot of web3 enabling and empowering developers to be 10x more efficient!
Some of the topics we cover on this wide ranging conversation:
1. Just origins: feeling the pain points at ETH Denver 2023 hackathon
2. Jutsu evolution: hackers using it and winning in the wild
3. Philosophical musings on AI: defining Agents, challenges for adoption and opportunities.
4. Core infrastructure of Consumer application? What are the differences and why it matters
5. Road to mass adoption: what web3 can learn from the web2 world
6. and more!
0:00 Ep 63 - Jutsu
01:39:13 Dev Rels & Presence at Conferences
01:42:47 Community
Follow on Socials
https://twitter.com/tryjutsu
https://twitter.com/AvbNear
https://twitter.com/wuipod
Resources
Blog Post 'Nearcon: the Post Protocol Era' - https://thecryptospace.substack.com/p/nearcon-the-post-protocol-era-is
Nearcon 2023 Panel: DAOs and Collective Intelligence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj2PpoZW47g&t=14431s
The Big V Value Thesis - https://x.com/DrNickA/status/1749062167188349052?s=20
'Why? The purpose of the Universe' by Dr Phillip Todd
Factory DAO - https://www.factorydao.org
Follow on Socials
Dr. Nick - https://twitter.com/DrNickA
Factory DAO - https://twitter.com/FactDAO
AVB - https://twitter.com/AvbNear
Wuipod - https://twitter.com/wuipod
On this podcast we sit down with Boris Polania, from NEAR DevHub.
Some of the topics we cover are:
- Boris background: challenges as an entrepreneur and frustrating with the political class in Venezuela
- Complexity Science and DAOs
- DevHub role and initiatives to growing the NEAR ecosystem
- and more!
Resources -
DevHub Home Base on BOS - https://near.social/devhub.near/widget/app
Follow on Social
Boris - https://twitter.com/HackBoing
NEAR DevHub - https://twitter.com/NEARDevHub
AVB - https://twitter.com/AvbNear
Wuipod - https://twitter.com/wuipod
Jonathan and Edward are co-founders at Meteor Wallet, one of the main and rapidly growing wallet in NEAR ecosystem. Prior to founding Meteor, Jonathan joined Edward in NEAR Tinker Union, a rich NFT community focused on the technology, innovation and product.
Resources
Meteor Wallet Website - https://meteorwallet.app/
NEAR Tinker Union (NTU) Website (Stake) - https://tinkerunion.com/stake/
Buy NTU - https://www.tradeport.xyz/near/collection/tinkerunion_nft.enleap.near
Follow on Socials
Edward Twitter - https://twitter.com/r3ktdegen
Jonathan Twitter - https://twitter.com/web3hedge
Meteor Twitter - https://twitter.com/MeteorWallet
NEAR Tinker Union (NTU) - https://twitter.com/NearTinkerUnion
Bonus Special Episode: Cross-posting the first episode of the DevHub Unplugged Podcast, a new series produced by DevHub
Link to Original Podcast: https://youtu.be/Ke5c3GS5-KU
Subscrite to DevHub Unplugged:
DevHub Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@NEARDevHub
Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/24Ns7EaHzEhMl8OQqrkomg
Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/devhub-unplugged/id1720735707?uo=4
Google Podcasts - https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy50cmFuc2lzdG9yLmZtL2Rldmh1Yi11bnBsdWdnZWQ=
Follow on Socials
DevHub - https://twitter.com/NEARDevHub
Vlad - https://twitter.com/Freol
Boris - https://twitter.com/HackBoing
Peter (CEO) and Jasper (CTO) are co-founders at SEDA Protocol, a base layer focused on interoperability. You may know them from Flux, their prior First Party Oracle protocol - Flux. On this pod, we waste no time and we go DEEP into the future of decentralised infrastructure and what would be required for mass adoption. The promise? Chain abstraction. ALPHA WARNING
Some of the things we cover include:
* Defining key terms such as blockchains (multiple), oracles and bridges using tons of useful and playful analogies.
* Challenges and shortcomings of the current oracles. Kingmakers or bottlenecks? Perhaps both
* SEDA's evolution: from a fancier cart and buggy to becoming a Ferrari. Rethinking interconnectivity and data availability
* Novel ways to monetise data: mind-melting Oracle Extractable Value [Alpha Warning]
* Other protocol features: how anyone can become a data provider, how to setup your own relay, how to launch products as modules, and more!
* Data. Chain abstraction. Rust. Rrrrrrrr
* and much more.
Resources
SEDA Website - https://www.seda.xyz/
Modular Blockchain Thesis (AltVMs)- https://x.com/jasperflux/status/1730193805507223654?s=20
Layer Zero - https://layerzero.network/
Follow on Socials
SEDA X - https://twitter.com/sedaprotocol
Peter X - https://twitter.com/realpeterjm
Jasper X - https://twitter.com/jasperflux
David Weinstein is the current Chief of Staff at NEAR Foundation.
Some of the topics we cover on this wide ranging conversation with David:
* David Background - from great intellectual input at a large financial firm to optimise tiny credit card margins to working at LinkedIn, Circle, and now NEAR Foundation
* Road to Self-Actualisation: where do classic philosophy meets modern day problems?
* Classical philosophy meets AI: what would Marcus Aurelius say?
* Death and Rebirth: the cycles of growth.
* Hero's journey: the hero must come back home to share what he has learned. Illia as the hero coming back to NF? What has he learned as he returns home?
* And A LOT more
Resources
NEAR AI Medium - https://medium.com/near-ai
Collective Intelligence Panel NEARCON 2023 - https://youtu.be/Cj2PpoZW47g
Follow on Social Media
David - https://twitter.com/dw_stein
Wide ranging conversation with Peter, co-founder at NEARWEEK, the OG newsletter of the NEAR ecosystem.
Some of the topics we cover on this conversation include:
* How high levels of trust in government in Denmark have shaped the web3 landscape there.
* Role of adversity in hustle and ambition
* Getting things done
* NEAR ecosystem: evolution, challenges and opportunities.
* Branding
* and more!
Subscribe to NEARWEEK and claim weekly free cover NFT: https://subscribe.nearweek.com
Resources
Heroes Bounty Platform by NEARWEEK - https://www.heroes.build
Illia new NEAR Foundation CEO - https://near.org/blog/enter-the-black-dragon-near-co-founder-joins-the-near-foundation-as-ceo
Follow on Social Media
NEARWEEK -https://twitter.com/NEARWEEK
Heroes - https://twitter.com/heroes_build
Peter - https://twitter.com/quadron3stat3
Wuipod - https://twitter.com/wuipod
AVB - https://twitter.com/AvbNear
Erica Kang is the founder of KryptoSeoul, a leading community building team in South Korea made up of professional communicators, marketers, and analysts.
Some of the topics we cover on this wide ranging conversation include:
* Origins of KryptoSeoul: transitioning from Korean Corporate world to crypto.
* Importance of Brand and Reputation: how to identify and filter out bad actors while building trust
* Korean Culture: what is meant for innovation, challenges for global cooperation and governance
* Barrier to Mass Adoption: lessons learned from 7 years collaborating with many ecosystems and projects
* Empire Building: expanding from South Korea into the rest of Asia and the world!
* Not Everything Can or Should Be Decentralised: the need for a strong vision and ability to execute efficiently
* and more!
Resources
Asia Buidl - https://www.buidl.asia
@kryptoseoulofficial - http://kryptoseoul.com
ETH Seoul - https://2023.ethseoul.org/
Women in Web3 Change Makers Interview - https://youtu.be/SnqfeX4viRk
Follow on socials:
Erica - https://twitter.com/ekang426
KryptoSeoul - https://twitter.com/KryptoSeoul
KryptoPlanet - https://twitter.com/ericaplanet
BuidlAsia - https://twitter.com/buidl_asia
ETH Seoul - https://twitter.com/eth_seoul_
AVB - https://twitter.com/AvbNear
Wuipod - https://twitter.com/wuipod
Kendall Cole is the founder and CEO at Proximity Labs, also known over time as the 'Defi Arm' of NEAR Ecosystem.
On this wide ranging conversation with Kendall, you can actually hear the energy and the tone in the room change as time goes on. As we keep hitting him with quirky jokes, and asking genuine questions from every angle, Kendall finally starts to open up and share some top tier insights and alpha. Some of the topics discussed include:
Resources
Blockchain Operating System (BOS) - https://www.proximity.dev/BOS
Ignas Defi Interviews - The Endgame for NEAR Protocol, interview w. Kendall: https://www.ignasdefi.com/p/the-endgame-for-near-protocol-an
Startup Chile - https://startupchile.org/en/
Coindesk - How AI, web3, and Humans can work together to solve global, complex problems https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2023/08/01/how-ai-web3-and-humans-can-work-together-to-solve-complex-global-problems/
Laura Shin Podcast w. Illia - When AI and Blockchain Meet, How Can Each Technology Benefit? https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/unchained/id1123922160?i=1000620761192
The Knowledge Project w. Shreyas Doshi: Better Teams, Better Products https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-knowledge-project-with-shane-parrish/id990149481?i=1000626771622
Modular Blockchains & Data Availability
Celestia - https://celestia.org/
Mantle - https://www.mantle.xyz/
Eigen Layer Data Availability (DA) - https://x.com/eigenlayer/status/1706349539169538241?s=20
Follow on Social
Kendall - https://twitter.com/kendaIIc
Proximity Labs - https://twitter.com/proximityfi
AVB - https://twitter.com/AvbNear
Wuipod - https://twitter.com/wuipod
Riqi is the co-founder of Paras, Arkana and Akoma and one of the five NEAR Community Treasury Trustees. This podcast was recorded in person, at the Paras HQ in Jakarta on September 4, 2023.
This is a wide ranging, wholesome, at time hilarious conversation where you can see Riqi and AVB become best friends in real time while talking about:
* The Origins of Paras: to elevate NFTs beyond digital art.
* The Origins of Akoma and why they had to rebrand from Paras Comics
* Growing Akoma into 100s thousands of users in Indonesia. Considerations when looking for a web3 ecosystem to deploy to transition that project.
* Best selling comics art on Akoma - local ghost stories! And plans for regional expansion.
* Insights on growing and scaling an organisation internationally from Indonesia - easier to hire engineers than marketing or BD?
* Paras approach to hiring and training engineers - bearish on fully remote.
* State of web3 - community, growth, challenges & opportunities.
* Introduction to Arkana: membership and rewards platform with 100s of thousands of users.
* Quirky business ideas - thinking outside of the box on fun, engaging consumer applications that can have mass appeal.
* Best explanation of technical concepts ('explain it to me like I'm six') such as Zero Balance accounts, Meta Transactions, and other NEAR Protocol primitives.
* And more...!
Resources
Paras - OG Marketplace on NEAR: https://paras.id
Arkana - https://arkana.gg
Akoma - https://akoma.xyz
Follow on Socials
Riqi - https://twitter.com/hdriqi
Paras - https://twitter.com/ParasHQ
Arkana - https://twitter.com/ArkanaHQ
Akoma - https://twitter.com/AkomaLabs
AVB - https://twitter.com/avbNear
Wuipod - https://twitter.com/wuipod
Wuipod is also available on all major podcasting platforms for streaming.
