The Defiant - DeFi Podcast
Episodes
"When Incentives Are Gone, What's Left? DeFi Gets Mixed Marks:" Sam Bankman-Fried
09 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this week’s interview, I speak with Sam Bankman-Fried, co-founder and CEO of crypto liquidity provider Alameda Research and derivatives exchange ...
"We've Been Creating Value for Instagram and TikTok With Very Little Actually Accruing to Us:" Trevor McFedries
02 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This week’s interview is with Trevor McFedries, who is behind Lil Miquela, a 19-year-old aspiring pop star with almost 3M Instagram followers, strik...
"I'm Not Super Bullish on DeFi. We're Using This Tech to Enrich a Small Group of People:" James Prestwich
26 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The founder of Summa speaks to The Defiant about why he has become disillusioned with decentralized finance. Stories of financial inclusion are much r...
"Privacy Might be the Only Thing Left That Makes Web 3.0 a Viable Alternative:" Tor Bair of Secret Foundation
19 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this week’s podcast episode I interview Tor Bair, the founder of Secret Foundation, an organization which promotes privacy-preserving technologie...
"Fintech Can Be a 1.5 Bridge Into 2.0 DeFi:" 11:FS Co-Founder Simon Taylor
12 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
I interviewed Simon Taylor. Simon has the rare quality of being very knowledgeable about decentralized finance but also about fintech. He is the co-fo...
"Fair Launch is a New Way for Founders to Express Themselves:" Gavin McDermott of IDEO CoLab
03 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Hello Defiers! In this week’s interview, I spoke with Gavin McDermott. He's an investor at IDEO CoLab Ventures, the venture arm of design firm IDEO,...
"It Was Exciting But it Was Also Terrifying:" Dan Elitzer and Clinton Bembry on Yam Finance's Backstory
26 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this week’s episode, I spoke with Dan Elitzer and Clinton Bembry, who were part of the founding team of Yam. Yam Finance is an experiment in reba...
"After DeFi, it’s NFTs and DAOs. We're Gathering Tinder:" Jihoz of Axie Infinity
19 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This week’s interview is with Jeff Zirlin, aka Jihoz, growth lead at Axie Infinity. Axie is a digital game built on Ethereum, which involves cute an...
"It Turns Out Music Does Have Value. We've Been Pricing It Incorrectly For 20 Years:" RAC
12 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Hello Defiers! In this week’s interview, we chatted with Grammy Award-winning DJ Andre Anjos, aka RAC. Many have seen cryptocurrencies as a way to d...
"What We're Building is Very Big and We Should Have The Least Concentration Possible:" Aave's Stani Kulechov
29 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Stani Kulechov the founder and CEO of Aave. When we spoke Aave was the second-largest DeFi protocol, but in the days after our conversation, it rose t...
"It's not just about money; it's touching a very primal desire to connect with others:" ParaFi's Santiago Roel
25 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Santiago Roel is partner at ParaFi Capital, one of the most active investment funds in DeFi. Before going full crypto, Santiago worked at JPMorgan’s...
"People Want me to be Popular, Not Necessarily Successful; That's the Trick with Personal Tokens:" Alex Masmej
15 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this week’s episode I speak with Alex Masmej, the first person to raise money by selling tokens not linked to any project, but linked to himself,...
"In DeFi My Money is Actually Mine. It's a Beautiful Concept But it Comes With Responsibilities:" Andre Cronje
08 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Andre Cronje is the developer of the yearn platform and YFI token. There’s this sort of mysticism around Andre: The solo genius builder who relentle...
"We're at the Early Stages of a Truly Novel Structure That can Organize Humans and Money:" Olaf Carlson-Wee
01 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In today’s episode, I speak with Polychain Capital founder Olaf Carlson-Wee. He was already telling Wired magazine about programmatic finance back i...
"Developers Will Wake Up to the Fact That There's a Toolkit to Build Full-Fledged Customized Chains:" Acala's Bette Chen
25 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this week’s epidose I speak with Bette Chen and Ruitao Su, who are building DeFi on Polkadot. While most of DeFi is being built on Etheruem, here...
"Things Tend to Get Better. For Anyone Involved in Crypto, It's Obvious That This is 1,000x Better," 1kx's Lasse Clausen
18 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this week's episode, I speak with Lasse Clausen, founding partner of 1kx, one of the most active venture funds in DeFi. A typical VC question in th...
"Basic Financial Services is a 21st-Century Fundamental Human Need:" OMG Network's Vansa Chatikavanij
11 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This week’s interview is with Vansa Chatikavanij , the CEO of OMG Network. The Bangkok-based project formerly known as OmiseGo has spearheaded resea...
"All the Dizzying Ways People are Farming Yield is Proof of DeFi Composability's Success:" Ampleforth CTO
27 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this week’s interview, I spoke with Brandon Iles, the CTO of Ampleforth. Brandon is a former Google and Uber software engineer, and built h...
DEX Progress to be a "Landmark Event" Over the Summer: Framework Ventures
19 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This week’s interview is with Michael Anderson and Vance Spencer, co-founders of crypto venture fund Framework Ventures. Michael and Vance live and ...
"The World is Crying for the Tech We're Building But We're Nowhere Near Ready:" Aragon's Luis Cuende
13 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This week’s interview is with Aragon co-founder Luis Cuende. Aragon is a platform for users to create their own decentralized autonomous organizatio...
"There's the Opportunity to Make Really Complex Financial Instruments More Accessible”: Opyn's Alexis Gauba
05 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this week’s interview I talk with Alexis Gauba, the cofounder of Opyn. Alexis and her team built the first decentralized options market, on Ether...
Blockchain Devs Are Neglecting Data-Related Risks, Chainlink's Sergey Nazarov Says
30 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This week’s interview is with Sergey Nazarov, the cofounder of oracle provider Chainlink. The way blockchain applications get their data has proven ...
Winklevoss Twins Say Stablecoins Are Still Missing Their "Facebook Moment"
21 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This week's episode is an interview with Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss. We talked bout everything from crypto in the pandemic, to Facebook's Libra and ...
Anyone Can Create Their Own ETF and Get Paid for It; This Wasn't Possible Before
15 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This week’s interview is with Fernando Martinelli, co-founder and CEO of Balancer Labs. Balancer Labs is an AMM with a twist. Instead of liquidity p...
Blockchains are an Extinction-Level Event: Emin Gun Sirer
01 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Emin Gun Sirer is a Cornell University computer science professor who has been deeply involved in the Bitcoin and Ethereum communities from the very e...
Crypto Was Made for Crises: MEW's Kosala Hemachandra
25 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Hello Defiers! This week’s interview is with MyEtherWallet founder and CEO Kosala Hemachandra. As the head of one of the most popular Ethereum...
Decentralized Money Shouldn't be Traded on Centralized Exchanges: Loopring Founder Daniel Wang
15 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this week’s episode we talk with Daniel Wang, CEO and founder of the Loopring protocol. The exchange built on the protocol launched a little over...
MakerDAO Founder Rune Christensen On DeFi's Biggest Test Yet
08 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this week’s episode we speak with Rune Christensen, the founder of MakerDAO, the largest lending platform by assets in decentralized finance and ...