The DCo Podcast

Monad was in the news in April 2024 for raising a little over $225 million. As of publishing, it is the largest venture round round in crypto for the year. But what even justifies that amount of money going into a new network? Why is it even needed?Our latest episode is an hour long conversation with Keone Hon. Prior to building Monad, he spent a decade as a quant working on high frequency trading strategies. He and his crew, have been building a blockchain from the ground up, with the intention of supporting large-scale financial markets. What would that take? A custom state database, a whole new consensus mechanism and an alternative approach to transaction execution. Sounds like jargon? It likely does. Keone explains how these things work in fairly simple terms. Along the way, he breaks down notes for founders looking to raise and how to engage with communities while building a protocol.Tune in for some alpha on what could be built on Monad and what it takes to make 10,0000 transactions per second possible on a blockchain.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.decentralised.co

How do you scale as an employee alongside a network that is on its way to a multi-billion dollar valuation? What does it take to go from being an intern to Head of Strategy at a network that has acquired some of the most talented people in Web3? Sankset Shah may have the answers. In today’s episode, he joins us to discuss his journey over the years with Polygon Network. Early on, he had joined in a part-time capacity while juggling the needs of a startup and B-School. In his own words, he “focused where the fire was”. That focus had him juggling roles in marketing, BD and strategy. He joins us to explain Polygon’s evolution over the years and what’s next for the network trying to be the trust layer for the internet. Tune in for a brief on how early-stage employees adapt to the needs of a rapidly growing rocket ship and a good explainer on what’s cooking under the hood at Polygon Network.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.decentralised.co

Our guest for the episode is Austin Adams from Anagram . We discuss the reasons for Solana’s congestion, fixes that have already gone live, and other measures in the works that will further alleviate the problem. We also discuss the highly anticipated Firedancer client and the state of L2s on Solana. Austin also helps us keep up to speed on the developments of ZK projects on Solana. This is a technical discussion. If you’re new to the Solana ecosystem, we recommend reading our past articles on Solana to get adequate context. 1. The Solana Ecosystem2. Jito’s Joyride3. MEV on Solana This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.decentralised.co

Sunny Aggarwal from Osmosis labs joins us in this episode to discuss the emergence of L2s, meme-assets, and the future of shared security. Sunny was an early member of the team behind Cosmos and is currently a co-founder of Osmosis labs. He joins us to share how his career has evolved over the past three cycles, what he has learned along the way, and a few contrarian stances on where the market is headed. His takes are backed with substance that comes from operating deep in the industry. Stream for lessons from one of the best in our industry.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.decentralised.co

Today, we are joined by Vishwa from Anera Labs. From setting up a fund of funds to running a fintech company and using ChatGPT to enter crypto hackathons - this is a unique tale. One that captures the soul and spirit of crypto. He joins us today to explain the emerging market for intents and the role they would play for UX in the years to come. Along the way, he breaks down the economics of MEV, why founders should build goodwill while going from zero to one, and the importance of market-makers in DeFi. Listen for some rich context from an operator on how to break into an emergent sector while being a complete outsider.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.decentralised.co

Hello,We are joined by Arjun Chand from LiFi today to discuss all things bridges. They have grown into an ecosystem handling close to $20 billion today. As the number of blockchain ecosystems increase, bridges will become crucial infrastructure enabling the movement of money between them. LiFi is a dominant player facilitating SDKs for developers looking to embed bridges in their applications. Think of them as tooling that helps developers make their applications function across chains.Arjun joins us to explain how bridges work, the challenges with maintaining them and the trade-offs involved in developing bridges for new ecosystems. Along the way, he also explains how industries tend to adopt new standards. You can listen to the podcast directly on Substack, or use the following links* iTunes* SpotifyIn a multichain world, exchanging value and information across chains has become a norm. If you want to access an airdrop on Arbitrum based on the activity of your wallet on Ethereum, you will have to bridge some small amount of ETH as gas to Arbitrum. If you want to mint an NFT on Solana but have all your funds on Ethereum, you must use some bridge to get your stables on Solana. Why is this a big deal? The chart below offers some clues. At close to 325k users each week, bridging related applications see the most users and money flowing through them.More than $3 billion worth of value was moved in the last week alone. As of March 25, over $20 billion is locked in bridge contracts. It's safe to say that bridges are crucial and here to stay. Arjun has had a front-seat view watching this critical infrastructure evolve over the years. He has built a following writing long-forms on bridges as a theme. You can read some of it in the following links.* Trust is a spectrum* Aggregation in a multi-chain world* Trade offs in intent based bridges* Risk framework for bridgesListen to the podcast for context on how bridges are enabling that transition and the economic opportunity in building them.Happy Weekend!Saurabh This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.decentralised.co

Hey there,There’s too much information and too little time to process it. Being terminally online is the price you pay to stay on top of research from Substack, Twitter, Medium, Discord and Reddit. That is not a good way to build one’s life.Kaito helps reduce the noise and get’s you straight to what you need. The product parses information across sources so you can spend more time reading and less time scrolling. They also offer real-time sentiment analysis of assets to gauge what is trending in a narrative market. We use them extensively internally. Give it a spin, by signing up here. Purchase credits go towards our expenses at Kaito. That’s how you know we believe in what they do.The weekend is here, and you’re likely looking to log off. This is not a long email. Just a brief update.  Here’s the thing. The newsletter is our biggest distribution channel. For a while, I considered not sending podcasts on the Substack. But judging by the data, we have thousands of streams coming in from Substack to our podcasts which is a more nascent asset compared to the articles themselves. Our initial plan was to avoid sending podcasts here as most of the audience base is here to read stories, but it made little sense not to use our biggest distribution channel. So, for those who prefer just reading, I’ll be marking our podcast issues with “Podcast” in the title. If you rather skip them, avoid opening these emails. For those who enjoy podcasts, I’ll be dropping in a brief alongside the podcast updates via email. We have conversations with a number of successful operators recorded, and I’ll be sending them out each week. Today we are joined by Ivangbi from LobsterDAO. He runs one of the largest communities focused on crypto in Telegram. He is also a former lawyer who has been contributing to Gearbox—a protocol focused on leverage with nearly $173 million in its smart contracts. Use the following links to subscribe on your preferred podcast players* Apple Podcasts* SpotifyYou can find links to other apps on our Buzzsprout profile here.Our conversation focuses on how Ivangbi built a community from scratch, the primary reasons why you should build one, and the challenges that come with scaling one. Ivangbi built his community through the previous two bear cycles and shares the abundance of wisdom that comes with having to give people who just got liquidated an outlet to vent.There is a mix of not-so-popular ideas we discuss along the way—about how one may be better off investing in public equities than deploying into early-stage startups, or how venture funds are often really late to narratives in technological markets, and how markets simply repeat the same thing, decade after decade. Ivangbi digs into his years of experience working with early-stage startups to offer insights on timing narratives right. We also speak extensively about his experience building Gearbox. There was a slight issue with some of the product’s smart contracts when the episode was being recorded, so we dig into how a DAO navigates security incidents and ensures users' interests are best protected when a potential hack could happen. Listen on for deep insights from a person who has built a product, community, and brand through multiple market cycles in our industry. It is about 90 minutes long. I enjoyed listening to it at 1.5x speed, but you may have to tweak it for your own preference. We’ll see you next week with a long-form on gaming. Signing out,Saurabh This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.decentralised.co

We have a podcast and a long-form in this issue. First, we begin with a conversation with Anirudh Pandita from Loco.gg, one of India's leading game streaming platforms. We then go into a long-form written with an abundance of inputs from Ishan of Glip.gg. Tune in for insights on the evolution of the gaming landscape in India and the challenges with building a Web3 native gaming platform. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.decentralised.co

Hey there!I'll keep this one short. Decentralised.co's core mission has been to surface the best stories in Web3. We have been perfecting our stories with text as a medium for the past few months. You may have noticed us improving our visuals, expanding the breadth of topics and looking towards the niche, esoteric use cases very few writers cover. Today, we are expanding towards podcasts to further that mission.Starting today, some of our stories will come linked with podcasts attached to them. These will be conversations with operators and investors within Web3. Putting a human voice behind the stories we tell helps put the narratives and trends we cover in better perspective. You can listen to them directly on Substack or subscribe at the links below.1. Apple Podcasts2. Spotify3. Podcast Addict4. Podcast Index5. DeezerIf you'd like to use an RSS feed for a podcast client, you can use this link.Episode one extends the long-form piece we wrote on the data market landscape last week. Ganesh Swami from Covalent joined Saurabh and Siddharth to share his perspective on the evolving market for data products in Web3. Covalent provides blockchain data for developers building apps using blockchains.His experience building through the past boom and bust cycles provides rich context for founders building in today's environment. He joins us in this episode to explain how on-chain data firms have evolved, the indexer's GTM strategies and what lies ahead for the sector.We promised not to spam your inbox without a story to read. As we announced the podcast today, I am opening access to two of our past paid pieces. One of them is a brief on the current funding environment and what founders need to know. The other is a breakdown of how apps use Telegram as a distribution mechanism. You can read them at the links below.* On using Telegram for distribution* The funding environmentDo listen, sync your RSS feeds and send in feedback.Back to work,Saurabh This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.decentralised.co