The Blockcrunch Podcast

Discussion on Web3 Social and SocialFi, Farcaster's growth, Stealcam app, value transfer in Social Apps, fantasy.top, pump.fun, and SocialFi TAM. Exploration of user adoption challenges, Farkaster and Punk Dot Fun apps, and skepticism towards meme coins.

In this podcast, they discuss the importance of token fundamentals, C/DEX listing strategies, airdrop/liquidity campaigns, liquidity vs token volume. They also touch on winners and losers, the StarkWare controversy, and Ethena's success in the crypto space.

Today Jason is joined by Drift Co-Founder Cindy Leow & Developer Chris Healey. In today’s episode the three discuss the founding story of Drift, why there was a gap in the market for Drift, why the Solana ecosystem made sense, and whether it would if Drift launched today. Cindy and Chris then share their bear market learnings, what they took away from the Luna saga, and Drift’s 2024 roadmap—enjoy!   Host: Jason Choi @mrjasonchoi . Not financial advice.   Timestamps: (00:00) Introduction  (02:48) Motivation to found Drift (05:56) Why Drift chose Solana   (08:16) Ecosystem tradeoffs    (11:07) Drift’s growth   (14:29) Bear market start-up learnings   (15:53) Would Drift choose Solana in 2024?  (19:35) Drift’s USP  (24:21) Cross-collateralization (28:45) Market research findings   (31:16) Luna leveraged short learnings   (36:05) Drift’s roadmap  (38:28) Outro  Partner Message: Yield Guild Games (YGG) is a web3 guild protocol that enables players and gaming guilds to find their community, discover games and level up together. Its mission is to become the leading community-based user acquisition platform in web3 gaming through fun quests that help players build their onchain reputation Find out more at https://investors.yieldguild.io/ Twitter accounts: Jason Choi’s Twitter:   https://twitter.com/mrjasonchoi   Blockcrunch Twitter:   https://twitter.com/theBlockcrunch   Cindy’s Twitter:   https://twitter.com/cindyleowtt   Chris’ Twitter:   https://twitter.com/crispheaney   Blockcrunch VIP: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/   Disclaimer: The Blockcrunch Podcast (“Blockcrunch”) is an educational resource intended for informational purposes only. Blockcrunch produces a weekly podcast and newsletter that routinely covers projects in Web 3 and may discuss assets that the host or its guests have financial exposure to. Views held by Blockcrunch’s guests are their own. None of Blockcrunch, its registered entity or any of its affiliated personnel are licensed to provide any type of financial advice, and nothing on Blockcrunch’s podcast, newsletter, website and social media should be construed as financial advice. Blockcrunch also receives compensation from its sponsor; sponsorship messages do not constitute financial advice or endorsement.   Full disclaimer: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/about

Today Jason is joined by Arweave Co-Founder & CEO Sam Williams. In this episode the two discuss the founding story of Arweave, solving infinite scalability, smart contract transferability, as well as breaking down actor oriented computing. Sam also explains the possibility of on-chain AI training with AO, AO’s ostensibility, what the ecosystem allows for developers. Plus; the two explore the blockchain trilemma and AO’s roadmap—enjoy!   Host: Jason Choi @mrjasonchoi . Not financial advice.   Timestamps: (00:00) Introduction  (04:02) The history of AO  (09:51) Infinite scalability (14:57) Smart contract transferability (18:04) ELI5: Actor Oriented computing (19:41) Composability trade-offs (27:32) Removing on-chain AI training restraints with AO (28:58) Security trade-offs (32:31) The blockchain trilemma (36:34) AO’s extensibility (42:22) AO ecosystem builders (45:09) The AO roadmap (49:59) Outro   Partner Message: Yield Guild Games (YGG) is a web3 guild protocol that enables players and gaming guilds to find their community, discover games and level up together. Its mission is to become the leading community-based user acquisition platform in web3 gaming through fun quests that help players build their onchain reputation Find out more at https://investors.yieldguild.io/   Twitter accounts: Jason Choi’s Twitter:   https://twitter.com/mrjasonchoi   Blockcrunch Twitter:   https://twitter.com/theBlockcrunch   Sam Williams’ Twitter:   https://twitter.com/samecwilliams   Blockcrunch VIP: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/   Disclaimer: The Blockcrunch Podcast (“Blockcrunch”) is an educational resource intended for informational purposes only. Blockcrunch produces a weekly podcast and newsletter that routinely covers projects in Web 3 and may discuss assets that the host or its guests have financial exposure to. Views held by Blockcrunch’s guests are their own. None of Blockcrunch, its registered entity or any of its affiliated personnel are licensed to provide any type of financial advice, and nothing on Blockcrunch’s podcast, newsletter, website and social media should be construed as financial advice. Blockcrunch also receives compensation from its sponsor; sponsorship messages do not constitute financial advice or endorsement.   Full disclaimer: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/about  

The podcast features Ray Chan, CEO of 9GAG, discussing transitioning from Web2 to Web3, the 'midcurve strategy,' Memeland framework, meme coin fundamentals, attention economy analysis, and successful meme coin traits.

Mahesh Ramakrishnan, Seed Investor at Escape Velocity (EV3), discusses the exciting world of DePIN on the podcast. Topics covered include the future of UBI, DePIN node operators, unit economics, bandwidth vs compute providers, leading DePIN projects in 2024, and marketshare. A deep dive into decentralized physical infrastructure that is not to be missed!

In today’s Roundtable, Jason and Sanat take a moment to assess what has happened in Q1 2024. They kick things off by discussing new BTC ATH's and what this means for liquidity flows and meme coins. As a result, the two turn to venture opportunities this cycle, given the meme activity in recent months. Jason and Sanat then go on to discuss the Jupiter Airdrop, the future of L1s, EigenLayer's $100M raise from a16z, as well as a review on Ethena as the most dominant rev-gen application in crypto right now, and much more — enjoy! Host: Jason Choi @mrjasonchoi . Not financial advice.   Timestamps: (00:00) Introduction (02:01) ETH Denver recap (04:16) BTC ATH review (11:47) Liquidity flows & meme coins (18:36) 2024 cycle venture investing (20:31) $JUP: Jupiter Airdrop (26:21) The future of L1s (30:52) EigenLayer: a16z $100M raise (36:52) Ethena: the biggest rev-driving application in crypto (39:35) Maker Endgame (42:50) BTC L2s (47:57) Uniswap fee switch update (52:13) Outro   Twitter accounts: Jason Choi’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrjasonchoi   Sanat Kapur’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/kapursanat Blockcrunch VIP: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/ Blockcrunch Twitter:   https://twitter.com/theBlockcrunch   Disclaimer: The Blockcrunch Podcast (“Blockcrunch”) is an educational resource intended for informational purposes only. Blockcrunch produces a weekly podcast and newsletter that routinely covers projects in Web 3 and may discuss assets that the host or its guests have financial exposure to. Views held by Blockcrunch’s guests are their own. None of Blockcrunch, its registered entity or any of its affiliated personnel are licensed to provide any type of financial advice, and nothing on Blockcrunch’s podcast, newsletter, website and social media should be construed as financial advice. Blockcrunch also receives compensation from its sponsor; sponsorship messages do not constitute financial advice or endorsement.   Full disclaimer: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/about  

In today’s Roundtable, Jason and Sanat are joined by Catrina Wang of Portal Ventures. Catrina has written one of the most comprehensive breakdowns of the BTC/BRC thesis to-date. At the time of recording (02/22/24) Bitcoin just broke $50,000, however what’s new this cycle is the BRC phenomenon. Today, BRC’s are at a $3 billion market cap and now more than ever, there’s a rekindled interest in BTC L2s.  In this episode Catrina discusses her thesis in detail, as it relates to BRC reactions, intended target market, adoption strategy, WBTC, BTC L2 vs BitVM, Layer 1 programmability, The Panda Renaissance and much more! Press play now.   Host: Jason Choi @mrjasonchoi . Not financial advice.   Timestamps: (00:00) Introduction (02:31) Catrina’s BTC Thesis (07:29) Initial BRC reactions (09:06) Ordinals & programmability demand  (12:24) BRC target market (15:11) How to achieve BRC adoption  (21:30) How much of the BRC/BTC market is not addressed by WBTC (23:54) BTC L2 vs BitVM (33:15) Centralized L2 trust vs security conscious BRC users (35:21) What is the additional catalyst for BRC scalability? (40:00) Liquidity: building programmability on Layer 1 (41:00) The Panda Renaissance Thesis (45:58) Outro   Twitter accounts: Jason Choi’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrjasonchoi   Sanat Kapur’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/kapursanat   Catrina Wang’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dotcuriouscat   Catrina Wang’s BTC Thesis:   https://blockcrunch.substack.com/p/a-bitcoin-thesis-the-panda-renaissance   Blockcrunch VIP: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/ Blockcrunch Twitter:   https://twitter.com/theBlockcrunch   Disclaimer: The Blockcrunch Podcast (“Blockcrunch”) is an educational resource intended for informational purposes only. Blockcrunch produces a weekly podcast and newsletter that routinely covers projects in Web 3 and may discuss assets that the host or its guests have financial exposure to. Views held by Blockcrunch’s guests are their own. None of Blockcrunch, its registered entity or any of its affiliated personnel are licensed to provide any type of financial advice, and nothing on Blockcrunch’s podcast, newsletter, website and social media should be construed as financial advice. Blockcrunch also receives compensation from its sponsor; sponsorship messages do not constitute financial advice or endorsement.   Full disclaimer: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/about  

EigenLayer Founder Sreeram shares its founding story, Actively Validated Services (AVS), security assumptions, centralization considerations, commercial incentives, coprocessor & intelligent DeFi. Exploring restaking, slashing, decentralization, and potential outcomes for EigenLayer.

In today’s Roundtable 006 episode Jason and Sanat discuss all things Airdrops. They start by reviewing the history of Airdrops, among the most successful releases, before diving deep on trying to objectively evaluate Airdrops and their utility;  are they a good way for retail investors to make money, for founders to grow their projects and whether or not it’s financially sound strategy and business decision. Jason and Sanat dive deep on the data, reviewing on-chain activity and historic examples — this is not one to miss, enjoy   Host: Jason Choi @mrjasonchoi . Not financial advice.   Timestamps: (00:00) Introduction (03:10) Historic tier-1 Airdrops (11:45) Fiat raises vs Airdrops (18:05) Airdrop customer-acquisition-cost analysis (33:32) LayerZero Airdrop speculation (41:50) Gamification of points vs Airdrops (46:12) Whales Market points market (48:48) Points as user retention mechanic critique (52:40) Celestia Airdrop: crypto native user reward strategy (53:40) Points program scrutiny continued (57:30) Outro   Hosts: Jason Choi’s Twitter:    / mrjasonchoi   Sanat Kapur’s Twitter:    / kapursanat     Watch the episode on Youtube: https://rb.gy/xkff5h Blockcrunch VIP: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/ Blockcrunch Twitter:    / theblockcrunch     Disclaimer: The Blockcrunch Podcast (“Blockcrunch”) is an educational resource intended for informational purposes only. Blockcrunch produces a weekly podcast and newsletter that routinely covers projects in Web 3 and may discuss assets that the host or its guests have financial exposure to. Views held by Blockcrunch’s guests are their own. None of Blockcrunch, its registered entity or any of its affiliated personnel are licensed to provide any type of financial advice, and nothing on Blockcrunch’s podcast, newsletter, website and social media should be construed as financial advice. Blockcrunch also receives compensation from its sponsor; sponsorship messages do not constitute financial advice or endorsement.   Full disclaimer: https://blockcrunch.substack.com/about