Crypto Hipster

Jin Kwon is Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Saga.xyz, a Layer-1 protocol for launching other Layer-1s, focused on web3 game development. With experience spanning engineering, investment banking, and blockchain, Jin leads Saga's long-term strategy, including token economics and exchange integrations. His career includes roles at Intel, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and Centerview Partners before becoming Vice President of Corporate Development at Tendermint, where he played a key role in productizing Cosmos technology. Jin excels at simplifying complex blockchain concepts for developers and end-users. At Saga, he's focusing on providing scalable, low-cost infrastructure for web3 developers, comparing their service to AWS's impact on cloud computing. Jin aims to enable mainstream adoption of blockchain technology, especially in gaming and high-volume, low-value transactions. His ability to connect advanced technology with practical applications drives Saga's mission to create the future developer environment.

Alexander Kalankhodzhaev is the Core Engineer Lead at Raiku — a blockchain architect with extensive experience in designing high-performance distributed systems that deliver guaranteed execution, predictable latency, and resilience under heavy workloads.At Raiku, he is developing regionally distributed clusters and has integrated validator pipelines with Solana to enable real-time feedback and prioritized transaction execution.He is active in the community as a Polkadot developer speaker, contributor to the Programming Academy for Silicon Valley, and co-maintainer of the go-linq library. Alexander is passionate about advancing blockchain infrastructure and open-source development.His technical expertise includes Solana, Polkadot, and Substrate, with proficiency in Rust, C#, Java, and Scala.

Alexander Kalankhodzhaev is the Core Engineer Lead at Raiku — a blockchain architect with extensive experience in designing high-performance distributed systems that deliver guaranteed execution, predictable latency, and resilience under heavy workloads.At Raiku, he is developing regionally distributed clusters and has integrated validator pipelines with Solana to enable real-time feedback and prioritized transaction execution.He is active in the community as a Polkadot developer speaker, contributor to the Programming Academy for Silicon Valley, and co-maintainer of the go-linq library. Alexander is passionate about advancing blockchain infrastructure and open-source development.His technical expertise includes Solana, Polkadot, and Substrate, with proficiency in Rust, C#, Java, and Scala.

Amal Ibraymi is the legal counsel at Aztec Labs, where she supports the company’s legal efforts to advocate for privacy-enhancing technologies and decentralized finance. Before joining Aztec, Amal was a privacy associate at the New York and Paris offices of Willkie Farr & Gallagher, where she advised on data protection, cryptography, and global privacy compliance. Amal also previously worked at the Office of Legal Affairs at the United Nations Secretariat in New York City, the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, and as a Privacy Fellow at the OECD in the Paris headquarters. Amal is dually trained in the U.S. and France, holding an LLM from NYU School of Law and a JD/MA from Sciences Po Paris.

Amal Ibraymi is the legal counsel at Aztec Labs, where she supports the company’s legal efforts to advocate for privacy-enhancing technologies and decentralized finance. Before joining Aztec, Amal was a privacy associate at the New York and Paris offices of Willkie Farr & Gallagher, where she advised on data protection, cryptography, and global privacy compliance. Amal also previously worked at the Office of Legal Affairs at the United Nations Secretariat in New York City, the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, and as a Privacy Fellow at the OECD in the Paris headquarters. Amal is dually trained in the U.S. and France, holding an LLM from NYU School of Law and a JD/MA from Sciences Po Paris.

This is the eighth episode in the Crypto Hipster's CurtainCalls series, which includes 3–4-minute clips from Seasons 6-8. This compilation draws upon my conversations with:Paulius Stankevicius, Founder and CEO at Stankevicius (2/16/2024, Season 6)Dr. Alok Aggarwal, Founder at Scry AI (8/25/2024, Season 8)Sean Ren, CEO and co-founder at Sahara AI (2/17/2025, Season 8)Justin Banon, Founder at Boson Metasystem (5/14/2025, Season 8)

Patrick Wood is the CEO of DelphX Capital Markets, pioneering regulated structures that bring Wall Street-grade risk management to digital assets and fixed income. A 25-year markets veteran, he’s focused on bridging traditional finance with the future of institutional crypto.Patrick is a seasoned financial markets expert and visionary, with over 25 years of experience transforming the capital markets landscape across North America. As CEO of DCM Inc., Patrick is leading the charge in financial innovation with the world’s first Credit Rating Security (QCS), launched in March 2023—a breakthrough designed to bring institutional-grade governance, risk transfer, and return potential to fixed income portfolios.

Patrick Wood is the CEO of DelphX Capital Markets, pioneering regulated structures that bring Wall Street-grade risk management to digital assets and fixed income. A 25-year markets veteran, he’s focused on bridging traditional finance with the future of institutional crypto.Patrick is a seasoned financial markets expert and visionary, with over 25 years of experience transforming the capital markets landscape across North America. As CEO of DCM Inc., Patrick is leading the charge in financial innovation with the world’s first Credit Rating Security (QCS), launched in March 2023—a breakthrough designed to bring institutional-grade governance, risk transfer, and return potential to fixed income portfolios.

This is the seventh episode in the Crypto Hipster's Curtain Calls series, which include 3–4-minute clips from Seasons 6-8. This compilation draws upon my conversations with:Anthony Fernandez, Head of Business Development and Sales at ICONOMI (4/14/2024, Season 7)Rennick Palley, Founding Partner at Stratus (7/6/2024, Season 7) Zhen Yu Yong, CEO and co-founder at Web3Auth (11/4/2024, Season 8)Michal "Mehow" Pospieszalski, CEO and co-founder at MatterFi (5/23/2024, Season 7)

This is the sixth episode in the Crypto Hipster's Curtain Calls series, which include 3–4-minute clips from Seasons 6-8. This compilation draws upon my conversations with:Mitchell Gildenberg, co-founder and CTO at Switchboard (7/7/2024, Season 7)Joanna Zeng, co-founder and CEO at SOON (4/10/2025, Season 8) Chris Chung, co-founder and CEO at Titan (1/29/2025, Season 8)Michael Repetny, core contributor at Marinade (9/3/2024, Season 8)