The Gwart Show | Blockspace Media

Mallesh, formerly Special Mechanisms Group and Rice University joins us to talk about his move to Tempo, Stripe's new payments-first blockchain.We dive into why they built another L1, multi-stablecoin architecture, MEV challenges in payments, with credible neutrality Subscribe to the newsletter! https://newsletter.blockspacemedia.com Notes: • Tempo is designed for fast finality payments • Stablecoin agnostic w/ AMM • Reserved block space for payment txns • Cross-border wire transfers are still broken for traditional systems Timestamps: 00:00 Start 00:25 Who is Mallesh? 01:50 Special Mechanisms Group 03:49 Consensys 05:34 Tempo 08:14 Advantages of Tempo 10:36 Specific Tempo designs 13:58 Fungible stablecoins 14:44 Tether & economies of scale 18:14 Validator set 22:45 Payments Only blockspace 25:51 Mallesh's title 26:58 Products 28:36 Tempo AMM 30:33 Remittance use case 35:16 International transfers & corespondent banks 41:26 Are banks cooked? 43:30 Why a new Layer 1? 48:08 Credible neutrality 50:36 Crypto Twitter is now the kiddie pool 54:45 The future of proof of Stake is... trust 1:04:03 MEV memory hole The Gwart Show is sponsored by Ellipsis Labs, the builders behind Atlas, a blockchain for verifiable finance and Phoenix, an on-chain orderbook DEX with over $50 billion in unincentivized volume. If you’re interested in a mission-driven company, Ellipsis Labs is hiring engineers passionate about crypto and finance to work on Atlas. Learn more and apply on Twitter at @Ellipsis_Labs and @atlasxyz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eric Yakes, venture capitalist at Epoch Ventures, joins us to talk about Bitcoin's path from digital gold to banking system integration. We dive deep into his 130-page report on Bitcoin banking, stablecoin dynamics as Trojan horses for Bitcoin adoption, and why he believes we're heading toward a hybrid financial system that bridges traditional finance with crypto innovation. Subscribe to the newsletter! https://newsletter.blockspacemedia.com NOTES: • Bitcoin lending market could 4x from 50 to 200 basis points • Trading volumes may increase 17x in next 5 years • Tether holds about 5% of reserves in Bitcoin • Bitcoin could reach $100 trillion market cap • SAB 121 repeal opens banks to crypto custody • 32,000 pounds lost in Scottish free banking century Timestamps: 00:00 Start 00:41 Eric's background 11:27 Bitcoin Venture Funding 15:51 Medium of exchange 22:20 Reducing the monetary premium in other assets? 26:03 Bitcoin Banking 31:34 Bitcoin Bank Integration Model 35:45 Stablecoins 38:11 Disrupting Banking 47:57 Ellipsis Labs 48:57 Stablecoin Yield as Staking 51:49 Stablecoins: Winner take all? 53:32 Dollar Derivatives 56:32 Stablecoins vs Bitcoin 1:06:22 Money Velocity 1:14:56 Build on Bitcoin 1:24:44 Gaming 1:28:47 Predicyions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rory Murray, Director of Digital Asset Management at Cleanspark, joins us to discuss his journey from global macro investing to leading Bitcoin mining operations, the Griid acquisition, cost structures, hedging strategies, and how the business is evolving into a hybrid energy‑finance powerhouse. Subscribe to the newsletter! https://newsletter.blockspacemedia.com Notes: Clean Spark: “America’s Bitcoin miner” Margins shrink toward zero over cycles Hedging via covered calls at $65K Power contracts lock in multi‑million deals Bitcoin used as collateral for loans Goal: monetize megawatts, not just hash Timestamps: 00:00 Start 04:38 GRIID role 14:36 Managing BTC treasury 20:21 HODL strategy 24:09 Ellipsis Labs 25:10 Miners vs Treasury Companies 33:22 Miners could be better treasury companies 55:14 What is "cost to mine 1 BTC"? 58:50 Miners will fail 1:04:16 Future miner income diversity 👋 Watch on your podcast player of choice! Apple http://tiny.cc/e7wuwz Spotify https://tinyurl.com/aj3ymv6h RSS http://tiny.cc/wbwuwz YouTube https://tinyurl.com/4kwhu4s7 The Gwart Show is sponsored by Ellipsis Labs, the builders behind Atlas, a blockchain for verifiable finance and Phoenix, an on-chain orderbook DEX with over $50 billion in unincentivized volume. If you're interested in a mission-driven company, Ellipsis Labs is hiring engineers passionate about crypto and finance to work on Atlas. Learn more and apply on Twitter at @Ellipsis_Labs and @atlasxyz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce joins us to talk about the evolving crypto regulatory landscape—from the Clarity Act and the Howey test to protocol ownership, governance tokens, and the challenges of MEV. She shares insider perspectives on market‑structure bills, self‑custody, and what regulators really care about in decentralized finance. Subscribe to the newsletter! https://newsletter.blockspacemedia.com Notes: Fit‑21 introduced market‑structure framework. Clarity Act pending in House & Senate. SEC can use existing authority for interim rules. Token offerings lack suitable registration exemptions. Governance tokens may or may not be securities. MEV remains a regulatory gray area. Timestamps: 00:00 Start 00:32 Market structure bills 02:22 Securities vs commodities 06:33 Why wasn't the SEC process working? 08:39 Protocols are just a set of rules 12:21 Smart contract & multisig structures 16:30 Token distribution matters 18:45 Other factors for designation 21:36 Ellipsis Labs 22:37 Custody 26:08 Bridges & multisig 27:57 Memecoins 32:38 Lobbying & education 42:22 Tokenizing equities 44:19 Governance tokens 48:56 Self custody of tokenized equities 51:47 MEV 52:59 Single sequencer 👋 Watch on your podcast player of choice! Apple http://tiny.cc/e7wuwz Spotify https://tinyurl.com/aj3ymv6h RSS http://tiny.cc/wbwuwz YouTube https://tinyurl.com/4kwhu4s7 The Gwart Show is sponsored by Ellipsis Labs, the builders behind Atlas, a blockchain for verifiable finance and Phoenix, an on-chain orderbook DEX with over $50 billion in unincentivized volume. If you're interested in a mission-driven company, Ellipsis Labs is hiring engineers passionate about crypto and finance to work on Atlas. Learn more and apply on Twitter at @Ellipsis_Labs and @atlasxyz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Anatoly from Solana joins us to talk about the recently launched Seeker phone and its strategy to break Apple/Google's 30% monopoly through crypto-native distribution. We dive deep into Hyperliquid's centralized matching engine vs Solana's decentralized approach, Bitcoin as digital gold vs investment, the meme coin phenomenon, and why hardware might be key to building alternative app ecosystems. Subscribe to the newsletter! https://newsletter.blockspacemedia.com NOTES: • Seeker sold 150K units targeting crypto users • Apple/Google charge 3000 basis points (30%) • Spreads dropped from 5bp to sub-2bp in a year • Hyperliquid has 30K daily active traders • Bitcoin works same at $10K or $100K price • 1% terminal inflation rate discussion Timestamps: 00:00 Start 00:23 SOL Secret Phone 02:31 Replacing App Stores 04:29 User migration 06:42 Why mkae hardware 08:52 Spending resources on phone dev 09:36 Hyperliquid's effect on Solana 11:12 Perp Dex on Solana? 19:30 Centralized coordinators galore! 24:39 Solana narratives 27:59 Censorship resistance, no, seriously... 36:20 Memecoin chain or not? 37:27 Tether can print unlimited tokens 41:33 Solana slashing 43:02 Special snowflake BTC 53:03 Tokenomics of SOL 58:05 SOL treasury companies 1:02:00 SOL treasury company risks 1:04:17 Base is an L1, deal with it 1:05:44 Base vs SOL 1:08:20 Memecoin supply Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to The Gwart Show! Today, Benedict Brady, former quant trader and founder of Meridian joins us to talk about Solana's dark pool ecosystem, Jupiter's market dominance, the move from traditional AMMs to sophisticated trading infrastructure, MEV wars, and how his AI-powered trading assistant is changing crypto trading interfaces. Timestamps: 00:00 Start 00:19 Benedict intro 02:32 Solana focused work 05:14 Solana market evolution 13:03 RFQ vs Dark AMM 15:24 Partial RFQ Fills 17:17 Dark AMMs in practice 19:58 Define "Dark" 23:46 Why Jupyter? 27:45 Dark AMM big unlock? 30:19 Deep thoughts... 32:14 Are Solana spreads tight? 36:02 Wintermute 37:19 Why the secrecy? 40:01 Hello MEV, my old friend 45:26 Gwart the Bitcoin Maxi (or not) 49:23 SOL vs ETH 52:44 App sequencing 55:33 Perp DEX is actually an L2 58:35 BAM 59:36 Permissionless building 1:04:29 Meridian 1:07:11 LLM trading 1:09:27 AI + Crypto killer apps 👋 Watch on your podcast player of choice! Apple http://tiny.cc/e7wuwz Spotify https://tinyurl.com/aj3ymv6h RSS http://tiny.cc/wbwuwz YouTube https://tinyurl.com/4kwhu4s7 The Gwart Show is sponsored by Ellipsis Labs, the builders behind Atlas, a blockchain for verifiable finance and Phoenix, an on-chain orderbook DEX with over $50 billion in unincentivized volume. If you're interested in a mission-driven company, Ellipsis Labs is hiring engineers passionate about crypto and finance to work on Atlas.Learn more and apply on Twitter at @Ellipsis_Labs and @atlasxyz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to The Gwart Show! Today, Alex B from Ark Labs joins us to talk about the Ark protocol and Arkade implementation - a Bitcoin layer 2 that uses transaction batching and virtual UTXOs to scale Bitcoin beyond Lightning. We explore how Ark competes with roll-ups, enables Bitcoin capital markets, and could transform Lightning's UX while maintaining self-custody. Alex explains the technical innovations, use cases from payments to lending, and why this could be Bitcoin's answer to Ethereum's scaling solutions. Subscribe to the newsletter! https://newsletter.blockspacemedia.com NOTES: • Phoenix wallet charges 0.4% per transaction • Bitcoin market cap reached $2 trillion • Roll-ups rely on bridge security assumptions • Ark enables unlimited swap throughput Chapters: 00:00 Start 01:03 What is Ark? 13:34 Sequencers 16:15 Why rollups? 23:47 Security Counsel 28:17 Ellipsis Labs 29:18 EVM vs Ark 35:41 Arkade's killer app 51:30 Bitcoin payments 1:02:17 All innovation comes back to Bitcoin 1:12:12 Fragmented liquidity 1:15:35 Open source 1:19:42 Wen Arkade beta? 👋 Watch on your podcast player of choice! Apple http://tiny.cc/e7wuwz Spotify https://tinyurl.com/aj3ymv6h RSS http://tiny.cc/wbwuwz YouTube https://tinyurl.com/4kwhu4s7 The Gwart Show is sponsored by Ellipsis Labs, the builders behind Atlas, a blockchain for verifiable finance and Phoenix, an on-chain orderbook DEX with over $50 billion in unincentivized volume. If you're interested in a mission-driven company, Ellipsis Labs is hiring engineers passionate about crypto and finance to work on Atlas. Learn more and apply on Twitter at @Ellipsis_Labs and @atlasxyz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Felix Jauvin, Macro Economist and host of Forward Guidance podcast, joins us to talk about the regime shift from monetary to fiscal dominance, why Bitcoin and risk assets are hitting all-time highs despite high interest rates, the treasury company revolution led by MicroStrategy, and why "hyper gambling your way to wealth" has become a rational strategy in our current economic environment. Subscribe to the newsletter! https://newsletter.blockspacemedia.com **Notes:** • US running 7% GDP deficit during full employment • Bitcoin at ATH despite 5% interest rates • MicroStrategy's 0% coupon convertible bonds • Stablecoins can't pass yield to holders • Treasury companies trading above NAV • Fiscal dominance replacing monetary policy Timestamps: 00:00 Start 00:50 Felix background 01:57 TradFi history 05:51 Current market outlook 11:48 10 yr prediction 16:37 Firing the Fed Chairman 21:29 Stablecoins 26:47 Long degens, short society 29:09 Where's my altcoin summer! 32:08 Elipsis Labs 33:09 Hyperliquid 38:21 Place your bets or eat bugs, you choose 44:40 Remember Etherium... what happened to those guys? 48:34 A black hole for capital = NGU 55:27 MSTR failure state 59:22 management teams 1:01:57 Discount to NAV, harbinger of death 1:04:11 Advice for plebs 👋 Enjoy the clip? Click below to listen on a podcasting app! Apple http://tiny.cc/e7wuwz Spotify https://tinyurl.com/aj3ymv6h RSS http://tiny.cc/wbwuwz YouTube https://tinyurl.com/4kwhu4s7 👋 The Gwart Show is proudly presented by Ellipsis Labs! Ellipsis Labs is building foundational products in DeFi. Their first product @PhoenixTrade is the leading orderbook DEX on Solana. The team is growing—visit ellipsislabs.xyz for engineering opportunities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

FILL OUT THE SURVEY BY CLICKING HERE Welcome back to The Gwart Show! Today, Josh Lim from FalconX joins us to talk about the massive boom in corporate crypto treasury vehicles. We talk about how these deals work, from management teams and investment bankers structuring vehicles to raise capital, to the 45-60 day liquidity windows and 2-6x NAV premiums investors are seeing. Josh explains the Michael Saylor playbook, yield strategies, and whether this trend is sustainable or headed for a crash. Subscribe to the newsletter! https://newsletter.blockspacemedia.com Notes: • Treasury vehicles see 45-60 day liquidity windows • Some trade at 2-6x NAV premiums currently   • $4 billion new Bitcoin vehicle announced recently • Circle IPO traded at $230 per share peak • MicroStrategy model being widely replicated • 3-5 month timeline for SPAC conversions Timestamps: 00:00 Start 00:46 Josh's background & FalconX 03:12 Arbelos Markets 04:03 Market overview 07:03 Digital asset treasury companies 11:07 Starting a treasury vehicle company 12:36 Hostile takeovers? 16:06 Deal structure 21:17 LOL "Management team" 23:09 ROI for investors 26:56 What's a healthy multiple? 28:19 Copy/Paste Strategy 29:32 Yield strategies 32:02 How does this fail? 35:40 Premium longevity 38:10 Out "Sayloring" Saylor, c'mon bro? 41:26 Alt Season go bye bye? 46:06 Trading on-chain, relic of the past? 49:30 24/7 trading 50:57 Prediction markets 53:24 Gwart's take on treasury companies 54:49 Josh's optimistic take 56:19 Circle IPO 57:29 Degen's gonna degen 59:05 Wrap 👋 Enjoy the clip? Click below to listen on a podcasting app! Apple http://tiny.cc/e7wuwz Spotify https://tinyurl.com/aj3ymv6h RSS http://tiny.cc/wbwuwz YouTube https://tinyurl.com/4kwhu4s7 👋 The Gwart Show is proudly presented by Ellipsis Labs! Ellipsis Labs is building foundational products in DeFi. Their first product @PhoenixTrade is the leading orderbook DEX on Solana. The team is growing—visit ellipsislabs.xyz for engineering opportunities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

FILL OUT THE SURVEY BY CLICKING HERE Welcome back to The Gwart Show! Today, Christopher Goes, early Ethereum contributor and IBC protocol creator, joins us to talk about why Ethereum failed as a world computer, the organizational chaos at Cosmos (including a CEO who declared himself Jesus), privacy solutions like Narmada, intent-based systems, and how crypto shifted from idealistic public goods to pure attention-driven capitalism. Follow our guest on Twitter! @cwgoes Subscribe to the newsletter! https://newsletter.blockspacemedia.com Notes: • Cosmos Hub generates zero revenue still • Bitcoin was $1 when Goes started mining • Anoma synthesizes Ethereum, Cosmos, Zcash • Wyvern protocol was OpenSea's backup • IBC connects all Cosmos chains today • Signal adoption shows privacy step functions Timestamps: 00:00 Start 00:57 CW background 04:41 Early days of Ethereum 08:17 Cosmos 09:56 IBC protocol 10:16 Cosmos: God, Bad & Ugly 14:09 App chain thesis 15:17 Anoma 21:19 Intent-centric design 24:08 Ellipsis Labs 25:09 Namada 26:35 Goal of Namada 28:46 Anonymity set 30:44 Open ledgers vs privacy 36:15 Traders want privacy 37:20 Blockchains & the surveillance state 38:51 Evolution of ETH theory 42:48 ETH fails at "global computer" 45:02 Source of failure 47:37 L1 vs L2 scaling 51:30 The state of interoperability 59:02 People following incentives 1:03:34 Innovation fragmentation 👋 Enjoy the clip? Click below to listen on a podcasting app! Apple http://tiny.cc/e7wuwz Spotify https://tinyurl.com/aj3ymv6h RSS http://tiny.cc/wbwuwz YouTube https://tinyurl.com/4kwhu4s7 👋 The Gwart Show is proudly presented by Ellipsis Labs! Ellipsis Labs is building foundational products in DeFi. Their first product @PhoenixTrade is the leading orderbook DEX on Solana. The team is growing—visit ellipsislabs.xyz for engineering opportunities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices