This is my conversation with Hart Lambur. We talk about Hart's path in building UMA (an oracle using schelling points to bring data onchain), Across (an intents-based bridge connecting ETH/L2s), and now Oval (MEV capture for oracle price updates).Timestamps:(00:00:00) - Intro(00:01:29) - Sponsor: Privy (privy.io)(00:02:50) - The idea maze, Goldman Sachs, RFQ systems, legal vs smart contracts(00:11:03) - UMA, schelling point and optimistic oracle(00:16:41) - Raising the seed round(00:19:38) - Across, intent-based bridging architecture(00:30:42) - Sponsor: Optimism (optimism.io)(00:31:52) - Oval(00:46:15) - MEV capture for protocols(01:01:22) - OutroThank you to our sponsors for making this podcast possible: Optimism - https://optimism.io Privy - https://privy.ioInto the Bytecode:- Sina Habibian on X: https://twitter.com/sinahab- Sina Habibian on Farcaster - https://warpcast.com/sinahab- Into the Bytecode: https://intothebytecode.com Disclaimer: this podcast is for informational purposes only. It is not financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell securities. The host and guests may hold positions in the projects discussed.

This is my conversation with Jesse Pollak. He led retail engineering at Coinbase for many years — building Coinbase, Coinbase Pro, and Coinbase Wallet. More recently, he is leading the development of Base, Coinbase's L2 built on the OP Stack. Timestamps:(00:00:00) - intro (00:01:43) - sponsor: Optimism (optimism.io) (00:03:07) - motivation behind Base (00:11:12) - pitching Base to the Coinbase exec team (00:14:24) - challenges of innovating on a schedule (00:17:54) - failing repeatedly to find the right answer (00:22:09) - decision to build an L2 with Michael (00:23:30) - convincing Surojit Chatterjee, Coinbase’s CPO (00:24:59) - launching Base internally(00:31:58) - blockchains as serverless compute (00:36:53) - uniswap as a serverless API for currency conversion (00:39:30) - the power of small but leveraged teams (00:42:31) - how to straddle product building in the onchain and offchain world (00:45:25) - sponsor: Privy (privy.io) (00:51:22) - the significance of THIS moment in Crypto (00:53:56) - getting a 100M devs and 1B users onchain (00:57:02) - how the NFT UX will change with Base (01:10:13) - how crypto will be incorporated in applications (01:14:00) - the risk of onchain heterogeneity(01:17:27) - building privacy-oriented onchain platforms (01:26:00) - upgrading the financial system (01:28:33) - attending Quaker School (01:34:43) - relentless positivity in life (01:38:47) - building a better futureJesse Pollak:jesse.xyz on ETH - https://jesse.xyz/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/jessepollakGithub - https://github.com/jessepollakLinks:Base - https://base.org/Coinbase - https://www.coinbase.com/Brian Armstrong - https://twitter.com/brian_armstrongSurojit Chatterjee Coinbase’s CPO - https://www.coinbase.com/blog/welcome-surojit-chatterjee-coinbases-chief-product-officerOP Stack - https://stack.optimism.io/Uniswap - https://uniswap.org/Goldfinch - https://goldfinch.finance/Zora - https://zora.co/Thank you to our sponsors for making this podcast possible:Optimism - https://optimism.ioPrivy - https://privy.ioInto the Bytecode:- Sina Habibian on X: https://twitter.com/sinahab- Sina Habibian on Farcaster - https://warpcast.com/sinahab- Into the Bytecode: https://intothebytecode.com Produced by - https://spectral.toDisclaimer: this podcast is for informational purposes only. It is not financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell securities. The host and guests may hold positions in the projects discussed. 

This is my conversation with Liam Horne, former CEO and advisor to Optimism Labs.Timestamps:(00:00:00) - intro (00:00:59) - sponsor: Privy (privy.io)(00:03:35) - early influences, classmates with Vitalik in Waterloo(00:08:31) - Ethereum's potential and why scalability matters(00:10:06) - learning from Jeff Coleman(00:17:23) - defining a common language (00:21:06) - importance of community in Ethereum(00:26:34) - hackathons lead to progress(00:31:36) - collaboration as a core ETH value(00:38:30) - humility and collective learning(00:47:27) - building a public good(00:53:07) - building Optimism with Ethereum values(01:09:27) - sponsor: Optimism (optimism.io) (01:17:41) - decentralization is a journey(01:20:59) - staying true to your principles(01:32:51) - building something new is difficult(01:36:28) - Jing Wang(01:42:10) - Georgios KonstantopoulosLinks:University of Waterloo - https://uwaterloo.ca/(Almost) Everything you need to know about Optimistic Rollup by Georgios Konstantopoulos - https://www.paradigm.xyz/2021/01/almost-everything-you-need-to-know-about-optimistic-rollupETHGlobal - https://ethglobal.com/Thank you to our sponsors for making this podcast possible:Optimism - https://optimism.ioPrivy - https://privy.ioInto the Bytecode:- Sina Habibian on X: https://twitter.com/sinahab- Sina Habibian on Farcaster - https://warpcast.com/sinahab- Into the Bytecode: https://intothebytecode.com Produced by https://spectral.toDisclaimer: this podcast is for informational purposes only. It is not financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell securities. The host and guests may hold positions in the projects discussed. 

This is my conversation with Aya Miyaguchi, Executive Director at the Ethereum Foundation.Timestamps:(00:00:00) - intro(00:01:20) - sponsor: Optimism (optimism.io)(00:02:32) - reflecting on early days of Ethereum(00:08:54) - Ethereum as an Infinite Garden(00:19:08) - books and ideas that influenced Aya(00:24:48) - the insignificance of titles(00:31:56) - what does “Executive Director of the Ethereum Foundation” mean?(00:40:27) - the “teacher” mindset and how it applies to management(00:47:18) - the importance of diversity(00:51:35) - sponsor: Privy (privy.io)(00:52:57) - the idea of subtraction and how it plays out in practice(01:05:46) - funding in a non-profit context(01:08:42) - why it’s difficult to describe the potential of Ethereum (01:16:40) - embracing imperfection(01:20:37) - learning from (un)natural disasters(01:33:14) - what the 'next billion' means for Ethereum(01:42:53) - Ethereum in emerging economies(01:49:03) - outroLinks:Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_and_Infinite_GamesAya on Executing with Subtraction - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noXPewi5qOkEthereum Foundation - https://ethereum.org/en/foundation/Thank you to our sponsors for making this podcast possible:Optimism - https://optimism.ioPrivy - https://privy.ioInto the Bytecode:- Sina Habibian on X: https://twitter.com/sinahab- Sina Habibian on Farcaster - https://warpcast.com/sinahab- Into the Bytecode: https://intothebytecode.comDisclaimer: this podcast is for informational purposes only. It is not financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell securities. The host and guests may hold positions in the projects discussed. 

This is my conversation with Dan Romero about Farcaster - a decentralized social network being developed as an open protocol.We talked about how product decisions in social networks have ripple effects on society, Farcaster’s strategy in the highly competitive world of social products, and Dan's personal philosophies around hiring and team building.Timestamps:(00:00:00) - intro(00:02:08) - why this problem?(00:12:54) - both product and protocol(00:23:41) - the algorithmic feed(00:29:40) - Farcaster’s strategy for competing with Twitter(01:00:52) - approach to team building(01:14:41) - how to use social networks, and meme’ingLinks:Dan Romero - https://twitter.com/dwrFarcaster - https://www.farcaster.xyz/Farcaster docs - https://github.com/farcasterxyz/protocolVarun - https://twitter.com/varunsrinKeybase - https://keybase.io/Into the Bytecode:- Sina Habibian on X: https://twitter.com/sinahab- Sina Habibian on Farcaster - https://warpcast.com/sinahab- Into the Bytecode: https://intothebytecode.comDisclaimer: this podcast is for informational purposes only. It is not financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell securities. The host and guests may hold positions in the projects discussed. 

This is my conversation with Jango and Nnnnicholas from Juicebox Protocol. Juicebox is a playful but ambitious project: the DAO operates as a full-stack instantiation of the protocol it's building, and fully reconceptualizes the relationship between contributors and shareholders. It has powered projects like SharkDAO, ConstitutionDAO, and AssangeDAO in the past.Timestamps:(00:00:00) - intro(00:01:37) - an alternative to traditional org structures(00:09:53) - philosophical alignment(00:27:30) - the key mechanisms of the Juicebox Protocol(00:35:51) - fundraising mechanics and the extensibility of Juicebox v2(00:46:05) - a DAOs’s origins shape its culture(00:54:46) - guiding principles for compensation(01:02:06) - working backwards from the future(01:12:11) - the subtraction philosophy and Ethereum as the Big Bang(01:31:25) - StudioDAO and models for permissionless DAOsLinks:Jango - https://twitter.com/me_jangoNnnnicolas - https://twitter.com/nnnnicholasJuicebox - https://juicebox.money/Nouns - https://nouns.wtf/StudioDAO - https://www.studiodao.xyz/Juicecast podcast about StudioDAO - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-9-kenny-from-studiodao/id1623504302?i=1000576149672Into the Bytecode:- Sina Habibian on X: https://twitter.com/sinahab- Sina Habibian on Farcaster - https://warpcast.com/sinahab- Into the Bytecode: https://intothebytecode.comDisclaimer: this podcast is for informational purposes only. It is not financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell securities. The host and guests may hold positions in the projects discussed. 

A discussion with Nadia Asparouhova on public goods and peer production, exploring the history of philanthropy and different approaches to funding models. Insights into wealth booms in tech and crypto, the dynamics of peer production, and the role of intrinsic vs extrinsic rewards. The evolving landscape of public goods provisioning, innovative philanthropic funding models, and the intersection of open source communities and crypto. Exploring the research methodology and tools for thought in the realm of public goods and peer production.

Julien Niset is the cofounder and Chief Science Officer at Argent, a crypto wallet that's used and loved by many people in the crypto ecosystem.In this conversation, we talk about how Argent has evolved to get to where it is today. How Julien sees user experience evolving broadly in the ecosystem, and what the flow of a new person interacting with a crypto application for the first time might look like in the future.Another topic we get into deeply is L2s, how Julien and Argent have thought about the topic of EVM equivalence and compatibility, and why they ultimately chose to build on ZK Rollups like ZkSync and StarkNet.And lastly, we dive into what has been like to build on StarkNet, what the early community feels like today, what it's been like to write code in Cairo, and as a bit of a snapshot into this experience we do a deep dive into what account abstraction looks like on StarkNet.Timestamps:(00:00:00) - intro(00:01:56) - leaning into zk rollups and account abstraction (00:07:29) - scaling the self-custody experience  (00:13:20) - what onboarding users to crypto will look like in 3 years (00:20:24) - some of the friction points that still need to be abstracted(00:33:52) - L2s and the trade-offs between different rollups(00:39:45) - is breaking EVM-equivalency worth it? (00:48:01) - Julien’s experience in the StarkNet ecosystem(00:58:24) - a technical primer on account abstraction  (01:15:38) - session keys  (01:28:17) - starting a sensible wallet set up from scratchLinks:Julien Niset - https://twitter.com/jnisetArgent - https://www.argent.xyz/StarkNet - https://starkware.co/starknet/zkSync - https://zksync.io/Topology - https://www.topology.gg/Into the Bytecode:- Sina Habibian on X: https://twitter.com/sinahab- Sina Habibian on Farcaster - https://warpcast.com/sinahab- Into the Bytecode: https://intothebytecode.comDisclaimer: this podcast is for informational purposes only. It is not financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell securities. The host and guests may hold positions in the projects discussed. 

Pedro Gomes is the cofounder of WalletConnect, a communications protocol that enables wallets and apps to securely connect and interact.In this conversation, We talked about WalletConnect v2 and its architecture, account abstraction, potential downstream effects of a crypto-native chat protocol, and other topics.Timestamps:(00:00:00) - intro(00:08:00) - developing the user experience before creating the product (00:10:23) - account abstraction and the spectrum of security and convenience(00:20:39) - WalletConnect APIs and “Log in with Ethereum”(00:28:55) - how WalletConnect works(00:37:45) - light clients and generalized messaging protocols(00:45:36) - the politics of making big changes to the Ethereum protocol(00:50:14) - connecting wallets with WalletConnect ChatLinks:WalletConnect - https://walletconnect.com/EIP2938 (account abstraction) - https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-2938WalletConnect APIs - https://docs.walletconnect.com/2.0Into the Bytecode:- Sina Habibian on X: https://twitter.com/sinahab- Sina Habibian on Farcaster - https://warpcast.com/sinahab- Into the Bytecode: https://intothebytecode.comDisclaimer: this podcast is for informational purposes only. It is not financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell securities. The host and guests may hold positions in the projects discussed. 

Here is my conversation with Josh Stark.Josh has a long history in the Ethereum ecosystem going back to the early days of the community. He cofounded one of the first L2 scaling protocols with Counterfactual. He also cofounded ETHGlobal which is a much-loved series of hackathons/events that brings the community together and which acts as an entry point into the ecosystem for many people. And nowadays and most relevant to our conversation, he works in a leadership capacity at the Ethereum Foundation.In this conversation, we talked about two topics: one being the Ethereum Foundation, and two being the question of why blockchain is matter — this being something that Josh has spent a lot of time thinking about and which he's written about in a long form piece titled Atoms Institutions Blockchains.Timestamps:(00:00:00) - intro(00:03:50) - subtraction(00:07:22) - creating a self-sufficient crypto ecosystem(00:12:33) - the property of ‘hardness’ for blockchains(00:17:47) - understanding decentralization(00:23:11) - Atoms, Institutions, Blockchains(00:26:00) - blind men and an elephant(00:33:06) - our civilization’s infrastructure(00:43:33) - digitally-native hardness(00:59:38) - how the EF operates(01:06:21) - challenges with decentralized coordination(01:12:08) - infinite players have nothing but their namesLinks:Atoms, Institutions, Blockchains: https://stark.mirror.xyz/n2UpRqwdf7yjuiPKVICPpGoUNeDhlWxGqjulrlpyYi0Into the Bytecode:- Sina Habibian on X: https://twitter.com/sinahab- Sina Habibian on Farcaster - https://warpcast.com/sinahab- Into the Bytecode: https://intothebytecode.comDisclaimer: this podcast is for informational purposes only. It is not financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell securities. The host and guests may hold positions in the projects discussed.