Proof of Coverage

This week, Sal is joined by Anon Morpho, Neuratic and DNB from the Ator team. Ator is building the largest global anonymous-routing ecosystem, leveraging a decentralized privacy protocol, on-chain incentives and signature hardware to rapidly scale its network.  The team discusses why privacy is so important to them, how Ator is advancing decades-old privacy concepts, the first-party benefits their hardware provides to customers straight out-of-the-box, why privacy is still critical in web3, and the importance of token taxes in ATOR’s early fundraising. 00:00 Hello Ator! 01:27 Why Privacy?  04:16 What is Ator?  05:52 How Ator is architected for privacy 07:08 The history of Onion Routing and how Ator is iterating on the concept 14:17 How ATOR’s hardware provides rewards and first-party value 17:35 ATOR as a value-add for other web3 developers 21:19 Why privacy is still critical in web3 26:08 How ATOR bootstrapped their early token liquidity with token taxes 41:33 Where to find ATOR Disclaimer: The hosts and the firms they represent may hold stakes in the companies mentioned in this podcast. None of this is financial advice.

Sami and Connor are joined by Andrej Radonjic, Founder of Grass Network. Grass is a network of over 2M+ people incentivized to assist AI developers in accessing data on the internet. Grass creates a more equitable and inclusive future for the development of AI. 00:00 Connor lives in a Resort 00:34 Grass merch coming soon 01:20 Catching up with Andrej 03:15 Open source datasets for AI 06:40 Why Andrej doxx’d himself on Twitter 09:30 Deep dive on Grass and the web scraping/AI market 17:11 What has contributed to the fast growth of Grass? 20:25 Implementing points in DePIN 22:19 What goes into becoming a data layer? 34:02 Layer 2 sovereign data rollups 40:20 Discussing monetization 43:50 Grass’ future partners and competitors in the AI space 52:27 Lightning round! 1:01:44 Where to find Andrej and the Grass Network Team Disclaimer: The hosts and the firms they represent may hold stakes in the companies mentioned in this podcast. None of this is financial advice.

Mahesh and Sal are joined by Alireza Ghods, CEO & Co-Founder of Natix. Natix is a global mapping network of smart cameras. Natix’s 100k drivers have mapped 30M km across 170 countries.  Alireza takes on the great DePIN mapping hardware debate, making the case for smartphones over dedicated hardware, lays out the long-term vision for Natix as a camera network beyond just road mapping, and illustrates how Natix could eventually enable a wide variety of use cases, including facilitating the use of drones in forest fire rescue. Disclaimer: The hosts and the firms they represent may hold stakes in the companies mentioned in this podcast. None of this is financial advice.

Neil Chatterjee, CEO of Andrena, and Ani Pai, Partner at Dragonfly Capital, discuss launching DAWN, a decentralized wireless network, and Andrena's growth in providing affordable broadband. They talk about aligning incentives, using tokens to coordinate supply and demand in the wireless value chain, customer referral incentives, and the FCC spectrum release encouraging Andrena to launch a DePIN.

ETH Denver recap with insights on DePIN themes, memecoins, underrated projects, GPU supply shortages, and the benefits of in-person connections in the crypto space.

Connor, Sami, and Mahesh are joined by Raullen Chai, Co-Founder of IoTeX. IoTeX is the platform for DePIN builders, combining a fast, secure blockchain with IoT and smart devices. Raullen talks about how he fell in love with crypto when he tried to break Bitcoin (and couldn’t do it), why he dedicated his work in crypto to supporting DePIN, the competitive landscape of DePIN-focused L1’s and where IoTeX fits in, and how IoTeX’s hardware origins help them serve founders better.  0:00 Cold Open 0:36 The State of DePIN Fundraising 2:10 How working at Google and Uber exposed Raullen to crypto 5:56 Why Raullen was moved to leave Big Tech to crypto 7:28 Raullen’s Multi-Cycle Learnings 10:04 Why DePIN? 12:18 IoTeX’s Role in the DePIN Ecosystem 15:38 The Competitive Landscape of DePIN L1’s  18:23 What are DePIN Founders looking for in L1’s? 21:32 IoTeX’s W3bstream’s Value Prop 24:22 How IoTeX’s hardware expertise adds value to projects 28:10 Dedicated Hardware vs. Consumer Mobile Device Trends in DePIN 31:00 IoTeX’s Hardware Origins and Early Adoption 34:06 The Benefit to a DePIN Builder of the Marshall DAO 36:38 Lightning Round    Disclaimer: The hosts and the firms they represent may hold stakes in the companies mentioned in this podcast. None of this is financial advice.

Caldera and Eclipse CEOs discuss no-code web3 infrastructure, Solana VM, building layer-2 blockchains in hours, customizability, chain interoperability, economics, DePIN use case, and selling founders. Exploring Ethereum L1 challenges, EVM-based L2 solutions, ZK proofs, and proof-based mechanisms for interacting with blockchain networks.

Mahesh and Connor are joined by Jonathan Victor. Jonathan formerly worked on Filecoin at Protocol Labs, and left to found Ansa Research, a research firm focused on distributed infrastructure covering digital networks that aim to rebuild how internet infrastructure operates. Jonathan talks about how his Palantir background influenced his time at Protocol Labs, why content addressing is a critical component to the future of the web, what the long-term Filecoin roadmap looks like, the protocol’s recent investments into retrieval, where Filecoin and other storage protocols fit into the broader ecosystem of enterprise storage, and clears up Filecoin’s revenue model. 0:00 Cold Brew Open 0:40 How Jon’s background at Palantir led him to Filecoin 4:28 Jon’s Decentralized Infrastructure Theses 9:42 How the Various Storage Solutions May Work Together in the Future 13:33 Filecoin’s Long-term Roadmap 20:03 Filecoin and Retrieval 24:55 Storage as a Commodity or a Differentiated Offering    29:30 Why Location Matters in Storage  34:04 IPFS and Filecoin’s Value Prop 39:33 How Filecoin Cultivated it’s robust developer ecosystem 43:42 Filecoin’s Revenue Model and Transparency 50:47 Where to find Jon’s Work Disclaimer: The hosts and the firms they represent may hold stakes in the companies mentioned in this podcast. None of this is financial advice.

Sami, Connor and Mahesh are joined by Ryan Selkis, Founder and CEO of Messari. Messari provides market intelligence that drives high-conviction participation in the crypto economy.  Ryan discusses his thoughts on the current state of crypto regulation, its implications on the 2024 US Presidential election, where he hopes Vivek Ramaswamy lands next, the 3 areas of DePIN that excite him most, and if it has a hat (spoiler: it does). 0:00 Is this the cold open? 0:47 Does it have a hat? 2:26 What did the term “Web3” do to Selkis? 5:47 State of crypto & the US Presidential Race 16:03 Vivek Ramaswamy’s next step 21:01 Trump’s stance on crypto 27:00 How well do US regulators understand DePIN? 37:00 The sectors of DePIN Selkis is most interested in 44:29 How to be a cockroach  50:06 Lightning round Disclaimer: The hosts and the firms they represent may hold stakes in the companies mentioned in this podcast. None of this is financial advice.

Sami and Mahesh are joined by Nick Emmons, CEO & Co-Founder of Upshot.  Upshot is a decentralized AI network optimized for DeFi applications. The network incentivizes participants to contribute their expertise, which can include machine learning models, data, and other forms of knowledge, cultivating a cooperative ecosystem where contributors collectively strive towards achieving shared AI objectives. Nick shares his insights on the regulatory landscape for AI, discussing the competitive edge that decentralized AI could have over traditional centralized AI systems. He also speaks about the evolution of Upshot into a platform that leverages the collective intelligence of its participants to create and improve DeFi applications. The conversation also touches on the critical role of zero-knowledge proofs for integrating AI with blockchains. Lastly, Nick highlights various use cases for Upshot, showcasing its potential to transform the DeFi space. 00:00 - Hair Routines 1:04 - Crypto and AI Regulation 2:47 - The Rapid Rate of AI Innovation 5:35 - Entering an Era of Hyperfinancilization 8:20 - Competing with OpenAI’s GPT Store 9:50 - Upshot’s Origin 15:26 - How Price Predicting Models on Upshot Work 19:30 - How Models on Upshot Work Together 20:40 - Upshot Machine Intelligence Network Architecture 25:05 - Upshot + zkML  29:05 - opML vs zkML 31:30 - Upshot Use Cases 34:40 - How the Community can Help 37:55 - Rapid Fire Questions  Disclaimer: The hosts and the firms they represent may hold stakes in the companies mentioned in this podcast. None of this is financial advice.