This week, we speak with Alan Orwick from Quai Network who is attempting to build a completely novel Proof-Of-Work blockchain able to compete with modern Proof-Of-Stake on throughput and latency. The project uses a dual-token design which includes a highly novel stablecoin-like token used to represent energy input into the network. It's a breath of fresh air in the POW landscape and offers a glimpse into the potential future of blockchain scaling. - - Time Stamps (0:00) -...

We chat with Jake Randall, one of the co-founders of Mutant Mon and pioneer of the emergent 404 standard. Mutant Mon is the first SPL-404 hybrid token on Solana, bridging NFTs and fungible tokens under one primitive. The project has been incubating since 2021 and draws inspiration from the fusionmon concept in the Pokemon fan game scene. The team has developed a novel re-rolling aspect where every time an NFT is swapped for tokens, a new NFT with different stats and collectability is created....

Drift brings on-chain, cross-margined perpetual futures to Solana and is one of its most widely-used DeFi applications. The Drift team has been around since Solana's early days and has an ambitious vision to bring financial primitives historically only available on CEXs to the world of permissionless finance. Throughout this episode, we chat with Cindy and Chris to learn about Drift's architecture, strategy, differentiators, and endgame. -        - Time Stamps (0:00) - Origins of...

Sal sits down with Lucas to chat about all things Crypto & AI. Lucas, a researcher at Galaxy, recently published a comprehensive report on this topic as he seeks to separate fact from fiction when it comes to where crypto can improve AI applications and vice-versa. -        - Time Stamps (0:00) - Decentralized GPU farms (5:05) - Posting on-chain proofs of models (8:28) - Smart agents using crypto (11:32) - Competing with OpenAI (15:18) - Using crypto for crowdsourced data (13:30)...

Solana Legend returns to Unlayered to share his views on why Solana is winning and will continue to win. We start off by picking up where we last left off with Legend, focusing on the shortcomings of Ethereum and the EVM ecosystem. We then dive into the current state of the markets and a litany of other topics including which narratives Legend is most excited about. -        - Time Stamps (0:00) - Eth Denver takeaways (2:13) - Problems of scaling via L2s (4:49) - Predicting the L2...

Anatoly needs no introduction. He is responsible for the creation of Solana and the emergence of high-throughput, next-gen blockchains. We had the privilege of covering a very wide variety of topics with 'Toly thoughout this interview. We start with ‘Toly’s childhood, background, and the origins of Solana. We then move into some of Solana’s core principles and how they differ from Ethereum. This serves as a natural segue into Solana’s upcoming technical upgrades, changes to its fee model,...

We catch up with Austin, Head of Strategy at Solana Foundation and former Head of Communications at Solana Labs. In particular, we focus on how Solana continues to differentiate itself from a fast-growing array of challenger blockchain ecosystems with token extensions. We also chat about Solana's emphasis on grassroots growth over top-down business development approaches and how Solana positions itself across a variety of strategic sub sectors within the emergent crypto economy. A great...

Matty is the man behind some of the biggest hackathons in all of crypto (such as Grizzlython and Hyperdrive among many others). He recently left his role as Head of Growth at Solana Foundation to build Colosseum, an organization dedicated to running Solana-centric hackathons with a built-in accelerator for select winners. Throughout this episode, we get into the nitty gritty of why hackathons have historically produced some of Solana's best projects (Tensor and STEPN for example) and how...

In this special episode, we feature a debate of sorts between ZenLlama of Monad who's representing integrated blockchains and Dino of Fluent Labs who's representing modular blockchains. We start by defining terms relevant to both architectures and making analogies to the non-crypto world. We then evaluate the tradeoffs of both approaches with an emphasis on the design decisions Fluent and Monad each make in their quest for scalability. This episode is a great way to get a 10,000ft view of how...

Bartosz is a man on a mission to right the right the wrongs of centralized exchanges like FTX. His approach to building Cube blends the UI/UX benefits of using a CEX with the security gurantees of onchain settlement. Throughout this interview we dig into the intricacies of making this ambitious vision of creating a "tamper-proof CEX" a reality, covering topics like Cube's tech stacks, the current CEX competitive landscape, and their go-to-market strategy. -        - Time Stamps (0:00) -...

0xJaypeg has been a fast-growing account in crypto Twitter over the past few months. We chat about a variety of topics that he's been commenting on such as ETH vs. SOL, NFT markets, token extensions, and predictions for 2024. -        - Time Stamps (0:00) - What’s Eth’s narrative? (10:43) - NFT market prospects (19:02) - Solana token extensions (26:51) - How Larry Fink will tokenize the world (29:19) - Portfolio allocation (39:00) - NFTs Vs Memecoins (49:11) - Coinbase end...

This new episode format features a more casual conversation between Sal and Dave catching up on the latest topics in the crypto/Solana sphere. Today, we hone in on the state of memecoins, review Solana's Saga phone, talk about the points meta and why it's actually a good thing, and close things off with some $JUP airdrop commentary. -        - Time Stamps (0:00) - Memecoin Mania (4:30) - Saga Success (18:05) - DePIN starting to awaken (26:30) - Points Meta (39:07) - $JUP biggest...

Sal and Dave chat up with Karol, co-founder and lead developer of Bonkbot. In the last 2 months, Bonkbot has cemented itself as one of the top Telegram trading bots in the world, processing over $1B in swaps and earning over $10M in fees. Throughout this interview we learn about Bonkbot’s origin story, the delicate balance Bonkbot makes between security and UX, what it’s like to build crypto apps in Telegram, Bonkbot’s relationship with $BONK, and what the future of trading interfaces for...

Austin is a liquid/venture investor who previously was a partner at Coinfund and has recently launched his own fund, Relayer Capital. Throughout this discussion, Sal and Austin chat about crypto infrastructure, the bull case for chains like Avalanche, DePIN projects, and how identity primitives might change with the emergence of AI. We also touch on some of Austin's predictions for 2024. -        - Time Stamps (0:00) - Thesis behind Relayer Capital (6:40) - How do devs choose...

We close out 2023 chopping it up with Ansem (aka the King of Retail & LeBron of Solana). Throughout this riveting conversation, we unpack what's been happening in the Solana memecoin landscape, upcoming airdrops, big narratives for 2024, the future of L1s, and Ansem's process for finding good trades + alpha in an increasingly noisy market. You don't want to miss this one. -        - Time Stamps (0:00) - Sourcing Alpha (4:17) - Solana’s memecoin mania (9:50) - Airdrop season  (16:24)...

How is Solana so cheap AND fast? What sorcery is at play with Solana's fee markets, and what still needs to be fixed. We brought on two of the world's best experts on this topic, Jon Charb and Zen Llama, to dive into the world of Solana fee markets and how they differ from ETH + L2s. We also discuss the implications of fees on validator economics and value accrual to the $SOL token. A very insightful, albeit technical, topic. - - Time Stamps (0:00) - Eth’s journey to EIP 1559 (7:43)...

One of the most interesting experiments in all of crypto right now is The MetaDAO Project. Prophet's vision for MetaDAO is to create a decentralized autonomous organization that's governed by markets instead of politics. We start the episode by first discussing the organizational challenges that have plagued DAOs in the past and how futarchies, initially proposed by economist Robin Hanson in the early 2000s, could be the answer. We then dive into what the early days of MetaDAO will look like...

Our conversation with Tushar, Cofounder and Managing Partner at Multicoin, is a refreshing change-of-pace from our usual set of topics. We talk about why crypto even needs to exist in the first place and what types of applications benefit most from the advent of permissionless digital assets. We also learn about how Tushar spots opportunities in the market from the perspective of an investor and what areas he's most excited for in the near-term. -        - Time Stamps (0:00) - Why crypto...

We chat with Patrick Bush of Van Eck to get his take on how their recent report painted a $3k SOL bullish scenario based on various fundamentals. Throughout the discussion, we touch on various metrics the underpin Van Eck's valuation framework and learn more about how Patrick views the current crypto landscape in terms of adoption and potential growth drivers. -        - Time Stamps (1:10) - Crypto valuation fundamentals (7:28) - Layer 1 valuation methodology (10:28) - Can Eth maintain...

Armani is one of Solana's most prolific contributors. From Anchor to Madlads to Backpack and now Backpack Exchange, his vision for bringing crypto to the masses is truly multi-faceted. In this conversation, we focus primarily on his ambitions for Backpack Exchange. We dig into his learnings from working as an engineer at FTX, how Backpack is architected from a technical standpoint, and how he sees crypto adoption playing out in the near future. -        - Time Stamps 0:00 - Piecing...

We catch up with Kel, Messari's pre-eminent Solana researcher, to see how his views have changed since we last spoke during the summer. Specifically, what can we look forward to on Solana in the short, medium, and long term? What are some key remaining headwinds to overcome? We cover these key questions and a bunch of others throughout this discussion. -        - Time Stamps (0:00) - Price leading narrative (3:52) - Being caught offside  (5:41) - Are institutions buying (11:23) -...

Arnold, Founder and CEO of Sphere Labs, joins Sal on Unlayered to talk about payments. Throughout the conversation, we try to separate hype from reality when it comes to crypto’s role in transforming global payments infrastructure. We also discuss how payments networks differ in various jurisdictions and recent advancements TradFi has made with respect to real-time payments -        - Time Stamps 0:00 - How crypto and payments can work together 4:47 - How to abstract away the crypto...

Neel Somani is the Founder & CEO of Eclipse and has an ambitious vision to build Ethereum’s fastest Layer 2 blockchain by tapping into Solana’s Virtual Machine (SVM) as the execution environment. We start our discussion by deconstructing the landscape of L2s in order to better understand where Eclipse fits in and why Neel views Eclipse’s approach as preferable. We also dig into Neel’s conscious design decision to tap into ETH’s massive network effects while simultaneously leveraging...

We chat with Michael Wagner, Founder & CEO of Star Atlas, about everything crypto gaming. We start with the origins of building the Star Atlas game before diving into a litany of topics covering fully on-chain games vs minimally on-chain games, dealing with botting, IP rights, economic balance, and many others. We also spend a good deal of time understanding Star Atlas's multi-pronged approach to engaging with their userbase across desktop, mobile, and augmented reality...

We sit down with Jules Urbach and Trevor Harries-Jones to chat about Render Network, a protocol built on Solana that lets users rent out access to their graphics cards like they would their spare bedroom on Airbnb. We start the conversation with a deep-dive into the origins of Render by chatting about Jules' journey through founding Otoy and revolutionizing rendered media in Hollywood. We get into the mechanics of how Jules was about to clearly identify a future spike in demand for GPU-driven...