EP1 - Bitcoin before Maximalism: The experiments we forgot.

2025 marked a turning point for crypto.In this episode, Brett Tejpaul, head of Coinbase Institutional, sits down with Camila Russo to explain why institutional adoption accelerated last year. From ETFs and stablecoin regulation to banks using public blockchains in production, crypto crossed a line it can’t uncross.We explore how Coinbase evolved from a retail exchange into a global financial infrastructure layer, why tokenization is finally happening for real, and what regulation unlocked that years of innovation couldn’t.This is about the moment crypto became part of the financial system.

Before Ethereum. Before smart contracts. Before the hype around NFTs and ICOs — Bitcoin was already experimenting.In this episode of Beyond Digital Gold we rewind to 2012–2014, when developers were pushing Bitcoin’s limits with: • Colored Coins were early real-world assets • Mastercoin, the first ICO in crypto history • Counterparty and Rare Pepes, the first NFTs • Lightning Network, Bitcoin’s first native Layer 2Featuring JR Willett, Matt Luongo, Yoni Assia, Adam Krellenstein and Elizabeth Stark, and co-hosted with Nathan from StarkWare, this episode asks a fundamental question:👉 If Bitcoin has already succeeded as digital gold, is it even worth experimenting anymore?The answer may surprise you.🎬 Episode 1 of the Bitcoin DeFi mini-series📺 Subscribe for the full series on Bitcoin’s past, present, and future

Kain Warwick—DeFi OG and founder of Synthetix and Infinex—is back on The Defiant Podcast with Camila Russo for a no-BS conversation at a pivotal moment: Infinex just ran its INX token sale and is heading into its TGE.We get into:Why Kain believes DeFi’s biggest bottleneck isn’t “more decentralization,” but UX + distributionThe hard lesson OG DeFi learned: users won’t “learn to love complexity”—the product has to be holistically betterThe INX sale controversy: $2,500 cap → cap removed, one-year lockup stays, and why he says the sale “didn’t need to happen” (but still closed)What he’d do differently: market-driven pricing for locked vs. liquid tokens (and why he thinks the liquidity premium is brutal right now)Kaito / InfoFi: how incentives turned crypto Twitter into slop—and why he thinks it “blew up the public square”What INX actually does: early access, fee discounts, governance—and what demand looks like from power usersInfinex’s product roadmap: Safe support, hardware wallets, integrating “competitors” like Hyperliquid, and the real metric he watches—share of walletThe bigger vision: a one-stop, non-custodial front-end that can serve both whales and newcomers (and why that’s the only way DeFi competes with fintech)Subscribe for more founder interviews and deep dives from The Defiant.

In this interview, Camila Russo sits down with Danny Ryan — former Ethereum Foundation researcher and a key leader behind Ethereum’s shift to proof of stake — now Co-Founder & President at Etherealize, to talk about the next big wave for crypto: institutional adoption of Ethereum.Recorded in Buenos Aires during Devconnect, Danny breaks down why the mood inside banks has flipped from “we can’t touch crypto” to “if we don’t adopt it, we’ll be left behind.” We dig into what institutions actually want beyond ETFs, why the biggest opportunity isn’t “tokenizing assets” but rewiring markets from first principles, and why privacy is table stakes for institutional-grade onchain finance.We also cover the regulatory whiplash of the last few years, what’s changed, what still needs to be written into law, and why Danny believes Ethereum is uniquely positioned for serious capital markets infrastructure.Key topics:Why banks suddenly have Ethereum FOMOThe difference between “tokenizing assets” vs rewiring marketsWhere the biggest inefficiencies are (credit, fixed income, esoteric institutional markets)Why privacy + ZK are essential for institutionsCoordination problems, incentives, and who doesn’t want markets to upgradeEthereum’s edge: neutrality, uptime, decentralization, and security👍 If you enjoyed this episode, like, subscribe, and share it with someone who still thinks institutions only care about ETFs.

In this episode of The Defiant Podcast, Chris Storaker sits down with Alex Garn, Chief Product Officer at Borderless, to unpack how stablecoins are quietly transforming cross-border payments — and what it actually takes to move money at scale across jurisdictions.Alex walks through Borderless’ role as an orchestration layer for global on- and off-ramps, why the company stays out of the flow of funds, and how a single API can replace dozens of fragmented integrations across local regulators, liquidity providers, and banking partners.We explore why stablecoins are moving beyond trading and DeFi collateral into real-world enterprise payments, where they already outperform legacy rails on settlement speed, transparency, and custody — especially across emerging market corridors like Latin America and Southeast Asia.The conversation also digs into the hard parts: liquidity constraints by corridor, KYC and compliance friction, why US–EU payments still favor SWIFT, and whether incumbents like Visa, Mastercard, and SWIFT are more likely to be disrupted or to acquire their way into the future.Finally, Alex shares his outlook on regulatory clarity post-GENIUS, the coming wave of corporate stablecoin adoption, and why distribution — not branding — will determine which stablecoins ultimately win.00:00 — Intro: Alex joins The Defiant Podcast01:30 — From DeFi & data science to stablecoin payments04:10 — What Borderless does: orchestration vs custody07:10 — Why cross-border on/off-ramps are still fragmented10:00 — Stablecoins beyond DeFi: real enterprise payment use cases12:45 — Treasury management, payouts, and B2B adoption15:30 — Liquidity realities: when $10M+ stablecoin payments work18:10 — Why US → Latin America leads stablecoin adoption20:30 — Where stablecoins don’t win (yet): US–EU & SWIFT22:50 — KYC as the biggest bottleneck in crypto payments26:00 — Self-custody, bank risk, and corporate treasuries29:30 — Stablecoins vs SWIFT: speed, cost, and settlement33:00 — Visa, Mastercard, SWIFT, and the M&A race36:40 — Regulation after GENIUS and global spillover effects39:40 — What enterprise adoption looks like in the next 2–3 years42:30 — Stablecoin fragmentation, liquidity, and consolidation45:00 — Closing thoughts: what excites Alex most about the future

For consumer crypto to thrive it needs to embrace financialization to deliver a better experience, and maker sure crypto disappears everywhere else. Projects doing this right sit in an emerging sector called fantech. In this episode of the Avalanche Ecosystem Series, we explore the rise of Fantech: a new category where sports fans, music fans, creators, and event-goers become participants in real digital economies. From loyalty programs and ticketing to creator monetization and on-chain rewards, we look at how these experiences get a 10x lift when they go onchain, and why Avalanche is emerging as one of the leading infrastructures powering this shift.The episode opens with a real story from the Champions League final and expands into a global look at how blockchain is quietly reshaping fan engagement, payments, and ownership at scale.Featured conversations:Rain — using stablecoins to power global consumer payments and rewardsUptop — building wallet-based loyalty for major sports teamsThe Arena — enabling creators to monetize directly through social cryptoTixbase — rebuilding ticketing with on-chain transparency and fan identityIn this episode:Why loyalty and rewards are a multi-billion-dollar global marketHow on-chain points and fan engagement differ from traditional programsWhy ticketing may be one of the most natural consumer use cases for blockchainHow creators and fans are earning, not just speculatingWhy Avalanche’s architecture is uniquely suited for consumer-scale appsWhy the future of consumer crypto won’t feel like crypto at allChapters:00:00 – The Ticket That Didn’t Work01:30 – What Is Fantech?04:00 – Payments as the Base Layer06:30 – Loyalty Goes On-Chain10:00 – Social + Fan Economies13:00 – Fixing Ticketing17:00 – Why Avalanche Works for Consumers19:00 – The Future of FandomSubscribe for more deep dives into crypto, DeFi, and the technologies reshaping finance and the consumer internet.

In this episode of The Defiant Podcast, Uniswap founder Hayden Adams joins us right as the UNIfication (Unification) proposal has moved to a final governance vote—a sweeping plan from Uniswap Labs + the Uniswap Foundation that would activate protocol fees, introduce a programmatic UNI burn, and realign how value accrues across the Uniswap ecosystem. We go deep on what’s actually inside the proposal (and what isn’t), why this moment feels like the end of one DeFi era and the start of another, and how years of “regulation by enforcement” shaped Uniswap’s product decisions—down to Hayden’s firsthand experience with debanking, legal pressure, and the chilling effect on builders. What we coverWhy UNIfication is being pitched as a once-in-a-cycle reset for UniswapThe real mechanics of the fee switch(es) (plural) and how the “token jar” burn design worksThe perceived tension between UNI token holders vs. equity/VC value capture and whether this vote changes thatWhy Uniswap wants to shift from “best frontend” to protocol-first infrastructure (APIs, ecosystem engineering, aggregator hooks)How Unichain fits into the broader strategy—and what “near-free trading” could mean in practiceGovernance backlash: is Uniswap becoming more centralized or more decentralized?Context: the vote is live! Hayden shared that the UNIfication proposal is now in the final governance vote stage.Subscribe for more founder-level conversations at the intersection of DeFi, regulation, and market structure.

In this episode of The Defiant podcast, Camila Russo sits down in Buenos Aires (Devconnect) with Marissa Foster (Product, Ethereum Foundation) and Yoav Weiss (security researcher, Ethereum Foundation) to unpack The Trustless Manifesto and the Ethereum Interop Layer (EIL), why “trust assumptions” are quietly creeping into Ethereum’s stack, and what it will take to preserve Ethereum’s core values while making UX actually usable.We dig into the hidden places users are forced to trust intermediaries, from cross-chain interoperability and solvers to something most people never question: RPCs. Then we get practical: the guests walk through the EIL, a new approach to cross-chain UX that aims to deliver one-signature interop without introducing new trust assumptions, plus why the wallet becomes the center of the user’s security model.Finally, we zoom out: how should wallets warn users, what does “walkaway test” really mean, and why institutions may end up being one of the strongest forces pushing crypto toward less counterparty risk.Topic list: • Why Ethereum’s next phase is “mainstream adoption” — and why that raises the stakes • The Trustless Manifesto: what it is, why it was written, and what it’s trying to prevent • Where trust assumptions sneak in: bridges, interop protocols, sequencers, oracles • RPCs as a giant blind spot: “we trust RPCs blindly” and why that can have real-world consequences • Trustlessness vs UX: why “great values + bad UX” can still lose users • “You can’t build something trustless on top of something that isn’t trustless” • What users should demand — and why it can’t require everyone to be a security expert • How “beat” frameworks help: L2BEAT, upcoming interop criteria, and Walletbeat • The walkaway test: what happens if the team/server/intermediary disappears (or turns hostile)? • L2 sequencers: permissioned vs permissionless, censorship risk, and practical exit paths • Cloud dependencies (Cloudflare outage) and what it reveals about today’s “decentralized” apps • Ethereum Interop Layer (EIL) explained: one-signature, wallet-centric, self-executing interop • Why “solvers open the envelope” — and how EIL avoids that trust model • Liquidity providers, vouchers, and how users pay gas cross-chain without the usual friction • Standards and coordination: wallets, L2s, and dapps all need to meet in the middle • The HTTP analogy: Ethereum today as the “pre-HTTP internet” and what seamless interop could unlock • Institutions and counterparty risk: why big players may push hardest for trust-minimized infrastructure • What’s next: testnet learnings, audits, standards, wallet integrations, and 2026 mainnet targetExplore The Defiant ✨📰 Websitehttps://thedefiant.io/✉️ Free Daily Newsletter https://thedefiant.io/newsletter/defi...🤑 Weekly Premium Newsletter https://thedefiant.io/newsletter/defi...✊ Follow The DefiantX/Twitter: https://x.com/DefiantNews📬 Contact our [email protected]🤝 Sponsorships & [email protected]#TheDefiant​ #DeFi​ #Decentralized​ #Finance​ #Blockchain #Web3

In this episode of The Defiant podcast, Camila Russo sits down in Buenos Aires (Devconnect) with Marissa Foster (Product, Ethereum Foundation) and Yoav Weiss (security researcher, Ethereum Foundation) to unpack The Trustless Manifesto and the Ethereum Interop Layer (EIL), why “trust assumptions” are quietly creeping into Ethereum’s stack, and what it will take to preserve Ethereum’s core values while making UX actually usable.We dig into the hidden places users are forced to trust intermediaries, from cross-chain interoperability and solvers to something most people never question: RPCs. Then we get practical: the guests walk through the EIL, a new approach to cross-chain UX that aims to deliver one-signature interop without introducing new trust assumptions, plus why the wallet becomes the center of the user’s security model.Finally, we zoom out: how should wallets warn users, what does “walkaway test” really mean, and why institutions may end up being one of the strongest forces pushing crypto toward less counterparty risk.Topic list: • Why Ethereum’s next phase is “mainstream adoption” — and why that raises the stakes • The Trustless Manifesto: what it is, why it was written, and what it’s trying to prevent • Where trust assumptions sneak in: bridges, interop protocols, sequencers, oracles • RPCs as a giant blind spot: “we trust RPCs blindly” and why that can have real-world consequences • Trustlessness vs UX: why “great values + bad UX” can still lose users • “You can’t build something trustless on top of something that isn’t trustless” • What users should demand — and why it can’t require everyone to be a security expert • How “beat” frameworks help: L2BEAT, upcoming interop criteria, and Walletbeat • The walkaway test: what happens if the team/server/intermediary disappears (or turns hostile)? • L2 sequencers: permissioned vs permissionless, censorship risk, and practical exit paths • Cloud dependencies (Cloudflare outage) and what it reveals about today’s “decentralized” apps • Ethereum Interop Layer (EIL) explained: one-signature, wallet-centric, self-executing interop • Why “solvers open the envelope” — and how EIL avoids that trust model • Liquidity providers, vouchers, and how users pay gas cross-chain without the usual friction • Standards and coordination: wallets, L2s, and dapps all need to meet in the middle • The HTTP analogy: Ethereum today as the “pre-HTTP internet” and what seamless interop could unlock • Institutions and counterparty risk: why big players may push hardest for trust-minimized infrastructure • What’s next: testnet learnings, audits, standards, wallet integrations, and 2026 mainnet target

In this episode of The Defiant podcast we speak with Morgan Krupetsky, VP of OnChain Finance at Ava Labs, to break down one of the most significant shifts happening in crypto today: the rapid institutionalization of blockchain and Avalanche’s strategy to lead it.Morgan walks us through Avalanche’s “real-world adoption first” ethos, explaining how its unique architecture enables enterprises, fintechs, banks, governments, and consumer apps to build purpose-designed blockchains while tapping into a shared liquidity hub.