The Smart Economy Podcast: Real-World Blockchain Applications with Crypto, DeFi, NFTs, and DAOs

In this episode of The Smart Economy Podcast, host Dylan Grabowski is joined by CEO of LayerTwo Labs Paul Sztorc, to discuss why years of attempting to bring Drivechain to Bitcoin ultimately led him toward launching a new Bitcoin fork. They explore Bitcoin's security budget, Sztorc's criticisms of the Lightning Network, the shift toward protocol ossification, prediction markets, and how eCash aims to create a new environment for Bitcoin-based experimentation.

In this episode of The Smart Economy Podcast, host Dylan Grabowski is joined by Nuva Labs CEO Anthony Moro to explore how blockchain is changing the infrastructure behind mortgages, alternative investments, and other real-world assets. They discuss how tokenization can remove financial intermediaries, why mortgages are among the hardest assets to bring on-chain, and Nuva's vision for making traditionally inaccessible investments available through blockchain-based vaults.

In this episode of The Smart Economy Podcast, host Dylan Grabowski is joined by OP Labs Chief Scientist Karl Floersch to discuss the evolution of Ethereum scaling and why OP Labs is increasingly focused on bringing institutions on-chain. They explore the origins of optimistic rollups, the shift toward customizable and sovereign blockchains, the need for interoperability between potentially millions of chains, and how Ethereum and the OP Stack are preparing for the long-term challenge of quantum computing.

In this episode of The Smart Economy Podcast, host Dylan Grabowski is joined by Reserve co-founder Nevin Freeman to discuss the project's long-term goal of creating an asset-backed currency capable of preserving purchasing power. They explore Bitcoin's evolution as a store of value, Reserve's experience bringing stablecoins to Venezuela, the potential for tokenized real-world assets to expand DeFi, and the regulatory barriers standing between today's financial system and globally accessible on-chain markets.

Maciej Cepnik, chief marketing officer at Aureo, joins The Smart Economy Podcast to discuss what it takes to build Bitcoin financial infrastructure in Mexico. Cepnik explains how Aureo grew from a tool its founders built to spend their own Bitcoin into a non-custodial brokerage, why navigating Mexico's financial system can become a competitive advantage, and why the company's next opportunity may lie in serving businesses and larger Bitcoin holders.

In this episode of The Smart Economy Podcast, host Dylan Grabowski sits down with Al Qureshi, CEO and co-founder of Black Lake Digital Markets, to discuss how blockchain infrastructure could modernize mortgage capital markets. They explore the role of tokenization, zero-knowledge proofs, and asset verification in improving transparency, reducing costs, and creating new opportunities for institutional finance while connecting traditional capital markets with blockchain networks.

Andrés Salcedo, head of business development at Etherfuse, joins The Smart Economy Podcast to explore how tokenized sovereign debt is expanding access to financial services across Latin America and beyond. Drawing from firsthand experience living through Venezuela's hyperinflation, Salcedo explains why stablecoins became a necessity, how blockchain is modernizing cross-border finance, and why yield-bearing stable assets may reshape the future of payments, savings, and financial infrastructure.

Christian St. Louis, partner at Ethereal Ventures, joins The Smart Economy Podcast to discuss venture capital, crypto startup investing, AI-driven entrepreneurship, and the long-term future of blockchain adoption. St. Louis shares insights from evaluating hundreds of founders, explains why conviction and creativity matter more than ever in an AI-powered world, and explores how stablecoins, agentic commerce, and real-world adoption are quietly reshaping the crypto industry.

Anndy Lian, author of Web4: The Age of Autonomous Intelligence, joins The Smart Economy Podcast to discuss the convergence of AI and blockchain, why he believes Web3 never fully delivered on decentralization, and how autonomous AI systems could reshape digital ownership, governance, and online coordination. Lian shares insights from more than a decade in crypto, his work advising governments worldwide, and his vision for a more decentralized and intelligent internet.

Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR Protocol, joins The Smart Economy Podcast to discuss AI operating systems, agent harnesses, chain abstraction, and the growing role of AI agents in blockchain ecosystems. Polosukhin explains how NEAR’s original vision emerged from AI infrastructure challenges, why AI harnesses are evolving into operating systems, and how NEAR Intents enables users and agents to interact across blockchains without dealing with backend complexity. The conversation also explores AI security, formal verification, confidential inference, and why blockchain infrastructure may increasingly operate behind the scenes as AI agents become primary users.