Bootstrapped to 320K Users, ZERO Funding: Agnese Jaunošāne (COO & Co-Founder, Ajelix) on Open-Source AI's Power Move

What if the biggest unlock in crypto isn't moving money faster — it's not having to move it at all? Ethan Buchman, co-founder of Cosmos, CEO of Informal Systems, and founder of Cycles, sits down with Alex Kehaya to explain why 16th-century bankers may have understood finance better than we do today — and how he's bringing their playbook on-chain.From medieval merchant credit networks to a decentralized clearing protocol built for modern crypto market makers, this conversation goes deep into the history of money, why platforms are "dead" in this cycle, and what real product-market fit looks like in 2026.In this episode:🏛️ A crash course in medieval banking — how Renaissance-era bankers cleared massive trade volumes using almost no money at all⚖️ What "balancing the trade graph" means and why it's the missing piece of modern crypto finance🔗 How Cycles nets out debts on-chain, automatically, without moving funds between parties🏦 Why Cycles is migrating from Cosmos/Neutron to Arc (Circle's new chain) and what that partnership means💸 Cycles' real-world use case: crypto market makers, OTC desks, and liquidity providers settling millions daily with zero clearinghouse📉 Ethan's honest take on the current market, the "infrastructure hangover" in crypto, and why builders need to focus on real users now🚀 Cycles Pay is live in the App Store today — private, on-chain payments and invoicing🔗 Links mentioned:Cycles: https://cycles.money/Cycles on X: https://x.com/cyclesmoneyEthan Buchman on X: https://x.com/buchmansterEthan Buchman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethan-buchman-10b34944/The Index Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@theindexpodcastShow LinksThe Index X ChannelYouTube

He almost got scammed by a fake "producer" minutes before this interview even started. Then he told us why he wakes up at 5am hearing phantom AI music. Matt Van Horn, Lyft co-founder and now Founder & CEO of Lyft, has built an army of coding agents that ship dozens of open source PRs a day, and on this episode of The Index he breaks down exactly how.What we cover:🕵️ The wild near-scam that almost derailed this episode, plus the one phrase that reliably outs North Korean hackers on a call 🤖 "AI psychosis": why Matt wakes up in the middle of the night just to check if his agents succeeded overnight ⛷️ How he built the viral "Last 30 Days" skill in a single 8 hour session, on a ski mountain, using Claude Code 📈 Going from zero coding background to a top 10 human contributor on major open source repos 🚫 Getting banned from open source projects for shipping too many AI generated PRs 🧠 "Compound engineering," and why Matt calls it the best designed AI skill he's ever seen 🔮 His take on open vs. closed models, and why every company needs to think about owning its own intelligence stack 🥷 The private, self-learning system behind his autonomous open source engine (the one he refuses to release)The Index is part of the builder ecosystem spanning Solana, Web3, and AI, spotlighting the founders shaping what's next. If you care about where crypto, AI agents, and startups collide, this is your show.Connect with Matt Van Horn: X: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattvanhorn/Lyft: Website: https://www.lyft.com/ X: https://x.com/Lyft The Index Podcast: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theindexpodcastShow LinksThe Index X ChannelYouTube

Stablecoins on Solana just hit $15B, and Eco Co-Founder & CEO Ryne Saxe says that number is going to look laughably small in five years. On this episode of The Index Podcast, Ryne breaks down why Solana pulled ahead in the stablecoin race, why Visa and Mastercard are quietly rebuilding their entire plumbing around digital dollars, and how Eco is building the routing layer that ties every chain and every stablecoin together.If you've ever had USDC, USDT, USDG, and a few more scattered across five wallets and had no idea how to move them, this one's for you.In this episode:⚡ Why Solana is winning the stablecoin race: chain performance, a laser-focused ecosystem strategy, and the RWA/tokenization wave building on top of it📈 Ryne's bold call: Solana's on-chain stablecoin supply could 10x, maybe 100x, over the next 3-5 years💳 Why Visa and Mastercard adopting stablecoin settlement is a bigger signal than most people realize🔧 Inside Eco: how stablecoin routing and orchestration solves the "which wallet, which chain, which coin" mess for good🎯 The founder story: from a consumer stablecoin banking app, through the post-FTX regulatory squeeze, to building infrastructure that scales🤝 Ryne calls his shot: why a platform like Fireblocks is a perfect next partner for Eco🔮 Eco's 12-month goal: becoming the stablecoin layer you route through without even thinking about itMore from The Index Podcast: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theindexpodcastFollow Ryne Saxe: X (Twitter): https://x.com/rynesaxe LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rtsaxe/Follow Eco: Website: https://eco.com/ X (Twitter): https://x.com/eco Unleash the Stables: https://www.unleashthestables.com/Show LinksThe Index X ChannelYouTube

He bought her sick cat's medicine with USDT because no bank or pharmacy would touch it. That same "get it done, on-chain" energy is now powering Rosentica, an original multimedia IP turning old, retired trading cards into a full battle economy on Solana. In this episode, Natsuki, Founder & Executive Producer of Rosentica, breaks down how their game One Arena pulled in $3.3M in volume and $1.8M in revenue in just six weeks by turning pack ripping itself into the game.🎮 What we cover:🃏 How One Arena turns "ripping packs" into a real PvP game: penalty shootouts, battle royales, and 1v1 duels 💥 Giving retired, "dead" trading cards a second life as playable, tokenized RWAs 💰 2% cashback on every gacha pull via Arena Silver, arguably the best EV on the market right now 📈 The numbers behind 6 weeks of One Arena: $3.3M in volume, $1.8M in revenue 🌍 Building Rosentica from scratch: manga, music, visual novels, and games as one connected universe ✍️ Getting published on Shonen Jump next to One Piece, Naruto, and Dragon Ball ⚡ Why Solana (and only Solana) made sense: Colosseum, Superteam, and an ecosystem that actually shows up for builders 🐱 The full story of how a sick cat led Natsuki straight into crypto 🚀 Rosentica's 2 to 3 year vision: becoming the Genshin Impact of trading card games 🔮 Why RWAs and on-chain collectibles are enjoyment first, not just speculation🔗 Links: Watch more episodes of The Index: https://www.youtube.com/@theindexpodcast Rosentica website: https://rosentica.jp/ Rosentica on X: https://x.com/Rosentica Natsuki on X: https://x.com/TabinekoKIKI All Rosentica content (manga, music, visual novels): https://bio.to/rosenticaShow LinksThe Index X ChannelYouTube

Brazil banned crypto players from moving big money, so this founder got a bank license instead. Now Trace Finance processes over $10B in cross-border volume and powers the top 4 global payment companies in Latin America.On this episode of The Index Podcast, Bernardo Brites, Co-Founder & CEO of Trace Finance, breaks down how stablecoins plus real bank infrastructure (not stablecoins alone) are quietly becoming the backbone of global money movement, and why the US dollar's dominance might depend on it.🎯 What we cover:💰 Trace Finance's $32M Series A led by CoinFund, with Coinbase Ventures, Haun Ventures and Chainlink in the mix, and what it signals about institutional conviction in stablecoin infrastructure🏦 Why "stablecoins alone don't solve cross-border payments" and what regulated bank rails add that pure crypto rails can't🇧🇷 How Brazil's PIX system works, why it's free and instant 24/7, and why it still stops dead at the border📜 Brazil's new rule classifying cross-border virtual asset flows as FX operations, and why that's a massive tailwind for licensed players like Trace🇺🇸 The GENIUS Act, the CLARITY Act, and Bernardo's thesis that USD stablecoins are the reason the dollar's global dominance isn't fading🌎 Why Brazil was "brutality mode" for building payment rails, and why the US, Hong Kong and Singapore are next📉 The biggest fumble: building a Silicon Valley Bank competitor weeks before SVB actually collapsed🔮 Where Trace Finance is headed in the next 2 years, and why enterprises like Amazon and global PSPs are choosing bank-grade stablecoin infrastructure over building it themselves🔗 Links: The Index Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@theindexpodcast Trace Finance website: https://tracefinance.com/ Trace Finance on X: https://x.com/tracefinance Trace Finance on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tracefinance/ Bernardo Brites on X: https://x.com/bebrites Bernardo Brites on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bebrites/Show LinksThe Index X ChannelYouTube

She turned "everyone hates spreadsheets" into a 320,000-user, 150-country AI company, without taking a single dollar of outside funding. Agnese Jaunošāne, COO & Co-Founder of Ajelix, sits down to break down why she and her co-founder said no to VC money, bet big on open-source AI, and are now building their own hardware to own their entire intelligence stack. If you care about who actually controls AI, and why that question matters as much as any Web3 debate, this one's for you.What we get into:🚀 How Ajelix went viral before ChatGPT even launched, and built a 320K-user business from Latvia with zero outside capital🔓 Why open-source AI models are becoming a matter of data sovereignty, not just cost, especially for enterprises and governments in the EU🖥️ The real reason Ajelix invested in their own GPU hardware instead of renting compute forever💣 Is the "AI bubble" about to pop? Where the real risk actually sits (hint: it's not the apps)👻 Shadow AI: why ~79% of enterprise employees are already using AI your company can't see or audit🛡️ Building guardrails, audit trails, and permissions so AI agents can't quietly delete your production data🌍 What's next for Ajelix: model training, enterprise infrastructure, and the fight for European tech sovereignty🔗 Links: Ajelix website: https://ajelix.com/ Ajelix on X: https://x.com/Ajelix_AI Agnese on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/agnese-ajelix/ The Index Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theindexpodcastShow LinksThe Index X ChannelYouTube

Silver is the one commodity everyone forgot to tokenize. Mark Tormey, founder of Dominion, is fixing that: real, vaulted, audited silver, one token per ounce, live on Solana and built to plug straight into DeFi. This episode is a masterclass in what it actually takes to bring a physical asset on-chain without cutting corners on trust.What we cover🥈 What Dominion actually is: one token = one ounce of real silver, tracking spot price and fully DeFi composable on Solana🏦 Custody and proof of reserves: how NDV vaults, insures, and audits every bar in Fort Worth, Texas, with daily attestations and monthly physical audits📦 How physical redemption works: KYC/KYB, minimum redemption sizes, and shipping real silver to your door🔒 Why Dominion is over-collateralized, and how that math actually works🚀 Go-to-market: a 4x oversubscribed whitelist, lending and borrowing demand, and a covered call yield strategy in the works🕵️ The uncomfortable truth about RWA transparency: why some "proof of reserves" are just a jeweler's letter, and how Dominion is trying to set a higher bar🏆 Who's actually winning in RWAs right now (shoutout Backpack Securities and Paxos) and what Dominion can learn from them🌐 Why Solana, and it's not just about speed and fees: the community, the institutional push, and House of Sol in the UK💼 The team behind Dominion: 30 years of UK banking expertise, real mining and vault operators, and how Dominion is funding growth without a VC round (yet)Links🎙️ The Index Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theindexpodcast 🌐 Dominion website: https://dominionsilver.com/ 🐦 Dominion on X: https://x.com/Dominion_Market 🐦 Mark Tormey on X: https://x.com/scotsmancrypto 💼 Mark Tormey on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-tormey-19800395/Show LinksThe Index X ChannelYouTube

Prediction markets called the 2024 election before the media did. Now Nass Diba, ex-CPO of Rarible and alum of Aave and Dharma, is betting that permissionless, AI-powered prediction markets on Solana are the next big media format. On this episode of The Index Podcast, we get into why Worm just raised $4.5M, why leverage belongs in prediction markets, and how half a million users learned to trade with zero risk through the Worm Cup.What we cover:Why prediction markets are the "next era of media," and why the timing (AI plus info chaos) makes this the moment Why Solana and stablecoins are the only real infrastructure for fast, low-fee, signal-over-noise prediction markets The "invisible hand" approach to curation, letting liquidity decide which markets matter instead of an algorithm Why Worm built a 3-person design team from day one, bigger than most crypto startups, to make prediction markets feel like Instagram instead of a betting slip Leverage in prediction markets, and Nass's actual number for where it stops helping price discovery and starts becoming pure gambling The 3 ways Worm uses AI: market creation, automated resolution, and AI-driven market making Trustless resolution for untrustable events, and why letting market creators resolve their own markets works better than you'd think Inside the Worm Cup: how a free, points-based World Cup prediction game onboarded 500K+ users in 5 weeks Competing with Polymarket and Kalshi's massive war chests without spending a dollar on marketing How Worm is deploying its $4.5M pre-seed and what's next over the following 12 monthsGuest: Nass Diba, Founder & CEO of Worm Worm: https://worm.wtf/ Worm on X: https://x.com/wormwtf Nass on X: https://x.com/NassDibaShow LinksThe Index X ChannelYouTube

Sports cards just found their liquidity engine and it's built on Solana. This week on The Index, Alex sits down with Hadi, founder of Gacha Sports, the platform letting fans rip digital packs and pull real, graded sports cards live on-chain. From a childhood card-shop addiction to a fully bootstrapped platform built in 13 days, this is the RWA story crypto Twitter hasn't caught onto yet.In this episode:🃏 Why sports cards are the OG real-world asset and why Hadi bets they outgrow Pokémon 🎰 What a "gacha machine" actually is, and why ripping packs is more addictive than you'd think 💰 The 90% instant buyback model that crushes eBay's brutal fees 🏗️ Building Gacha Sports from idea to launch in just 13 days, fully bootstrapped, revenue from day one 🤝 The Collector Crypt partnership — how custody, vaulting, and trust work behind every pull 📈 Why Solana sought THEM out, and what that says about where RWAs are headed 🏦 What's next: a peer-to-peer marketplace and a first-of-its-kind card lending platform ⚽ How the World Cup and player narratives move card prices in real time 🚀 Hadi's thesis: a $15B market that could hit $100B+ as liquidity comes on-chain🔗 Links The Index Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@theindexpodcast Gacha Sports (website): https://www.gachasports.com/ Gacha Sports on X: https://x.com/gachasports Show LinksThe Index X ChannelYouTube

Most of the world cannot buy a single share of Nvidia. Brian Huang, co-founder and CEO of Glider, returns to The Index to explain how tokenized stocks change that, and why capital is quietly rotating out of crypto and into equities.Glider is a non-custodial platform for managing wealth on-chain. Brian breaks down the messy new landscape of on-chain stocks, who actually has the best execution, and whether AI can manage your money better than a human advisor.Links: Glider: https://glider.fi/ Glider on X: https://x.com/glider__ Brian Huang on X: https://x.com/BrianInCrypto Brian Huang on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-h-279a9ba1/ Show LinksThe Index X ChannelYouTube