Building the Future of On-Chain Governance, with Yitong Zhang (Agora)

Yitong Zhang is CEO and Co-Founder of Agora (https://www.agora.xyz). Backed by Haun Ventures, Coinbase Ventures and Consensys Ventures, among others, Agora is a cross-chain platform that offers a new standard of on-chain governance for protocols. Yitong discusses how Agora is simplifying on-chain governance and developing tooling for the future state of token-backed voting and collective governance.

Sergey Gorbunov is CEO and Co-Founder of Axelar Network (https://www.axelar.network). Axelar is a programmable interoperability platform that unifies web3 across chains. Sergey joined us to chat about his work building Axelar, solving blockchain interoperability and the security challenges along the way, and insights into shaping the future of open interoperability.

Matt Katz is CEO and Co-Founder of Caldera (http://caldera.xyz). Caldera specializes in building high-performance, customizable, and application-specific layer-two and layer-three blockchains. In this episode, Matt shares his thoughts on the modular blockchain ecosystem, how Caldera is enabling the growth and development of modular blockchains, and the Metalayer: Caldera's innovative interoperability ecosystem.

Fisher Mingchao Yu is Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Babylon Labs (http://babylonchain.io). Babylon is an innovative project designed to improve the security of Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchains by enabling Bitcoin holders to earn yield by putting their idle Bitcoins to work to bolster the economic security of Proof-of-Stake (PoS) chains and dApps. In this episode, we chat with Fisher as he breaks down in systematic detail, the unique challenges of building staking infrastructure on the Bitcoin blockchain, Babylon's trustless and decentralized approach to enabling the scaling of bitcoin to secure PoS chains and dApps, and the innovation journey of the protocol.

Jason Li is Co-Founder of Solayer. Backed by Polychain Capital, Hack VC, Binance Labs, Big Brain Holdings, ABCDE and others, Solayer is the restaking protocol on Solana, securing both endogenous AVS (dApps) through stake-weighted quality of service and exogenous AVS via Solana-based POS primitives. In this episode, Jason unpacks why (re)staking is one of the strongest narratives in crypto today, it's importance to the development of crypto, and how Solayer is leveraging the economic principles of staking with its unique innovative network bandwidth optimization approach, and how it can extend security beyond Solana.

Stephen McKeon is the Co-Founder & Managing Partner @ Collab+Currency (https://www.collabcurrency.com). Collab+Currency is a crypto-focused venture firm and one of the most prolific venture investors in Web3. Their investments in companies, DAO’s, and protocols include AllianceDAO, Arbitrum, Polygon, Seed Club, Sound.xyz, Superrare, & more. In this episode we discuss Collab+Currency’s latest thesis (including thoughts on AI/Crypto intersection), his most accurate predictions and his past narrative misses, founder advice (from the other side of the table) for surviving and thriving in crypto, & much more.Recorded Thursday June 13, 2024.

Jason Zhao is the Co-Founder & Head of Product @ Story Protocol. Backed by a16z crypto, Endeavor, Hashed, Samsung Next, dao5, Insignia Venture Partners, Alliance DAO, Balaji Srinivasan, and more. Story Protocol is building the Programmable IP layer that is democratizing IP creation through a global and extensible IP repository.  In this episode, Jason discusses his background and journey into Crypto, his vision for what Story Protocol is creating, challenges the team has faced, and the opportunities that excite him moving forward.

MacBrennan Peet is the Co-Founder @ marginfi. Backed by Multicoin, Pantera, Sino Global Capital, & Solana Ventures, marginfi is a decentralized lending and borrowing protocol on Solana. In this episode we discuss the latest leadership adjustment at marginfi, all the interesting work they’re shipping over the coming year (and what it means for the ecosystem), challenges (from past, in present) and how their team thinks about solving those obstacles, and much more.Recorded Monday April 29, 2024.

Scott Dykstra is the Co-Founder & CTO @ Space and Time (https://www.spaceandtime.io). Backed by M12, Framework, & more, Space and Time is the first decentralized data warehouse that delivers sub-second ZK proofs against onchain and offchain data to power the future of AI x blockchain. In this episode we talk about why trust in analytics through cryptographic verification matters, possible surprises or future trajectories for the intersection of AI x crypto, insights from his founder journey that may be useful for new founders in the space, & much more.Recorded Wednesday April 24, 2024.

Alex Cort is the Co-Founder @ Superform (https://www.superform.xyz). Backed by Polychain, Maven 11 Capital, CMT Digital, & more, Superform is a universal yield marketplace—enabling users to access any vault, on any chain, using any token, as well as distribute your vaults instantly across chains. In this episode we chat through exciting trajectories for what they’re building (and expected second-order effects), common failure modes for building in crypto, how crypto’s changed since Alex’s beginnings in the space, & much more.Recorded Thursday April 11, 2024.