The DCo Podcast

You can borrow against most of the valuable assets - land, house, factory, and even art. But you still can't easily get a loan against GPUs, one of the most valuable assets on earth right now.David Choi, co-founder of USDai (Permian Labs), is building the market that fixes that. He lends against the chip rather than the company, and uses crypto rails to turn that debt into a tradeable instrument instantly, instead of over the three years traditional securitisation takes. We get into why banks won't finance chips, why GPUs beat every other asset they tested, what stops a borrower from running off with the hardware, and why GPU-backed debt eventually replaces all credit in an AI-driven economy. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.decentralised.co

Alex Gluchowski, CEO of Matter Labs, built ZKSync as an L2 scaling project. When a dozen other L2s converged on doing the same thing, he pivoted to a harder problem: getting banks on-chain.In this conversation, we get into what actually secures a blockchain (hint: not the validators) and how zero-knowledge proofs allow institutions to maintain privacy without sacrificing enforcement guarantees. We also cover token design, governance, and why Alex thinks institutions are much closer to production than the market realises. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.decentralised.co

Brett Harrison helped scale FTX US before founding Architect and its exchange AX. AX is the first regulated centralised exchange for perpetual futures on traditional assets like gold, currencies, single stocks, and GPU compute, all settled on crypto rails. We talk about why perpetuals never took off in traditional finance, the innovator's dilemma facing CME, and how crypto infrastructure is quietly reshaping the $15T/day futures market. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.decentralised.co

In this episode, LI.FI Founder and CEO Philipp Zentner joins Saurabh to unpack where crypto is headed as tokenised assets proliferate across chains, standards, compliance rails and execution venues. They talk about why fragmentation is the default, why distribution is the hard part of tokenisation, and how LI.FI is building the orchestration layer that makes “asset A to asset B in one click” possible.We also go deeper into how LI.FI evolved from aggregation into a broader coordination layer, including its multi-chain transaction rail, a domain-specific execution layer (Composer), and an open solver marketplace for intents. If the next era of crypto looks like more rails, more standards, and more asset representations, the winners may be the systems that can route reliably across all of it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.decentralised.co

Timothy Stebbing is CTO of House of Doge and Director at the Dogecoin Foundation. He spent 25 years in open source development before joining Dogecoin in 2021.In this episode, we discuss:• Why Timothy tells his friends and family to stay away from crypto• How 2% inflation was accidentally good design• Why Bitcoin lost the payments battle• The growth from five developers to over a hundred• Managing a community of memers and institutional investors• What Dogecoin is actually building This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.decentralised.co

AI is shifting from chat interfaces to agents that act, earn, and participate in real economic activity. Mike Hanono, CEO of Talus Network, explains how this agentic economy takes shape and why it needs crypto rails. We explore idol.fun as the first live example of agents competing and generating value. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.decentralised.co

Eric Saraniecki has spent the past decade building the infrastructure that large financial institutions need to participate in crypto. As the Co-Founder and Head of Product at Digital Asset and a core builder behind Canton Network, Eric has a perspective that few operators in this industry share. He works directly with banks, asset managers, and market operators on the problems that define institutional adoption. This conversation outlines what those institutions actually require and why most blockchain systems were not designed for their needs. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.decentralised.co

The conversation with Justin Waldron, co-founder of Zynga and now founder of Open Game Protocol, is a masterclass in how distribution models evolve in games and how Web3 could power the next one. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.decentralised.co

AI agents are cheap to launch and impossible to trust. This episode is for people building and backing growth-stage crypto startups: how do you pick between thousands of on-chain “trading bots,” research assistants, and execution agents when most collapse in live conditions? Andrew Hill, CEO of Recall, lays out how Recall is trying to become crypto’s neutral trust layer for agents with live competitions, skill markets, and a ranking system you can actually underwrite.Key Moments00:00:00 - Introduction to Recall00:01:26 - Introduction to Andrew Hill and Recall00:01:45 - The Need for a Curation Layer for AI Models00:03:08 - Recall's Vision and Functioning00:05:26 - The Role of Competitions in Recall00:10:45 - The Future of Recall and AI Agents00:15:26 - Demand for Agentic Systems in Trading00:17:47 - The Evolution of AI Agents and Their Capabilities00:20:17 - The Growing Role of AI Agents in Crypto Trading00:26:51 - The Approach to Evaluating Subjective Skills00:28:29 - The Behavior of AI Models00:32:45 - The Role of Curators and Boosters in Recall00:36:11 - The Future of AI Evaluation and Alignment00:41:05 - The Role of Recall's Token in the AI Marketplace00:43:38 - Revenue Lines for Recall00:45:41 - The Role of Human Judges in Recall00:48:11 - Challenges for Agent Builders and Future Prospects00:49:08 - Potential Risks and Fears for Recall00:49:20 - The Battle of Decentralized vs Centralized Intelligence00:50:43 - The Future of AI Agents and Complex Tasks00:51:19 - The Threat of a Single, All-Powerful Agent00:52:13 - Recall's Achievements and What to Look Forward To This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.decentralised.co

In this episode, Luca Netz shares how he took a failing NFT collection and turned it into one of the fastest-growing Web3 brands. We dive into his three-pillar model of ecosystem, attention, and revenue; and explore how Pudgy has sold over 1.5M toys through Walmart and Target, signed 45+ licensing deals, and built a business where culture and cash flow compound.In the episode, talk about: • How 80% of Pudgy’s revenue comes from licensing (45+ active deals) • Why arcade machines, toys, and games beat token drops in driving brand value • What “tokenized culture” actually means—and how it becomes a moat • The future of consumer crypto and Luca’s bet on Abstract’s Portal • Why the next big crypto success might not feel like crypto at all • How to fix crypto’s broken consumer journey • How to turn IP into retail + social currency without losing the core community. Chapters 0:00 – Intro 2:45 – Tokenising Culture, Memes & Influence 10:48 - The role of speculation 15:30 – The Three Pillars of Crypto Value: Ecosystem, Attention & Revenue 21:55 – The Pudgy Playbook: Community, Marketing & $50M Revenue 27:56 – What Luca knew when he bid $2.5 million on Pudgy IP 30:45 – What's Broken in Consumer Crypto 38:20 – Fixing Onboarding: Abstract Portal & The Future of Adoption 49:43 – Building for Gen Z & Gen Alpha 51:10 – Lessons from $PENGU Airdrop 54:09 – Is Token a Product? If you want to know more about Luca, we recently published a story on him here — https://www.thetokendispatch.com/p/the-luca-netz-story 👥 Guest: Luca Netz – CEO at Pudgy Penguins and Igloo Twitter: https://x.com/LucaNetz 🎙️ Host: Saurabh Deshpande – DCo Podcast Twitter: https://x.com/desh_saurabh 📬 Stay Updated: Subscribe to DCo Newsletter → https://www.decentralised.co/subscribe Follow DCo on Twitter → https://x.com/Decentralisedco This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.decentralised.co