Episode 136 – Alex Masmej (Founder of Drakula): Is Drakula the Onchain TikTok??

Jasper Zhang is CEO and Co-founder of Hyperbolic. Jasper completed his PhD in mathematics at UC Berkeley in just two years, making him the fastest person to finish a PhD in Berkeley's history. He's won multiple gold medals in international math competitions and previously worked at Citadel Securities and Ava Labs. Today, he's building what he calls an "open-access AI cloud" through Hyperbolic, which aims to democratize access to AI computing resources. -- Follow Jasper on X: @zjasper666 Follow Hyperbolic on X: @hyperbolic_labs --   Follow us on the socials:   X: @showcrypto TikTok: @showmethecrypto Instagram: @showmethecryptopodcast --   *Any financial compensation we receive will always be clearly identified as an advertisement or sponsored content. We don't accept payment to feature guests, and we don't accept payment to influence the coins/projects we discuss on Show Me The Crypto. Any ads will be clearly identified during the show, and information on our partners will be featured in the show notes.

Karel Vuong is Co-Founder of Treasure, which is striving to build the decentralized Nintendo. Karel is a lifelong gamer whose passion blossomed while waiting for games to download on LimeWire in the early days of dial-up internet. With an eagerness to build, Karel dropped out in his third year of Computer Science at the University of Toronto. His early love for gaming, eagerness to build and background in venture capital has led him to the forefront of Web3 gaming innovation. Treasure’s goal is to bring games and IP born out of Web3 into the mainstream. -- Follow Karel on X: @karelvuong Follow Treasure on X: @Treasure_DAO --   Follow us on the socials:   X: @showcrypto TikTok: @showmethecrypto Instagram: @showmethecryptopodcast --   *Any financial compensation we receive will always be clearly identified as an advertisement or sponsored content. We don't accept payment to feature guests, and we don't accept payment to influence the coins/projects we discuss on Show Me The Crypto. Any ads will be clearly identified during the show, and information on our partners will be featured in the show notes.

Vugar Usi Zade is Chief Operating Officer at Bitget. Prior to joining Bitget, Vugar held senior positions at notable companies such as Facebook, Carlsberg, Sony and BeInCrypto. With 25 million registered users, Bitget empowers the future of finance by ensuring secure, efficient and smart digital transactions. -- Follow Vugar on X: @usithetalk Follow Bitget on X: @bitgetglobal --   Follow us on the socials:   X: @showcrypto TikTok: @showmethecrypto Instagram: @showmethecryptopodcast --   *Any financial compensation we receive will always be clearly identified as an advertisement or sponsored content. We don't accept payment to feature guests, and we don't accept payment to influence the coins/projects we discuss on Show Me The Crypto. Any ads will be clearly identified during the show, and information on our partners will be featured in the show notes.

Matt Katz is CEO and Co-Founder of Caldera. Matt is a self-proclaimed “Crypto OG without the net worth to show for it.” Perhaps that has to do with the fact he discovered Bitcoin at the age of 12, while in Middle School. Matt’s interest in technology led him to study Computer Science at Stanford before he dropped out to Co-Found Caldera. Caldera is a rollup deployment platform that allows developers to launch high performance, customizable, application-specific rollups. -- Follow Caldera on X: @Calderaxyz --   Follow us on the socials:   X: @showcrypto TikTok: @showmethecrypto Instagram: @showmethecryptopodcast --   *Any financial compensation we receive will always be clearly identified as an advertisement or sponsored content. We don't accept payment to feature guests, and we don't accept payment to influence the coins/projects we discuss on Show Me The Crypto. Any ads will be clearly identified during the show, and information on our partners will be featured in the show notes.

Dr. Steven Waterhouse (aka Seven) is Co-Founder and CEO of Orchid Labs. With multiple Stevens on the team in Orchid’s early days, Steven dropped the “t” and the nickname “Seven” was born. Beyond being a strong advocate for internet privacy and decentralization, Seven has been involved in the crypto scene since 2013. Orchid’s vision is to enable secure access to the internet for everyone, everywhere. -- Follow Seven on X: @deseventral Follow Orchid on X: @OrchidProtocol --   Follow us on the socials:   X: @showcrypto TikTok: @showmethecrypto Instagram: @showmethecryptopodcast --   *Any financial compensation we receive will always be clearly identified as an advertisement or sponsored content. We don't accept payment to feature guests, and we don't accept payment to influence the coins/projects we discuss on Show Me The Crypto. Any ads will be clearly identified during the show, and information on our partners will be featured in the show notes.

Rachel Lin is Co-Founder and CEO of SynFutures. With a career that has spanned from traditional finance to Fintech to CeFi to DeFi, Rachel began her journey with Deutsche Bank’s global markets division, specializing in derivatives. In 2020, Rachel co-founded SynFutures, which is a decentralized platform that aims to make crypto derivatives more accessible by allowing permissionless listing and trading of futures contracts on any assets. -- Follow Rachel on Twitter: @RachelLin_SF Follow SynFutures on Twitter: @SynFuturesDefi --   Follow us on the socials:   Twitter/X: @showcrypto TikTok: @showmethecrypto Instagram: @showmethecryptopodcast --   *Any financial compensation we receive will always be clearly identified as an advertisement or sponsored content. We don't accept payment to feature guests, and we don't accept payment to influence the coins/projects we discuss on Show Me The Crypto. Any ads will be clearly identified during the show, and information on our partners will be featured in the show notes.

Returning guest Alex Masmej was the first person to tokenize himself in 2020 (with the $ALEX token). He then launched Showtime in 2021, which was a social platform for displaying NFTs. If Showtime was the Instagram for NFTs, Alex’s current focus is building the TikTok for onchain social, which is a platform that goes by the name of Drakula. -- Follow Alex on Twitter: @AlexMasmej Follow Alex on Drakula: @alexmasmej.eth --   Follow us on the socials:   Twitter/X: @showcrypto TikTok: @showmethecrypto Instagram: @showmethecryptopodcast   --   *Any financial compensation we receive will always be clearly identified as an advertisement or sponsored content. We don't accept payment to feature guests, and we don't accept payment to influence the coins/projects we discuss on Show Me The Crypto. Any ads will be clearly identified during the show, and information on our partners will be featured in the show notes.

Returning guest Cooper Turley is the founder of Coop records, which is a hybrid between a Web3 venture fund, a record label and an incubator. Cooper is focused on revolutionizing the music industry by bringing artists onchain and empowering them to keep control and ownership of their work. His bio currently reads: onchain is the new online. -- This episode of Show Me The Crypto is brought to you by Ballet: Making Crypto Easy. Check out Ballet's REAL Series cold storage: https://bit.ly/3KNNX5G Check out Ballet's Physical Bitcoin: https://bitcoin.ballet.com/?utm_source=showmethecryptopodcast&utm_campaign=kol -- Follow Cooper on Twitter: @Cooopahtroopa Follow Cooper on Warpcast: @coopahtroopa.eth --   Follow us on the socials:   Twitter/X: @showcrypto TikTok: @showmethecrypto Instagram: @showmethecryptopodcast   --   *Any financial compensation we receive will always be clearly identified as an advertisement or sponsored content. We don't accept payment to feature guests, and we don't accept payment to influence the coins/projects we discuss on Show Me The Crypto. Any ads will be clearly identified during the show, and information on our partners will be featured in the show notes.

Sean Ren is CEO and Co-Founder of Sahara AI. An Associate Professor at USC’s Computer Science Department, Sean has received several awards recognizing his research and innovation in the AI space, including Samsung AI Researcher of the Year, MIT TR Innovators Under 35 and Forbes Asia 30 Under 30. Sahara is a decentralized AI network that unlocks fair and universal success to global knowledge capital. -- Follow Sean on Twitter: @xiangrenNLP Follow Sahara AI on Twitter: @SaharaLabsAI --   Follow us on the socials:   Twitter/X: @showcrypto TikTok: @showmethecrypto Instagram: @showmethecryptopodcast   --   *Any financial compensation we receive will always be clearly identified as an advertisement or sponsored content. We don't accept payment to feature guests, and we don't accept payment to influence the coins/projects we discuss on Show Me The Crypto. Any ads will be clearly identified during the show, and information on our partners will be featured in the show notes.

Tess Rinearson is Head of Emerging Products with OP Labs. Tess got into crypto backwards. While most start as hobbyists before migrating their careers to the space, Tess made crypto her career straight away by landing a job with a Bitcoin API company called Chain in 2015. Tess went on to work with Interstellar, Cosmos and lead Twitter’s Crypto team before joining OP Labs in February 2023. Optimism is a Collective of companies, communities and citizens working together to reward public goods and build a sustainable future for Ethereum. -- Follow Tess on Twitter: @_tessr Follow OP Labs on Twitter: @OPLabsPBC --   Follow us on the socials:   Twitter/X: @showcrypto TikTok: @showmethecrypto Instagram: @showmethecryptopodcast   --   *Any financial compensation we receive will always be clearly identified as an advertisement or sponsored content. We don't accept payment to feature guests, and we don't accept payment to influence the coins/projects we discuss on Show Me The Crypto. Any ads will be clearly identified during the show, and information on our partners will be featured in the show notes.