WAGMI Ventures Podcast

Alex Adelman is the Founder & CEO @ Lolli (https://www.lolli.com). Backed by WAGMI Ventures, Founders Fund, Bain Capital Ventures, Alexis Ohanian/776, Mr. Beast’s Night Ventures, & more, Lolli enables shoppers to get up to 30% back in cash or bitcoin across 25,000+ top stores with the free Lolli browser extension & mobile app. With partners like Nike, Chewy, Microsoft, Sephora, & Lowe’s, Lolli is building the category-defining company for bitcoin rewards. In this episode we talk about how to get partnerships right (in such a partnership-driven model), earliest challenges and earliest surprises that shaped the DNA of Lolli, how to avoid common mistakes of building in crypto (hint: survive!), what crypto’s getting right (and wrong) in 2024, and much more.

Clarisse Hagège is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Dfns (https://www.dfns.co). Backed by Coinbase, 6MV, Figment, & more, Dfns is the WaaS (wallets-as-a-service) platform chosen by leading organizations to streamline digital asset operations and onboard users into crypto, safely. With >1M wallets created, 0 wallets hacked,  and >$500M transactions secured, Dfns makes it easy to deploy feature-rich web3 wallets directly into your stack. In this episode we talk about how Dfns thinks about getting security right, what’s most exciting about their current trajectory, how the space has changed since Clarisse’s beginnings in web3, best advice for web3 founders, & much more.Recorded Monday April 1, 2024.

Adeniyi Abiodun is the Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer @ Mysten Labs (https://mystenlabs.com). Backed by a16z Crypto, Jump Capital, Binance Labs, Electric Capital, & more, Mysten Labs is all about building critical infrastructure to enable a more decentralized internet. They’re perhaps best known as the creators of Sui, a decentralized, proof of stake blockchain with horizontally scalable throughput and storage. In this episode we discuss Adeniyi’s crypto journey (with a focus on the jump from Meta to creating Mysten Labs), what Mysten Labs gets uniquely right as a team, early challenges (and solves) as well as exciting possibilities for the future, thoughts on the current moment in crypto (from a technology and maturation perspective), & much more.Recorded Thursday March 28, 2024.

Ben James is the Founder @ Atlas (https://atlas.design). Backed by WAGMI Ventures, Square Enix, a16z Scout Fund, & Collab+Currency, Atlas’ vision is to become the market leader of 3D Generative AI for the next generation of immersive virtual worlds across gaming, web3, and entertainment. In this episode we talk about how virtual world design currently takes place, how what Atlas is building is such a stepwise change from status quo, what Atlas enables (now and in the future), how to build the right team to create something so remarkable, thoughts on the future of generative AI writ large, & much more.Recorded Wednesday March 27, 2024.

Chris Were is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Verida (https://www.verida.io). Backed by Launchub, Gate Labs, Qwerty Fund, & more, Verida is creating a new era of hyper-personalization, where user data is privately and consensually used to create new products and services. In this episode we discuss what becomes possible as Verida scales, thoughts on self-sovereign identity, Verida’s experience launching the first mobile crypto wallet supporting zero-knowledge credentials issued through Polygon ID, & much more.Recorded Monday March 25, 2024.

Mike Hanono is the Founder & CEO @ Talus (https://twitter.com/TalusNetwork). Backed by WAGMI Ventures, Polychain, dao5, & more, Talus is building at the intersection of crypto & AI. In this episode we discuss the current state of AI and blockchain technology, smart agents (and the corresponding usefulness of blockchains), Mike’s perspective on what wastes time during the early stages of a startup, what future possible trajectories could look like, & much more.Recorded Thursday March 7, 2024.

Michael Shaulov is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Fireblocks (https://www.fireblocks.com). Backed by Sequoia Capital, Coatue, Paradigm, & more, Fireblocks is a digital asset infrastructure provider, with thousands of crypto businesses building on top of its products, 170M+ wallets created, $4T+ transactions secured. In this episode we discuss the Michael’s journey to creating Fireblocks, a unified view of the various products and services Fireblocks provides, how Fireblocks navigated the bear market, a deep-dive on stablecoins (present, future), how the future of crypto might look (from Michael’s vantage point), best advice for new crypto founders, & much more.Recorded Tuesday March 5, 2024.

Jess Houlgrave is the CEO @ WalletConnect (https://walletconnect.com). Backed by Union Square Ventures, 1kx, & more, WalletConnect gives developers the tools to build secure, interactive, and powerful experiences that users everywhere can enjoy. In this episode we discuss Jess’ remarkable journey to the CEO role, most exciting possibilities at WalletConnect, what crypto’s getting right (and wrong) in 2024, what mistakes she most often sees from others building similar products, & much more.Recorded Monday March 4, 2024.

David Furlong is the Founder @ Openframes (https://www.modprotocol.org). Backed by a16z Startup School & Dan Romero, Openframes is enabling developers to build mini-apps that are open, interoperable, and permissionless, now available for Farcaster. In this episode we discuss the nature of pivoting (what makes pivot good vs. bad), how to adapt in the fast-moving world of blockchain technology, why what’s happening within decentralized social matters so much, how to stick with your principles (in an especially tricky field to do so), & much more.Recorded Friday March 1, 2024.

Jay Kurahashi-Sofue is the VP Marketing @ Ava Labs (https://www.avalabs.org). Backed by Polychain Capital, a16z, & more, Ava Labs is the creator of Avalanche, the fastest smart contracts platform in the blockchain industry, as measured by time-to-finality. Avalanche is blazingly fast, low cost, and eco-friendly. In this episode we discuss Jay’s advice on biggest marketing pitfalls to avoid for protocols, what it will take for crypto to move past the bad actors into new frontiers, what Ava Labs is focused on right now, & much more.Recorded Tuesday February 27, 2024.