I Pledge Allegiance Reverie

In this episode, we chat with Anand Gomes, founder of Paradigm and Paradex, two different crypto derivatives products. We begin with Anand’s journey as a derivatives trader, which led him to build Paradigm, an institutional block trading platform for crypto options. After the FTX crash, Anand was inspired to create a new decentralized exchange – Paradex.

We dive into the derivatives market exploring user categories, the popularity of perpetuals, market volatility, liquidations, and the role of convexity. We discuss Anand’s transition to building a decentralized exchange, and their decision-making process for launching on StarkEx. We also explore different bootstrapping mechanisms like user points, institutional liquidity, and long-tail markets.

In this episode, we chat with Cem Ozer, founder of Sovereign Labs. We begin with Cem’s personal journey in crypto, and how this experience led him to build Sovereign Labs.



We then discuss how developers evaluate the many permutations of rollups and blockchain frameworks available today, and where Sovereign Labs fits into this landscape. We dive into why Cem believes that the most successful projects will choose app-specific rollups and the challenges that have impeded broader adoption of appchains to date.



We also explore a few themes that are top of mind for many developers including the potential of proof aggregation systems to facilitate interoperability, and the state of the modular versus monolithic debate (please forgive our Start Wars reference).

In this episode, we chat with Jacob Arluck, head of strategy at Celestia Labs, and Andrew Huang, founder of Conduit. We cover a number of topics in the modular blockchain space, starting with the impact of DA solutions on the rollup landscape and the budding partnership between Conduit and Celestia, the leading RaaS and DA solutions in the market respectively.



With the recent implementation of EIP 4844 and a new DA solutions set to launch in the near future, we then put on our prediction hats with a discussion around the future of the DA market. In particular, we share opinions on what will ultimately drive purchasing decisions for developers, the economics of DA solutions, and the most likely end state market structure outcomes.



We also cover the critical role of RaaS providers in facilitating a rollup centric future, how RaaS solutions determine which frameworks to support, and the emerging ecosystem of Base L3’s.

In this episode, we chat with Emily and Alvin Hsia, co-founders of Shadow. We begin with their journey working on DeFi, MEV, an early idea to unify on-chain data, and their journey to building Shadow. They walk us through the challenges with events, their solution for developers, users, and data consumers, and other details on the product such as pricing.

We dig into the impact of shadow forks, ideas for broader adoption, and their goal for standardizing shadow events with ERC 7571. We also get a glimpse of what it’s like building a company as siblings, and where Shadow goes from here.

In this episode, we chat with Ido Ben-Natan and Raz Niv, co-founders of Blockaid, a crypto security firm. They share their journey from the Israeli Defence Force cybersecurity unit to launching Blockaid, discussing their product and the importance of protecting web3 customers.

Later, we dig into Blockaid's approach to a stealth launch, fostering a customer-first culture, and scaling the product in a fast-moving market. We also discuss the landscape of malicious actors in crypto and their never ending game of cat and mouse to chase them away.

In this episode, we chat with Michael Shaulov, co-founder of Fireblocks. Michael revisits with us the early days of building Fireblocks and finding product market fit by solving customer pain points. We chat through both strategic and tactical approaches to building a B2B product in crypto, exploring lessons learned on early customer relationships and market expansion.

We then discuss broader topics like decision-making in a growing business, the role of luck in success, cementing core principles for company culture and acquiring customers as an international founder.