Chain Reaction

Chain Reaction

There are constantly new tokens, DeFi projects, NFTs collections and DAOs being launched – but how can you make sense of everything going on in the crypto space? From the hype to the scams, TechCrunch senior crypto reporter Jacquelyn Melinek explores the impact of crypto on finance, art, web3, and society as a whole. Whether you’re a fan or a skeptic, every Thursday, Jacquelyn chats with a crypto expert, learning alongside you to break down the nuance behind the wild world of crypto. Chain Reaction is produced by Maggie Stamets with editing by Kell Keller. Subscribe to the Chain Reaction newsletter to dive deeper: https://techcrunch.com/newsletters

  1. 03/28/2024

    Space and Time wants to help LLMs and AI agents get on-chain (w/ Scott Dykstra)

    For this week’s episode, Jacquelyn interviewed Scott Dykstra, CTO and co-founder of Space and Time.  Before diving into web3, Scott spent almost 8 years at the cloud analytics and data platform Teradata and throughout the years he held roles of senior architect, director of cloud solutions and worked his way up to VP of the firm’s global cloud. As for Space and Time, the company aims to be a verifiable compute layer for web3 that scales zero-knowledge proofs, or ZK proofs, on a decentralized data warehouse. Zero-knowledge proofs are a cryptographic action used to prove something about a piece of data, without revealing the origin data itself.  Space and Time has indexed data both off-chain and on-chain from Ethereum, Bitcoin, Polygon, Sui, Avalanche, Sei and Aptos and is adding support for more chains to power the future of AI x blockchain.  This episode is wrapping up Chain Reaction’s monthly series diving into different topics and themes in crypto. This month’s focused on blockchain and AI integrations. Jacquelyn and Scott discuss Space and Time’s origin story, how data warehouses work in Web2.0 vs web3 and the importance of data transparency. They also dive into:  Blockchain and AI potentialIts OpenAI and blockchain data developments Future use cases for data and on-chain AIAdvice throughout the bull and bear markets Chain Reaction comes out every Thursday at 12:00 p.m. ET, so be sure to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite pod platform to keep up with the action.

    36 min
  2. 03/21/2024

    Whoever rules the data rules the world (w/ Tegan Kline)

    For this week’s episode, Jacquelyn interviewed Tegan Kline, the CEO and co-founder of Edge & Node.  The company is focused on creating and supporting decentralized applications, or dApps, and protocols. It was also the initial team behind The Graph, an indexing and query protocol, or what some have referred to as the Google of Web3, which aims to organize open blockchain data and make open data a public good. Tegan began her career in investment banking before shifting to work as an executive VP of a patent marketplace powered by blockchain and analyzed by AI. This kickstarted her career in web3, data and AI solutions. Before co-founding Edge & Node, Tegan worked as an international business development manager for Orchid, an a16z and Sequoia VC-backed VPN. This episode is a part of Chain Reaction’s monthly series diving into different topics and themes in crypto. This month’s focused on blockchain and AI integrations. Jacquelyn and Tegan talk about The Graph network, indexing data and its broader use case for the internet as well as its “New Era roadmap” that came out in November 2023.  They also discuss:  The Graph implementing AI solutions What dApps will unlock in the long term for AI Why AI doesn’t care about cryptoTaking a career jump into web3  Chain Reaction comes out every Thursday at 12:00 p.m. ET, so be sure to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite pod platform to keep up with the action.

    24 min
  3. 03/14/2024

    Blockchain tech is working to combat AI-based deepfakes (w/ Melody Hildebrandt and Mike Blank)

    For this week’s episode, Jacquelyn interviewed Melody Hildebrandt, CTO of Fox Corporation and Mike Blank, COO at Polygon Labs. Why these two companies? Well, Polygon Labs, the layer-2 blockchain focused on scaling Ethereum, and Fox Corporation, the well-known media conglomerate, joined forces in January to tackle deepfakes as artificial intelligence becomes more prevalent.  Fox released Verify, an open source technical protocol for media companies to register content and grant usage rights to AI platforms, while also allowing consumers to verify content through Polygon’s tech.  This episode is a part of Chain Reaction’s monthly series diving into different topics and themes in crypto. This month we’re focusing on blockchain and AI integrations. They discuss:  The Fox and Polygon partnershipProtecting content from misuseWhat role blockchain technology can play with verifying newsHow deepfakes can affect the U.S. 2024 election(0:00) Introduction (1:58) Safeguards against AI-created content (3:33) Blockchain could protect content creators (9:13) Improving AI trust and transparency (12:42) Validating and protecting intellectual property (16:03) Verifying content authenticity on the blockchain (25:21) Combatting misinformation (31:25) How blockchain could help larg companies verify their content Chain Reaction comes out every Thursday at 12:00 p.m. ET, so be sure to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite pod platform to keep up with the action.

    36 min
  4. 02/29/2024

    Looking back on the NFT marketplace Magic Eden (w/ Jack Lu)

    For this week’s episode, we’re resharing a conversation I had in June 2023 with Jack Lu, CEO and co-founder of Magic Eden.  When we recorded this episode, NFT sales were down around $640 million at the beginning of the month, compared to today where February 2023 NFT sales volume hit $1 billion, for the first time since February 2023. Looking back on this conversation, we decided this episode was a great addition to the NFT series to add some context for what a crazy year it has been, how much things have changed (and some things stayed the same) especially for people building in the NFT space. Magic Eden originally began as a Solana-based NFT trading platform, but has expanded its support to other blockchain networks like Polygon, Ethereum and Bitcoin. In June 2022, Magic Eden raised $130 million in a Series B round that granted it unicorn status. We discussed why the NFT marketplace expanded its support to other blockchains, its BRC-20 token support and how the company plans on staying competitive in the constantly changing market. We also talked about:  NFT market volatilityRoyalty feesWeb3 gaming expansionAdvice for NFT community(0:00) Introduction (2:46) Bitcoin ecosystems and new technology standards (7:30) Magic Eden’s place within NFT marketplaces (19:05) Royalties and creator monetization (24:42) NFT’s staying power Chain Reaction comes out every Thursday at 12:00 p.m. ET, so be sure to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite pod platform to keep up with the action.

    27 min
  5. 02/08/2024

    OpenSea’s CEO sees greater opportunity for NFT use cases to grow (w/ Devin Finzer)

    This year, Chain Reaction is doing monthly series diving into different topics and themes in crypto. To start things off, this month we’re focusing on NFTs.  For this week’s episode, Jacquelyn interviewed Devin Finzer, the CEO of NFT marketplace OpenSea. He co-founded OpenSea in 2017 and it quickly climbed to become one of the most well known – and well funded – NFT marketplaces. Two years ago, it raised $300 million in a Series C round at a $13.3 billion post-money valuation, bringing its total capital raised to over $400 million. Some of its investors include firms Andreessen Horowitz and Paradigm as well as celebrities like Kevin Durant and Ashton Kutcher.  Despite the NFT market’s trading volume falling from all time highs in late 2021 early 2022, OpenSea is still pushing forward even though other NFT marketplaces have popped up and challenged their dominance. Jacquelyn and Devin discuss the importance of web3 games integrating NFTs, Web2.0 firms launching their own digital collectibles and challenges the marketplace faces. They also dive into:  Big use cases for NFTsCompany’s future mission Retaining community membersGaining market share and trading volume(0:00) Welcome to Chain Reaction (3:36) Launching OpenSea before NFTs took off (7:55) Expanding NFTs core product categories (9:44) NFT games to drive adoption (11:39) Post NFT-boom industry atmosphere (14:37) Keeping Retail investors engaged in NFTs  (19:30) Staying competitive in the NFT marketplace space (20:24) Rapid Fire (27:01) NFT use cases in 2024 (28:20) OpenSea’s core mission (30:15) Advice for people in the crypto industry  Chain Reaction comes out every Thursday at 12:00 p.m. ET, so be sure to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite pod platform to keep up with the action.

    32 min
4.8
out of 5
25 Ratings

About

There are constantly new tokens, DeFi projects, NFTs collections and DAOs being launched – but how can you make sense of everything going on in the crypto space? From the hype to the scams, TechCrunch senior crypto reporter Jacquelyn Melinek explores the impact of crypto on finance, art, web3, and society as a whole. Whether you’re a fan or a skeptic, every Thursday, Jacquelyn chats with a crypto expert, learning alongside you to break down the nuance behind the wild world of crypto. Chain Reaction is produced by Maggie Stamets with editing by Kell Keller. Subscribe to the Chain Reaction newsletter to dive deeper: https://techcrunch.com/newsletters

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