Credible Commitments

Apriori
  • 5.0 (3)
  • Technology
  • Updated Weekly

Credible Commitments is an independent Ethereum podcast hosted by apriori. The podcast provides a platform for earnest builders discuss market structure, products, and philosophy. Credibility is upstream of trust. Knowledge is downstream of both. Choose wisely.

  1. 1d ago

    Navigating The Dark Forest of Ethereum

    In this episode of Credible Commitments I chat with Michael from Quasar Builder (#2 block builder on Ethereum). Michael started out mining Bitcoin before turning to block building, launching Quasar in 2025 with no privileged orderflow and climbing the leaderboard from the public mempool. The episodes progresses as we discuss PropAMMs and the market structure behind orderflow dynamics. Orderflow is downstream of trust. In particular we break down different types of orderflow and discuss what sharing orderflow between competing parties actually looks like and where multi-party block construction is heading. We close by discussing: ACE, faster blocks, and coordination as the next frontier including where ePBS fits into the auction's future, and a final question worth sitting with: is the public mempool beyond saving? Timestamps (00:00) - Bitcoin mining origins (02:15) - Launching Quasar at the right time (03:14) - Building credibility from the public mempool (05:04) - Climbing the leaderboard (07:31) - Trust is king (09:22) - Different types of orderflow (12:51) - CEX-DEX arbitrage (14:59) - PropAMMs (22:13) - Sharing orderflow (25:15) - Multi-party block construction (29:15) - Focus on bringing value to users (30:51) - ACE/ Faster Blocks/ Coordination (36:31) - Ship it mentality (41:31) - Impact of AI on building products (46:27) - Touching on ePBS (53:52) - Is the public mempool beyond saving? DisclaimerNothing in this episode should be interpreted as financial, technical, or legal advice.

    Navigating The Dark Forest of Ethereum

  2. Jun 30

    Tilting at PropAMMs - Markus

    In this episode of Deeply Intents I chat with Markus Schmitt, Founder of Propeller Heads. We dive into PropAMMs: what they are and how they are changing the market microstructure on Ethereum. In addition we unpack the Propeller stack of Tycho, Fynd, and Turbine which will enable a trustless trading experience on Ethereum main-net.  Timestamps (00:00) - Setting the stage (01:11) - What is a PropAMM? (03:24) - Solana PropAMMs vs Ethereum PropAMMs (04:56) - RFQ Systems in comparison (06:44) - PropAMMs solve many issues (08:17) - Offchain actors set parameters on a curve (10:05) - How PropAmms impact onchain routing (14:31) - AMM can provide better prices than a maker (16:34) - PropAMMs and market microstructure (20:32) - Ethereum is a coordination layer (25:48) - Building a self-sovereign trading stack (30:16) - Advantages of open source (31:38) - Fynd turns Tycho into a DEX aggregator (37:10) - Listening to developer feedback (39:31) - Local routing is 100x faster (45:01) - Fynd is customizable (46:50) - Turbine solves problems for large traders (49:20) - Inspiration for Turbine (50:24) - Trades settle in batches (53:45) - Confidentiality, Transparency, & TEEs (57:06) - Turbine is a mixture of many things (56:30) - Open source can be very good business (59:51) - Spicy prediction on DeFi (1:03:44) - Ethereum is the model to follow DisclaimerNothing in this episode should be interpreted as financial, technical, or legal advice.

    Tilting at PropAMMs - Markus

  3. Jun 19

    PropAMMs are eating DeFi - Quintus

    In this episode of Deeply Intents I chat with Quintus from Flashbots. We discuss the current transaction supply chain and how PropAMMs fit in. Quintus provides fresh insights and a wealth of technical understanding around this new market micro structure. In particular, the ways in which the working processes of PropAMMs affect determinants of transaction costs, prices, quotes, volume, and trading behavior. Timestamps (00:00) - Revisiting Private Orderflow research (03:12) - A machine that solves problems (08:00) - Tx supply chain from the user's perspective (11:55) - Blockchains have multiple sources of liquidity (16:47) - Market Makers, AMMs, and liquidity (19:26) - CEX-DEX arbitrage (21:01) - Priority fee ordered chains (22:52) - Prop AMMs solve 2 problems that AMMs had (25:37) - The "Prop" in "Prop AMMs" stands for proprietary (27:19) - Flow segmentation that happens (29:14) - Why do market makers prefer prop AMMs? (35:49) - How pAMMs impact the market micro structure (37:58) - Barriers to entry in block building (39:03) - Talking about takers and spoofing (40:53) - ETH price discovery on Ethereum (43:29) - How does pre-trade privacy impact execution (45:01) - Closed source is silly (46:34) - Onchain contracts as order types (47:15) - Closing thoughts on PropAMMs & Ethereum DisclaimerNothing in this episode should be interpreted as financial, technical, or legal advice.

    PropAMMs are eating DeFi - Quintus

  4. Jun 12

    propAMMs won, you just didn't notice - Katia Banina

    It already happened, propAMMs won, you just didn't notice. In this episode of Deeply Intents, I chat with Katia Banina, CEO at Bebop . We discuss prop AMMs on Ethereum, how they compare to RFQ systems, and pushing the limits of DeFi innovation with PopAMM (Block Oracle Priced AMM). Timestamps (00:00) - Cat stories (02:19) - BopAMM (06:28) - Request for stream (RFS) (09:41) - RFQ & RFS both have their place (10:53) - Block building and pAMMs (15:47) - Prop AMMs on Ethereum (18:20) - Integrating market makers (23:28) - BopAMM solves the last mile problem (25:00) - Providing passive liquidity is irrational (26:50) - AMMs, Price discovery & Execution quality (30:32) - Block building with pAMMs (33:45) - The oracle update & use cases (40:44) - Performance improvements and optimizations (43:05) - L2s in the future, focused on Ethereum (44:53) - Thinking about security (50:14) - Building with AI (54:18) - The future of DeFi is finance (55:10) - The innovation is blockchain (57:08) - RFQ innovation in the pipeline DisclaimerNothing in this episode should be interpreted as financial, technical, or legal advice.

    propAMMs won, you just didn't notice - Katia Banina

  5. May 18

    VC Science - Will Quist & Dan Gray

    In this episode of Deeply Intents I chat with Will Quist of Slow Ventures and Dan Gray from Odin. This episode pulls apart the current discourse on venture investing looking at an investor's and researcher's perspectives. In particular we grapple with existential questions like;  - Do exits even matter?  - Are Megafunds the future of venture?  - Is the current venture environment limiting innovation?  - Are seed-strapping startups more than a trend?  - Are founder archetypes predictive of outcomes?  - What's something in venture people don't see coming? This was a lively conversation with plenty of spice. You will surely enjoy.  Timestamps (00:00) - Intros (03:01) - Exits don't matter (06:41) - Everyone eats their own BS (07:46) - Paper marks and management fees (10:25) - Now you can have your cake and eat it too (11:25) - The carry is not dependent on time value of money (13:18) - Megafunds do the easy thing (14:39) - Top of funnel is still limitless (15:16) - 90% of venture is professional asset management (16:03) - True venture doesn't scale (18:29) - Funny that VC and Software are tied together (21:00) - A machine for fake value (24:14) - In a perfect moment with AI (26:33) - Great investors are great editors of the future (29:25) - Seed-strapping trends (31:12) - Businesses and art projects (35:30) - How important and big is it? (39:12) - The assumptions are the important part (39:43) - It's all a DCF, everything in life is a DCF (41:54) - Are founder archetypes predictive of success? (45:39) - Founders should be the best allocator and investor in their own company (47:02) - What's something people in venture don't see coming? (54:45) - Founder opportunity cost is extremely scarce DisclaimerNothing in this episode should be interpreted as financial, technical, or legal advice.

    VC Science - Will Quist & Dan Gray

  6. Apr 25

    Strictly 4 The Builders - Keone

    In this episode of Deeply Intents, we chat with Keone Hon co-founder & GM at Monad Foundation. Keone spent a decade at Jump Trading building algorithmic trading systems before co-founding Monad. We get into what actually transfers from HFT to crypto, why the Monad team rolled their own database, and Keone's bigger thesis on crypto as humanity's universal asset layer.                  We open with the Jump years. In particular, what high-frequency trading actually teaches you (confidence, shipping cadence, intuition for hardware), and why the real edge isn't technical but psychological. From there, we walk through the engineering decisions that shaped Monad including values choices, not an engineering ones. We discuss why testnet metrics are mostly fake and how the Monad community quietly built itself into real social infrastructure during the bear market.       We close on Keone's case for crypto as a universal asset layer, with income share agreements as one of the most underrated frontier use cases. We touch on specific EVM improvements he wants upstreamed to Ethereum, why agentic workflows are "directionally correct" but too early to pick winners, and a final note on creatine. Timestamps (00:00) - Algorithmic trading to Monad Foundation (02:53) - Filtering out signal from noise (04:59) - Learnings from HFT (09:48) - Confidence, intuition, and mentality (14:00) - Technical dominoes (18:25) - Testnet metrics are not real (21:05) - Ecosystem building learnings (23:53) - Startup Founders own communication (25:25) - Everything is about expectations (28:29) - Comfort with uncertainty (32:37) - Delivering value to the community (38:43) - Autonomous decentralized community (42:34) - Interfacing with the Ethereum community (44:21) - The EVM can be improved over time (46:39) - Crypto is humanity's universal asset layer (47:37) - Income Share Agreements (51:10) - Enabling rapid experimentation (52:43) - Steel manning creatine DisclaimerNothing in this episode should be interpreted as financial, technical, or legal advice.

    Strictly 4 The Builders - Keone

  7. Mar 19

    Building with Agents and The Bull Case for Zcash

    Zaki Manian In this episode of Deeply Intents, I chat with Zaki Manian [Cosmos co-founder, Bootstrap board member, and Zcash contributor]. We start with Zaki's AI-native development workflow: he's running 7-8 projects simultaneously using Claude, Codex, and Gemini in parallel, burning through 500M tokens a day. He breaks down which model is best for what and why most developers he's hired in his career are now outperformed by Opus 4.6. From there, Zaki gives the first public podcast account of the Zcash governance crisis from a board member's perspective, how the team navigated it, what role AI played in the negotiations, and why Zcash is suddenly a credible store-of-value contender this cycle. We also get into what the privacy landscape looks like by end of year. We wrap up with the state of crypto startups post-Genius Act, why agentic finance is the only exciting build direction, and Zaki's new framework: two years of building is now two weekends, so why are founders still sending decks instead of TestFlights? Timestamps (00:00) - Cosmos, Zcash, enterprise blockchains origins (01:45) - Sanctuary technology (03:41) - Spicy AI takes (06:22) - Ideas are scarce and software is cheap (08:38) - Finding more ai forward teams to build with (12:41) - AI reasoning ability vs. regurgitating training set (15:37) - Specific use cases for each model (21:02) - AI as a strategy advisor (22:41) - From AI to Zcash, a story (26:19) - Non-profit organizations created (28:10) -From Zashi to ZODL (31:45) - Challenges with valuing revenue (33:09) - The era of super personal software (36:07) - Changes in whale behavior this cycle (37:27) - Zcash is the standard for the next era (39:11) - Encrypted Bitcoin (43:28) - The narrative is simple (47:17) - Credible fundamentals around quantum (53:24) - Privacy modalities of the future (56:21) - Intents replacing smart contracts (58:36) - How are you going to do growth? (1:00:46) - New ways to build startups (1:06:04) - No more pitch decks (1:10:59) - New generation of AI native builders (1:12:53) - We are going to have way more startups DisclaimerNothing in this episode should be interpreted as financial, technical, or legal advice.

    Building with Agents and The Bull Case for Zcash

  8. Mar 13

    Soundtracks for the Blind - Gwart

    In this episode of Deeply Intents, I chat with Gwart, host of The Gwart Show. We kick off with Gwart's knack for shitposting and the art of playing the anon game, then get into reflections on this cycle, including whether VC coins are actually dead or just suffering from massive token overhang. From there, we spend time on the craft of podcasting before pivoting to the big picture: the Ethereum roadmap, whether ETH works as a store of value, Bitcoin's quantum FUD, and what actually makes crypto useful in the long run. Timestamps (00:00) - pure shitposting and podcasting (01:38) - social slashing with a machete (03:21) - the anon game (06:32) - reflections on this cycle (10:22) - massive token overhang (13:24) - the trenches were cutthroat   (16:45) - the categorical imperative of tokens (19:11) - Avalanche is not worth $15B (20:43) - the demand might not come in the long run (23:51) - on podcasting (38:06) - skeptical on ETH as a store of value (49:41) - bitcoin quantum FUD/ conviction (56:32) - coordinating a post quantum upgrade (59:17) - on bitcoin l2s (1:03:52) - "anything useful will come to bitcoin" (1:05:52) - you couldn't do it in a decentralized way (1:12:58) - bitcoin is the cool thing (1:20:38) - defi summer wasn't gonna last forever (1:23:09) - this take time DisclaimerNothing in this episode should be interpreted as financial, technical, or legal advice.

    Soundtracks for the Blind - Gwart
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Credible Commitments is an independent Ethereum podcast hosted by apriori. The podcast provides a platform for earnest builders discuss market structure, products, and philosophy. Credibility is upstream of trust. Knowledge is downstream of both. Choose wisely.

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