Web3 with Sam Kamani

EPISODE DESCRIPTION 
I sat down with John from RealFi live at Token2049 to dig into why most stablecoins are just quietly subsidizing US government debt , and what a truly productive stablecoin looks like. John breaks down how USDR works, why they do their own credit origination instead of just allocating to funds, and how they're targeting 12% yield by rotating into private fintech credit. We also get into the Ethena playbook, the real challenges of scaling a credit book on-chain, AI-powered smart contract audits, and why the RWA narrative is finally moving from talk to reality. This is a genuinely different conversation about stablecoins , one grounded in real lending, real underwriting, and real economic impact. 
DISCLAIMER
Nothing mentioned in this podcast is investment advice and please do your own research. It would mean a lot if you can leave a review of this podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and share this podcast with a friend. 
Be a guest on the podcast or contact us - https://www.web3pod.xyz/
 CONNECT 
RealFi Website: https://realfi.co/
RealFi Twitter/X: https://x.com/realfi_co
Web3 with Sam Kamani: https://www.web3pod.xyz/
 KEY POINTS WITH TIMESTAMPS 
• [00:00] Most stablecoins are essentially subsidizing US Treasury borrowing , RealFi is building something different
• [01:22] Interview recorded live at Token2049 with John from RealFi
• [01:59] RealFi launched mainnet on Cardano three days before recording, with Ethereum launch coming in three weeks
• [02:44] USDR is designed as a productive stablecoin , passing yield from a mixed portfolio of T-bills, CLO ETFs, and private fintech credit
• [04:28] Euro-denominated stablecoins are starting to emerge as real-world use cases like remittances grow
• [07:37] USDR currently yields 9%, with a projected move to 12% as the portfolio rotates into more private credit
• [08:27] John highlights Ethena as the gold standard , a simple, scalable market-neutral funding rate trade with world-class operations
• [10:47] RealFi's portfolio construction: T-bills for liquidity, CLO ETFs, and proprietary fintech credit origination with a one-week cooldown on staking
• [12:36] Alpha decay is less of a concern in credit markets than in capacity-constrained hedge fund strategies
• [13:55] Macro outlook: John is watching US midterms closely before making strong calls; sees opportunity in well-placed fintech credit
• [18:40] AI frontier models are changing smart contract security , audits are no longer one-and-done but a continuous monthly process
• [20:38] RWA narrative is finally moving from eight years of conversation to actual on-chain reality
• [24:19] USDR is live on Cardano now; Ethereum launch imminent , listeners can join the Discord and follow along

EPISODE DESCRIPTION 
I sat down live at Token 2049 in Singapore with Kha Nguyen, co-founder of BirdEye, the data infrastructure quietly powering over 5,000 crypto projects worldwide. If you've ever traded on Jupiter or Raydium, or checked your wallet balance on Solana, there's a good chance you've already seen BirdEye's data without knowing it. In this episode, Kha breaks down the enormous engineering challenge of tracking over 400 DEXs in real time, cleaning and reconciling conflicting data across chains, and keeping costs under control as AI companies drive up the price of servers and infrastructure. We also dig into how BirdEye went from zero to powering the biggest wallets and DEXs in crypto, and what's coming next , including an institutional-grade terminal built to serve banks, funds, and family offices entering the space. 
DISCLAIMER
Nothing mentioned in this podcast is investment advice and please do your own research. It would mean a lot if you can leave a review of this podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and share this podcast with a friend. 
Be a guest on the podcast or contact us - https://www.web3pod.xyz/
 CONNECT 
BirdEye Website: https://birdeye.so/
Kha LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nguyenthekha/?locale=en
Web 3 Podcast: https://www.web3pod.xyz/
 KEY POINTS WITH TIMESTAMPS 
• [0:00] BirdEye tracks over 400 DEXs and supplies data to 5,000+ projects worldwide
• [1:15] Recorded live at Token 2049 in Singapore
• [1:54] The origin story: Kha built BirdEye five years ago to give traders a bird's-eye view of the whole market
• [2:37] The core engineering challenge: reconciling conflicting real-time data from hundreds of DEXs
• [3:24] Solana and other chains are getting faster, meaning more data to process every day
• [4:46] AI infrastructure demand is driving up server and chip costs, squeezing data providers
• [5:47] Millions of users interact with BirdEye data daily without knowing it , through wallets, DEXs, and analytics tools
• [7:05] Monetization is subscription-based, charging per API request
• [7:34] An institutional terminal , think Bloomberg for crypto , is coming soon after over a year of development
• [9:48] BirdEye's early growth came from pushing the idea that DEXs and wallets needed richer data like candle charts, holder info, and security signals
• [11:49] Kha's network from his time at SolScan helped BirdEye land its first clients
• [12:14] Early go-to-market strategy: give the API away for free to get feedback and build adoption
• [13:21] Biggest future risk: crypto market cycles are hard to predict and directly impact data consumption
• [14:34] Next 12 months focus: launching the institutional dashboard and partnering with top banks, funds, and family offices
• [16:15] Kha's biggest admirations go to layer one teams at Solana, Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Monad
• [18:04] BirdEye is actively seeking institutional partners to shape their upcoming product

EPISODE DESCRIPTION 
I sat down with Justin from VEST at Token 2049 in Singapore to dig into why retail trading has been broken for so long , and what they're doing to fix it. Justin comes from a high-frequency trading background and co-founded VEST to bring perpetual futures, one of crypto's most elegant trading tools, to everyday retail traders worldwide. We talk about why CFDs and options are structurally stacked against you, how VEST's prop firm model gets one in three traders a payout versus the industry average of around 5%, and why Justin believes retail adoption , not institutions , will drive perpetual futures into the mainstream. VEST has grown from 1,000 to 27,000 weekly active traders in just three weeks and is processing a minimum of $5 billion in daily volume. This is a conversation packed with raw insight on product design, founder mindset, and where leveraged trading is actually heading. 
DISCLAIMER
Nothing mentioned in this podcast is investment advice and please do your own research. It would mean a lot if you can leave a review of this podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and share this podcast with a friend. 
Be a guest on the podcast or contact us - https://www.web3pod.xyz/
 CONNECT 
VEST Website: https://www.vestmarkets.com/
VEST Twitter/X: https://x.com/vestexchange
VEST LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vestlabs/home/
Justin LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ma-justin/
Web3 with Sam Kamani: https://www.web3pod.xyz/
 KEY POINTS WITH TIMESTAMPS 
• [00:00] Justin explains why CFDs are B-book and structurally work against the retail trader
• [02:14] Why perpetual futures are more intuitive and interest-aligned than options or CFDs
• [05:12] VEST's explosive growth: from 1,000 to 27,000 weekly active traders in three weeks
• [08:38] How VEST's prop firm model works , pay ~$210 to trade up to $25k in capital
• [09:30] VEST's two simple rules: hit your profit target without hitting your loss limit
• [11:23] 33% of VEST traders receive a payout vs. 4–6% at traditional prop firms
• [15:20] VEST is backed by Jane Street executives, BlackRock, Susquehanna, and KQL , but stays focused on retail
• [17:56] The biggest challenge: educating 27,000 traders on how perpetual futures differ from traditional futures
• [22:03] What Justin would do differently: build the bridge to what traders want today, not just the end vision
• [25:24] Justin's contrarian view: retail adoption will drive perpetual futures mainstream , institutions will follow, not lead
• [27:56] What's next: improving the desktop experience and launching a seamless mobile trading app

EPISODE DESCRIPTION 
I sat down with Mark from GoMining live at Token 2049 in Singapore to dig into one of the most ambitious projects in the Bitcoin space right now. GoMining started by solving a simple but massive problem: Bitcoin mining was only for the wealthy and technically elite. They tokenized hash rate and made it accessible from just $25. But that was only the beginning. Mark walks me through their evolution into a full Bitcoin super app , where you can mine, earn yield, take out instant loans, and spend Bitcoin via a payment card. The conversation gets really interesting when we talk about GoBTCPay, their patented instant Bitcoin payment protocol, and why Mark believes Bitcoin , not stablecoins , is positioned to win the agentic payments race. We also get into the behavioral challenge of getting people to actually spend Bitcoin, why velocity matters for Bitcoin's long-term value, and how they are racing to build data center infrastructure to keep up with explosive consumer demand. This is a must-listen if you care about where Bitcoin is headed as a real-world currency. 
DISCLAIMER
Nothing mentioned in this podcast is investment advice and please do your own research. It would mean a lot if you can leave a review of this podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and share this podcast with a friend. 
Be a guest on the podcast or contact us - https://www.web3pod.xyz/
 CONNECT 
GoMining Website: https://gomining.com/
GoMining Twitter/X: https://x.com/gomining
Web3 with Sam Kamani: https://www.web3pod.xyz/
 KEY POINTS WITH TIMESTAMPS 
• [00:00] GoMining tokenized hash rate, making Bitcoin mining accessible from just $25 and generating historically strong ROI
• [02:28] The original problem: Bitcoin mining required huge capital, specialized teams, and was impossible for regular people to participate in
• [03:30] ROI during bull cycles has reached 80–90% annually; even bear cycles produce around 25–30%
• [04:30] GoMining has expanded into a full ecosystem: yield on Bitcoin and stablecoins (10.5–11% APY), instant loans, and payment cards
• [05:30] Their strategic vision is a Bitcoin super app where you can earn, borrow, and spend Bitcoin all in one place
• [06:47] The GoMining ecosystem now has over five million registered users
• [12:42] GoBTCPay , their patented instant Bitcoin payment protocol , was introduced in May at Consensus in Miami
• [14:00] The two-to-three-year strategic roadmap is focused on rolling out GoBTCPay as a global Bitcoin payment rail
• [17:30] For Bitcoin to grow in value long-term, it needs to become a means of payment, not just a store of value
• [23:00] Mark makes the case that Bitcoin is best positioned to win agentic payments due to neutrality, finality, liquidity, and security
• [26:45] Agentic payment volume is projected to reach $3.8 trillion by 2030
• [27:25] Infrastructure is the core operational challenge , data centers must be planned and built two years ahead of consumer demand

EPISODE DESCRIPTION 
I sat down live at Token2049 in Singapore with Albert and Eitan, the co-founders behind Aeredium , a blockchain rebuilt from absolute first principles. They ignored everything that existed, started from zero, and came up with something genuinely different: 250,000 transactions per second, 40-millisecond finality, no human validators, no MEV, and an AI that continuously hunts for attack surfaces in real time. They also just received a US patent for autonomous AI auditing of stablecoins. We talked about why institutions are slow to adopt but are starting to come around, how AI agents are about to flood blockchains with transaction volume humans could never match, and why blocks per second matters far more than TPS alone. If you care about where institutional-grade crypto infrastructure is heading, this one is worth your time. 
DISCLAIMER
Nothing mentioned in this podcast is investment advice and please do your own research. It would mean a lot if you can leave a review of this podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and share this podcast with a friend. 
Be a guest on the podcast or contact us - https://www.web3pod.xyz/
 CONNECT 
Website: https://aeredium.io/
Twitter/X: https://x.com/aeredium
Albert LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertdadonam/
Sam Kamani: https://www.web3pod.xyz/
 KEY POINTS WITH TIMESTAMPS 
• [00:00] Albert and Eitan tease Aeredium's core stats: 250,000 TPS, no human validators, and a US patent for AI stablecoin auditing
• [01:13] Recorded live at Token2049 Singapore , Albert explains why he rebuilt a blockchain from absolute first principles, ignoring all existing designs
• [03:49] Eitan breaks down what financial institutions actually need: privacy, speed, instant settlement, and why existing chains fail to deliver
• [05:30] Aeredium is EVM-compatible, meaning existing Solidity smart contracts work out of the box and token listings take around 20 minutes
• [06:10] The Aeredium Key (AR Key) , a signature engine using CGGMP24 cryptography that powers a full policy engine for safe AI agent trading
• [07:48] Why building for institutions first means retail automatically gets a better product , but not the other way around
• [09:07] Institutional response so far: many don't understand it yet, but banks are starting to onboard on the sandbox; a HalfMoon audit was completed successfully
• [11:00] The biggest credibility challenge: it sounds too good to be true , so Aeredium is using patents, live AWS deployments, and real-time on-chain audits to prove otherwise
• [13:03] Scaling numbers broken down: 15,000 signatures per minute vs 3–6 for traditional banking; 250,000 TPS vs Visa's peak of 60,000
• [17:26] Why blocks per second is the real metric that matters , Aeredium settles in 40 milliseconds vs Solana's 400–450ms
• [18:09] AI agents will do thousands of transactions per minute; Aeredium is building the secure highway for that agent economy right now
• [15:41] Funding update: bootstrapped so far, now opening a $10M SAFE round plus token raise , tokenomics published on their website
• [23:09] How to get involved: Telegram, Discord, X, and Aeredium.io