The Defiant
by The Defiant
Latest episode
THORChain Refused to Block the $387M Bitget Hacker. Here’s Why |…
THORChain Refused to Block the $387M Bitget Hacker. Here’s Why |…
About this podcast
The internet of money is being built with blockchain technology and without banks. We call it DeFi, short for Decentralized Finance, and this is where you can hear the builders and users of this cutting edge world tell their stories first hand. Hosted by Camila Russo.
Episodes
The newest 50 of 343 episodes
- THORChain Refused to Block the $387M Bitget Hacker. Here’s Why | Chad Barraford · 57 minBitget lost $387.5 million in a hack and asked THORChain to block the attacker’s addresses. THORChain said no. Weeks later, Tether froze four THORChain vaults on Tron holding…
- Mark Karpelès Opened the Ledgers. The Spy Chips Are Mass-Produced. · 18 minThe chip that stole more than $90 million from Ledger users costs less than $20 to build, snaps into place with three solder points, and has gone through at least three…
- He Lost $14M to FTX. Now He’s Putting Real Stocks on Solana | Armani Ferrante (Backpack) · 57 minWhat do you actually own when you buy a tokenized stock? Backpack founder Armani Ferrante breaks down the transfer agent, DTCC, SPV debt-security and Backpack models. Backpack’s…
- STRK’s L1 Bet: Eli Ben-Sasson on Starknet’s Exit Plan · 46 minStarknet says it is “actively considering becoming an L1” — leaving Ethereum to become what it calls the first fully quantum-resistant network, with 2027 as the target. StarkWare…
- Ledger Was Hacked — Who Do You Trust With Your Keys Now? · 18 minUp to $93M drained from more than 300 wallets, and the software was never touched. Ledger confirmed a physical implant inside signers sold through reseller CryptoBilis, reading…
- Tokenized Stocks Get an SEC Sandbox. Who's Left Out? · 17 minThe SEC just gave tokenized U.S. stocks a five-year path to trade on AMMs outside exchange registration rules. The largest tokenized stock platform in the market doesn't…
- Solana's Historic Governance Vote — While Robinhood Invades Its Meme Coin Turf · 55 minSolana just took the most historic step in its governance history: its first real on-chain vote, where any SOL holder — not just validators — could weigh in on the network's…
- Can RobinHood Chain Take This Boom? w/ ARB's Steven Goldfeder · 58 minRobinhood is surging on Arbitrum's stack, and today we're joined by ARB co-founder Steven Goldfeder to break down the boom.On this stream we discuss:Does the tokenization / meme…
- The EIP That Wants to Cap ETH Staking at 50% · 21 minAbout a third of all ETH — over 41 million coins across nearly 900,000 validators — is already locked into staking. A new Ethereum proposal, EIP-8363, wants to make sure it never…
- The $114 Trillion Question: How DTCC Is Tokenizing the Entire U.S. Market · 30 minDTCC holds $114 trillion in assets. On July 15th, it showed the world how those assets can be converted into digital tokens, traded in real production conditions, and converted…
- Memecoins Eat Everything: Robinhood's Accidental Casino & Base's Identity Crisis · 18 minBrian Armstrong changed his profile picture to a memecoin. It pumped to thirty million. Ten thousand wallets piled in. Less than twenty-four hours later, he changed it back — and…
- Now or Never: Inside the Fight to Pass the CLARITY Act · 18 minFourteen days. That's the window the crypto industry has to get the CLARITY Act through the Senate — or wait until the 2030s for another shot.The combined draft dropped last week…
- Saylor Selling BTC: Strategy Lifeline or Betrayal? · 10 minMichael Saylor built his entire identity around one promise: he would never sell Bitcoin. Last week, that promise ended. Strategy's board voted to authorize selling Bitcoin to…
- Inside the Ethereum Foundation Overhaul: is a Multi-Node Structure Bullish? · 14 min• The Ethereum Foundation just cut 20% of its staff and 40% of its budget. Two co-executive directors are gone. And the talent exodus has been quiet but real. But the community…
- "Bazooka in Every Hand" Do We Really Want Unstoppable AI? w/ Jake Brukhman, Haseeb Qureshi, Jesus Rodriguez · 26 minLast Friday, the U.S. Department of Commerce forced Anthropic to shut down Fable V for the entire world. One government, one decision, zero global access. Is this the definitive…
- DeFi's Near-Death Moment | Mike Silagadze on Ether.fi, Security, and What Comes Next · 45 minHow close did DeFi come to a real systemic collapse?In this episode, Camila Russo sits down with Mike Silagadze, co-founder and CEO of Ether.fi, to break down the Kelp exploit…
- DeFi Hacks Happening Every Day; Institutions Are Still Coming · 57 minApril saw some of the worst DeFi losses in recent memory, and even OpenZeppelin co-founder Manuel Aráoz warned people to get out. But while CT feels gloomy, institutions are not…
- Top Talent Is Leaving the EF. What Happens to ETH Now? · 52 minTop Ethereum talent is leaving. The Ethereum Foundation is shrinking. And one question now hangs over the entire ecosystem: what happens to ETH if the EF steps back? In this…
- DeFi Yields Are Too Damn Low! Here's Why · 57 minDeFi is approaching a breaking point.After a wave of hacks and growing concerns around smart contract risk, liquidity risk, and hidden dependencies, the biggest question in…
- The $300M DeFi Bailout: Heroic or Unsustainable? · 59 minExplosive debate: after one of DeFi's biggest attacks left Aave facing bad debt, DeFi United raised more than $300M to stop the contagion. But did the ecosystem prove its…
- Should Arbitrum Have Frozen North Korea's Funds? Griff Green vs. Gabe Shapiro · 57 minThe Arbitrum Security Council just made one of the most controversial decisions in DeFi history — freezing $70M in ETH stolen by North Korean hackers from the KelpDAO bridge…
- Optimism Is Done With “Ethereum Alignment” — Users Come First · 37 minIn this episode of The Defiant Podcast, Camila Russo sits down with Jing Wang to discuss how Optimism is evolving and why the debate over what counts as a “real” Ethereum L2…
- Did L2 Fragment Ethereum? - With Yuval Rooz, CEO of Digital Asset, Co-Founder of Canton · 52 minLayer 2 was supposed to scale Ethereum. But what if it fragmented it instead? I n this episode, we break down: • Why public chains are “expensive databases” • Why composability…
- The Bitcoin Renaissance Legacy : Beyond Digital Gold Ep. 2 · 21 minBitcoin Renaissance or JPEG Hype?In 2023, Bitcoin had what many called a renaissance.NFTs on Bitcoin.BRC-20 tokens.Runes.10x transaction spikes.Fee revenue surging to levels not…
- Why DAO Governance Always Turns Political · 56 min"In a decentralized governance system, it's unavoidable to develop politics." Rune Christensen explains why DAO governance becomes a struggle for resources, how the "iron law of…
- Robinhood’s Crypto Head Johann Kerbrat on Why Public Blockchains Will Win · 41 minRobinhood is opening the testnet for its Arbitrum-based Ethereum Layer 2. In this episode, we sit down with the fintech’s head of crypto, Johann Kerbrat, to discuss the strategic…
- Rebuilding Global Payments with Stablecoins | Circle & USDC with Nikhil Chandhok · 46 minStablecoins have quietly become the most successful use case in crypto.In this episode, Nikhil Chandhok, Chief Product & Technology Officer at Circle, explains why USDC is more…
- Crypto’s Point of No Return: Institutions are Finally Here, with Brett Tejpaul · 49 min2025 marked a turning point for crypto.In this episode, Brett Tejpaul, head of Coinbase Institutional, sits down with Camila Russo to explain why institutional adoption…
- Why OG DeFi Failed | Kain Warwick, Founder of Synthetix · 54 minKain Warwick—DeFi OG and founder of Synthetix and Infinex—is back on The Defiant Podcast with Camila Russo for a no-BS conversation at a pivotal moment: Infinex just ran its INX…
- Ethereum is for Institutions: Danny Ryan Says Tokenization Isn't Enough · 26 minIn this interview, Camila Russo sits down with Danny Ryan — former Ethereum Foundation researcher and a key leader behind Ethereum’s shift to proof of stake — now Co-Founder &…
- How Stablecoins Are Rewiring Global Payments | Borderless CPO Alex Garn · 26 minIn this episode of The Defiant Podcast, Chris Storaker sits down with Alex Garn, Chief Product Officer at Borderless, to unpack how stablecoins are quietly transforming…
- The Rise of the Fan Economy | Consumer Crypto | Avalanche Ecosystems Ep. 4 · 18 minFor consumer crypto to thrive it needs to embrace financialization to deliver a better experience, and maker sure crypto disappears everywhere else. Projects doing this right sit…
- Uniswap is about to “turn on the switch.” with Hayden Adams · 1 h 8 minIn this episode of The Defiant Podcast, Uniswap founder Hayden Adams joins us right as the UNIfication (Unification) proposal has moved to a final governance vote—a sweeping plan…
- Ethereum’s “HTTP Moment” with Marissa Posner & Yoav Weiss · 40 minIn this episode of The Defiant podcast, Camila Russo sits down in Buenos Aires (Devconnect) with Marissa Foster (Product, Ethereum Foundation) and Yoav Weiss (security…
- Becoming the "Institutions Chain" With Avalanche’s Morgan Krupetsky · 40 minIn this episode of The Defiant podcast we speak with Morgan Krupetsky, VP of OnChain Finance at Ava Labs, to break down one of the most significant shifts happening in crypto…
- Tokenize Everything: Robert Leshner’s Vision for On-Chain Finance · 22 minRobert Leshner — the mind behind Compound, and now the founder of Superstate — believes the next trillion-dollar shift will come from bringing the world’s assets on-chain. In…
- Is DYOR Dead? Building a Safer Web3 with Alex Katz · 37 minIn a world of fast-advancing technology, we are told to trust in our own research. But as the crypto space matures, scams and exploits remain a constant presence. When your…
- Avalanche DeFi: the Journey to Bring Institutions Onchain · 15 minIn the second episode of Ecosystems: Avalanche, we track the protocol’s trajectory, which included a peak valuation of $13 billion, followed by a period of consolidation and…
- Inside the PYUSD's takeover of PayPal with May Zabaneh, VP Crypto · 42 minIn this conversation, May Zabaneh breaks down PayPal’s move into stablecoins with PYUSD and why it matters for financial inclusion. We explore how PYUSD could lower costs for…
- Why Yat Siu Believes Altcoins Will Surpass Bitcoin · 1 h 1 minIn Web3, we find ourselves in an age of digital phantoms, a "click-farm" era where identity is flimsy and easily fabricated. But what if reputation could be real, portable, and…
- The AI CEO Era: Breaking Build Bottlenecks with Vibe Coding | Ahmad Shadid · 47 minIn this episode of The Defiant Podcast, Vinny sits down with Ahmad Shadid—former quant trader turned founder—who redirected the 2022 GPU crunch into a decentralized GPU network…
- How Avalanche is Tackling the Blockchain Trilemma · 27 minAvalanche says it can finally square the circle: sub‑second finality, a large decentralized validator set, and thousands of sovereign L1s connected through native messaging for…
- What Crypto VCs Want Now | Aryan Sheikhalian · 47 minCrypto’s next chapter isn’t a shinier coin—it’s invisible rails. In this episode, we sit down with Aryan Sheikhalian, Research Lead at CMT Digital, to unpack the shift from…
- Solana vs. Bitcoin: Why Pantera Capital is All In | Paul Veradittakit · 36 minIn this episode of The Defiant Podcast, we sit down with Paul Veradittakit, Managing Partner at Pantera Capital, to discuss the explosive growth of Solana, the future of…
- Can Crypto Be Trusted? Ben Nadareski’s Answer to the Skeptics · 46 minIn this episode of The Defiant Podcast, we sit down with Ben Nadareski, CEO and Co-Founder of Solstice Labs, to explore DeFi on Solana and why it’s becoming a magnet for…
- StarkWare Bets on Becoming Bitcoin's Execution Layer, Not on Attracting Corporate Chains · 54 minIn this episode of The Defiant Podcast, we sit down with Eli Ben-Sasson, co-founder and CEO of StarkWare, to explore how StarkNet is revolutionizing blockchain scalability with…
- $100 Million DeFi DAT Chooses ETH | Ryan Zurrer · 45 minWhy did Game Square, the Jerry Jones-backed media powerhouse, bet $100 million on Ethereum instead of Bitcoin? In this episode of The DeFiant Podcast, Vinny sits down with crypto…
- Plasma’s Plan to Dethrone Tron | Paul Faecks · 45 minIn this episode of The Defiant Podcast, Paul Faecks, CEO of Plasma Chain, discusses the platform’s approach to stablecoin payments and its potential to reshape global financial…
- J.P. Morgan’s Nightmare: How Stablecoins Let You Be Your Own Bank | Reeve Collins · 42 minStablecoins are no longer just a buzzword—they’re transforming the way the world moves money. In this episode of The Defiant Podcast, we sit down with Reeve Collins, co-founder…
- Solana’s Rise as a Treasury Powerhouse: DeFi Development Corp’s Bold Strategy · 1 h 9 minIn this episode of The Defiant Podcast, we sit down with Joseph Onorati, CEO of DeFi Development Corp, the second-largest Solana treasury company. Joseph shares the journey of…
