Podcast

Julia Zhou is a Partner—Venture & Market-Making at AlphaLab Capital. AlphaLab Capital Group is a technology-driven trading group that transacts over $2B daily in cryptoassets on 40+ exchanges, both centralized and decentralized. They were one of the first movers in quantitative trading on the blockchain, and today they operate thousands of algorithms 24/7 on a globally distributed network of trading servers. In this episode we chat about whether market makers are necessary for every token project, DEX vs. CEX for different types of token projects, best tools to monitor liquidity during launch and trading, the various business models of market makers, and much more.

Ben Su is the Co-Founder & COO of Capita. Capita allows you to easily design, launch, and operate the investment group you want, on a platform made for you. End-to-end. No-code—whether syndicates, incubators, funds, or DAOs. In this episode we discuss their interesting path from working as lawyers to landing on the present iteration of Capita, the missing ingredients in tooling they've stepped in to solve, the future of the crypto space in general, and much more.

Himanshu Sahay & Dhruv Patel are the Co-Founders of Arch. Backed by Tribe Capital, Picus Capital, & more, Arch is the most secure way to borrow against alternative assets. Users can access instant credit without selling your crypto or equity stake, on the platform with best-in-class security and a regulatory-first approach. In this episode we discuss their policy to not “touch or reloan customer funds for any reason,” their state-by-state approach to getting regulatory compliance right, their thoughts on how to best approach building in crypto right now, and much more.

Shane Mac is the Founder & CEO of XMTP . Backed by a16z, Sound Ventures, Alexis Ohanian, Naval Ravikant, Balaji Srinivasan, & many more, XMTP is building the communication network & protocol for web3. In this episode we discuss the remarkable people who’ve come alongside XMTP’s purpose (with emphasis on the developers), the nature of value accrual for a network like XMTP, what the earliest days of XMTP were like, and much more.

Michael Sanders is the Co-Founder & Chief Storyteller at Horizon. Backed by Polygon, Coinbase, Take Two Interactive (makers of the Grand Theft Auto franchise), & more, Horizon is making blockchain gaming easy, fun, and powerful for users and developers to drive the adoption of web3 and its open, transparent and symbiotic economies. With 700k+ total wallets and 3.4M+ total transactions on their Sequence platform (and exciting adoption of their Skyweaver game), Horizon is quickly establishing itself as a leader in building web3 gaming. In this episode we discuss challenges and surprises in the early days of Horizon (founded in 2017), where Michael sees web3 games and game economies going over the next 3-to-5 years, Horizon’s experience wrapping up a fundraising round in October 2022 (at a particularly precarious time in the industry), and Michael’s best generalizable advice for founders in web3 (hint: focus on the best ideas, and take care of yourself so you’re in it for the long-game).