Sergey Gorbunov | Co-Founder of Axelar Network — Scaling Blockchain Interoperability

In this episode of BeaconLayer Podcast, Kenzi Morikawa, Sachi Miyasaki, and Diksha Wells sit down with Sergey Gorbunov, Co-Founder of Axelar Network, to explore the next chapter of Web3: interoperability that actually scales.Sergey shares Axelar’s founding story and why he believes “the internet of blockchains” only works if cross-chain communication becomes as reliable and programmable as anything developers expect in Web2. We dig into what interoperability should look like when the goal is billions of users — not just power users — and how Axelar positions itself as a programmable platform for routing value and messages across ecosystems.Beyond the product, Sergey opens up about what keeps him building: how he thinks about innovation cycles in crypto, the tradeoffs between decentralization and usability, and what founders need to get right when they’re building infrastructure instead of apps.Sergey also brings deep academic and cryptography roots to the conversation. He’s an Assistant Professor at University of Waterloo, was previously on the founding team at Algorand, and earned his Ph.D. at MIT as a Microsoft Ph.D. Fellow, focusing on cryptographic tools for cloud systems and lattice-based cryptography.Expect a thoughtful deep dive into Axelar, interoperability, and Sergey’s Web3 founder journey.