The Archive: Crypto, Startups, and Stories

Michael Shaulov is the co-founder and CEO of Fireblocks, the leading infrastructure platform powering digital asset operations for institutions. In this episode, we trace Michael’s journey from growing up in Israel and serving in Unit 8200 to building and selling his first company, and ultimately founding Fireblocks after uncovering critical security flaws in early crypto markets. We also dive into how Fireblocks found product-market fit by obsessing over a narrow set of customers, and how the company scaled through DeFi, market crashes, and hypergrowth.-----Altitude – the global business account with stablecoin and fiat bank transfers, free on-and off-ramps, 5% APY, corporate cards, bill pay, and more.------Questions or feedback? Email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠Website: ⁠https://thearchivepod.com⁠Twitter: ⁠https://x.com/Archive_Pod⁠------Timestamps(0:00) Intro(0:34) Altitude(1:31) Growing up in Israel, learning programming, and starting internet businesses(7:49) Unit 8200 and the mindset it teaches(16:05) First startup, mentorship, and early lessons(20:20) Discovering crypto through exchange hacks(28:18) Finding product-market fit with Fireblocks(37:11) Enterprise-first vs bottom-up GTM strategy(42:53) DeFi moment and catching the Compound wave(51:24) Surviving Terra, 3AC, FTX(1:08:44) What is fireblocks doing today“At the end of the day as a small startup your goal is not to actually boil the ocean, your goal is not to promise everything to everyone, your goal is find the narrowest MVP that will appeal for a systematically well defined category of customers” 

Se is the co-founder of fomo, a social trading platform. In this episode, we discuss Se’s journey from Yale to dYdX, how he built product intuition, and the early insights that led to him starting fomo. We also dive into the product philosophy, why crypto UX has historically failed mainstream users, and what fomo is doing to fix this. Finally, we explore the long-term vision around the “speculation graph” and how speculation might become the next form of social identity.-----Altitude – the global business account with stablecoin and fiat bank transfers, free on-and off-ramps, 5% APY, corporate cards, bill pay, and more.------Questions or feedback? Email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠Website: ⁠https://thearchivepod.com⁠Twitter: ⁠https://x.com/Archive_Pod⁠------Timestamps(0:00) Intro(0:22) Altitude(1:13) Early life. Jersey and Yale(7:03) Working on product at dYdX and meeting Paul(14:06) The genesis of fomo, early team formation(33:42) Product-first philosophy and obsession with UX(46:24) User-led growth and getting to know your customers(59:48) Raising Series A from Benchmark(1:06:22) Where fomo is heading; the speculation graph era(1:21:49) Building a social product to match its growth(1:28:58) Memecoins as a category(1:40:35) Which teams does Se look up to?

John is the founder of Gauntlet, which operates institutional vaults and manages risk for major DeFi protocols. In this episode we talk about Gauntlet's evolution from risk modeling to automated on-chain vaults and why vaults are the future of on-chain finance. We also discussed the evolution of DeFi from the perspective of innovation and UX. We also spent some time discussing Gauntlet’s beef with Aave, regulation under the Gensler era, and John’s truck.-----Altitude – the global business account with stablecoin and fiat bank transfers, free on-and off-ramps, 5% APY, corporate cards, bill pay, and more.------Questions or feedback? Email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠Website: ⁠https://thearchivepod.com⁠Twitter: ⁠https://x.com/Archive_Pod⁠------Timestamps(0:00) Intro(0:11) Altitude(1:16) What Gauntlet does(5:28) Risk management vs asset management(11:09) What’s missing in vaults today?(16:52) Innovation and investing in DeFi(19:32) Can the blue chips get disrupted? (Morpho vs Aave)(22:07) The Aave DAO politics (30:18) Regulatory environment then vs now(41:01) Exploits and hacks in DeFi(46:39) Gauntlet’s culture(48:44) John’s truck and his love for chocolate milk

Ethan is the co-founder and CEO of Allium, a crypto data infrastructure company. In this episode, we talked about Ethan’s upbringing in Singapore and how his military experience shaped his leadership style. We also cover his transition from AI to crypto, the early days of building Allium, and what raising capital after the Terra/Luna collapse was like. Lastly, we spent some time digging into why data quality matters for institutions and how Allium is preparing for the future of AI agents and on-chain finance.-----Altitude – the global business account with stablecoin and fiat bank transfers, free on-and off-ramps, 5% APY, corporate cards, bill pay, and more.------Questions or feedback? Email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠Website: ⁠https://thearchivepod.com⁠Twitter: ⁠https://x.com/Archive_Pod⁠------Timestamps: (0:00) Intro(0:25) Altitude(1:15) Getting engaged in Argentina(4:43) What Allium is (9:44) Upbringing in Singapore(19:08) Working in AI before crypto(30:05) What starting Allium was like(39:53) Building through the bear market(43:05) Managing Allium’s internal infra(48:04) Scaling Allium, mistakes, and customer acquisition(52:28) Allium’s customer centric culture(55:31) AI strategy at Allium(1:09:31) Future of crypto distribution

Keone Hon is the founder of Monad, a high performance blockchain aiming to scale the EVM. In this episode, we dive into Keone’s upbringing and how that’s influenced him over the years. We also discuss the early days of Monad, his experience raising the seed round, and how Keone's recruiting philosophy. Plus, we get an inside look at Keone’s day-to-day and his vision for Monad’s future.-----Altitude – the global business account with stablecoin and fiat bank transfers, free on-and off-ramps, 5% APY, corporate cards, bill pay, and more.-----Questions or feedback? Email us at [email protected]: thearchivepod.comTwitter: https://x.com/Archive_Pod-----Timestamps:(0:00) - Intro(0:42) - Altitude (1:32)  - Monad Launch(4:25)  - Keone’s early life and interests (16:52)  - Where Keone's work ethic came from(19:52) - Working at Jump and how the culture passed on to Monad(24:26) - Starting Monad (30:05) - Raising the seed round for Monad(32:29) - Growing the Monad community and open-sourcing code(36:35) - How Keone hired for the early team(44:07)  - The future of Category Labs (51:26) - Which metrics is Monad focusing on(1:00:24) - Building a base of loyal and passionate users(1:07:45) - The personality of an L1 founder(1:13:46) - Founders that Keone looks up to(1:18:34) - Day in the life of Keone(1:23:57) - The endgame vision for Monad