The Defiant
by The Defiant
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
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THORChain Refused to Block the $387M Bitget Hacker. Here’s Why | Chad Barraford
Bitget 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 1.45 million USDT, then unfroze them three hours later. And in May, THORChain itself lost $10.7 million to a GG20 flaw and...
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Mark Karpelès Opened the Ledgers. The Spy Chips Are Mass-Produced.
The 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 generations of design. Whoever makes it isn't planning a short run. Ledger says its own chip and software were never…
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He Lost $14M to FTX. Now He’s Putting Real Stocks on Solana | Armani Ferrante (Backpack)
What 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 version is 1:1 redeemable stock you can move between your brokerage and DeFi. Armani explains how that unlocks…
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STRK’s L1 Bet: Eli Ben-Sasson on Starknet’s Exit Plan
Starknet 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 co-founder and CEO Eli Ben-Sasson joins Camila Russo to explain the plan.The announcement came as a post on X on Oct.…
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Ledger Was Hacked — Who Do You Trust With Your Keys Now?
Up 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 recovery phrases off the screen at setup and sending them out over a mobile network.So the question stops being what...
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Tokenized Stocks Get an SEC Sandbox. Who's Left Out?
The 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 qualify.Days after the Senate declined to move ahead on the CLARITY Act, the SEC issued an exemption order for "tokenized...
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Solana's Historic Governance Vote — While Robinhood Invades Its Meme Coin Turf
Solana 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 constitution, inflation and fees.Camila Russo sits down with Nick Almond, Head of Governance at the Jito Foundation, right…
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Can RobinHood Chain Take This Boom? w/ ARB's Steven Goldfeder
Robinhood 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 craze have legs?Spiking Robinhood feesWhere's crypto's decentralization promise when Robinhood owns the sequencer?The...
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The EIP That Wants to Cap ETH Staking at 50%
About 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 crosses 50%, by tapering staking rewards down to almost nothing as that threshold approaches.The proposal landed just…
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The $114 Trillion Question: How DTCC Is Tokenizing the Entire U.S. Market
DTCC 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 back — without disrupting anything. Nadine Chakar joins The Defiant to explain the digital twin model, why they chose…
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Memecoins Eat Everything: Robinhood's Accidental Casino & Base's Identity Crisis
Brian 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 every one of those wallets felt it. That one move cracked open the week's biggest debate: what should Coinbase and…
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Now or Never: Inside the Fight to Pass the CLARITY Act
Fourteen 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 for the first time, merging the Senate Banking and Agriculture committee text into one bill. It added a law…
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Saylor Selling BTC: Strategy Lifeline or Betrayal?
Michael 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 cover dividend payments and build cash reserves — in the middle of MSTR and STRC crashing to record lows, the yield…
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Inside the Ethereum Foundation Overhaul: is a Multi-Node Structure Bullish?
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 didn't wait. In a matter of weeks, 50 institutions and Ethereum leaders came together to form ETH Labs — a new…
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"Bazooka in Every Hand" Do We Really Want Unstoppable AI? w/ Jake Brukhman, Haseeb Qureshi, Jesus Rodriguez
Last 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 case for decentralized AI? Jake Brukhman (Coin Fund), Jesus Rodriguez (Sentora), and Haseeb Qureshi (Dragonfly) debate...
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DeFi's Near-Death Moment | Mike Silagadze on Ether.fi, Security, and What Comes Next
How 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, the DeFi United rescue effort, and why Mike believes the default path could have been far worse if nobody had stepped…
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DeFi Hacks Happening Every Day; Institutions Are Still Coming
April 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 stepping back - they're leaning in with more diligence, stronger infrastructure requirements, and growing demand for...
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Top Talent Is Leaving the EF. What Happens to ETH Now?
Top 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 livestream, Camila Russo is joined by Dankrad Feist, Laura Shin, Ajit Tripathi, and William Mougayar to break down the EF...
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DeFi Yields Are Too Damn Low! Here's Why
DeFi 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 crypto is no longer just how much yield you can earn, but whether that yield is actually worth the risk.In this debate…
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The $300M DeFi Bailout: Heroic or Unsustainable?
Explosive 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 strength - or expose hidden trust assumptions, opaque risk, and the need for a real DeFi backstop? The Defiant's Camila Russo…
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Should Arbitrum Have Frozen North Korea's Funds? Griff Green vs. Gabe Shapiro
The 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 exploit. But was it the right move? And what does it say about the systems we're building? Griff Green (Giveth Co-Founder…
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Quantum Could Break Bitcoin Sooner Than We Thought | Alex Pruden
Two new research papers just intensified one of crypto’s most serious long-term risks: quantum computing. In this episode of The Defiant Podcast, Camila Russo sits down with Alex Pruden, co-founder and CEO of Project 11, to unpack what the latest quantum breakthroughs actually mean for Bitcoin,...
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Omer Goldberg: The DeFi Exploit That Exposed a Bigger Problem
A new DeFi exploit triggered millions in losses, but the deeper story is about risk. In this episode, Omer Goldberg, founder of Chaos Labs, explains how the attack unfolded, why the damage spread across lending markets, what vault curators got wrong, and whether DeFi is truly ready for mainstream...
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How the DTCC is Tokenizing $100 Trillions in Assets | Tom Sullivan
What happens when the institution at the center of U.S. market plumbing starts putting securities onchain? In this episode of The Defiant, Chris Storaker sits down with Tom Sullivan, Managing Director at DTCC Digital Assets, to discuss how DTCC is approaching tokenization, why regulatory clarity...
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Will Aave’s New Plan Change DeFi Forever? | Stani Kulechov Explains
New Podcast with Aave founder Stani Kulechov just dropped: Aave is at a turning point - will the Aave Will Win proposal lead to innovation or chaos? Aave is navigating a pivotal moment with the recent "Aave will win" proposal. This initiative aims to redirect 100% of protocol revenue back to the...
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Optimism Is Done With “Ethereum Alignment” — Users Come First
In 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 might be missing the point. Jing argues that the most important question isn’t whether a chain is an L1, L2, or sidechain....
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Did L2 Fragment Ethereum? - With Yuval Rooz, CEO of Digital Asset, Co-Founder of Canton
Layer 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 is Ethereum’s real value • Why stablecoins don’t need blockchains • Why L2 may be weakening Ethereum’s core Is scaling...
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The Bitcoin Renaissance Legacy : Beyond Digital Gold Ep. 2
Bitcoin 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 seen since 2017.And then — just as quickly — it cooled.So was the Bitcoin renaissance just a flash in the pan?Or did...
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Why DAO Governance Always Turns Political
"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 bureaucracy" emerges, and why Sky redesigned its architecture to survive it. From USDS growth to the Atlas rulebook and...
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Robinhood’s Crypto Head Johann Kerbrat on Why Public Blockchains Will Win
Robinhood 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 move to build on Ethereum. He believes institutions can get the privacy and compliance guarantees they need on public...
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Rebuilding Global Payments with Stablecoins | Circle & USDC with Nikhil Chandhok
Stablecoins 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 than a digital dollar — it’s a global financial network.We discuss economic inclusion, internet-scale finance,...
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Crypto’s Point of No Return: Institutions are Finally Here, with Brett Tejpaul
2025 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 accelerated last year. From ETFs and stablecoin regulation to banks using public blockchains in production, crypto crossed a…
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Why OG DeFi Failed | Kain Warwick, Founder of Synthetix
Kain 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 token sale and is heading into its TGE. We get into: Why Kain believes DeFi’s biggest bottleneck isn’t “more...
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Ethereum is for Institutions: Danny Ryan Says Tokenization Isn't Enough
In 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 & President at Etherealize, to talk about the next big wave for crypto: institutional adoption of Ethereum. Recorded in...
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How Stablecoins Are Rewiring Global Payments | Borderless CPO Alex Garn
In 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 cross-border payments — and what it actually takes to move money at scale across jurisdictions. Alex walks through Borderless’...
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The Rise of the Fan Economy | Consumer Crypto | Avalanche Ecosystems Ep. 4
For 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 in an emerging sector called fantech. In this episode of the Avalanche Ecosystem Series, we explore the rise of…
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Uniswap is about to “turn on the switch.” with Hayden Adams
In 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 from Uniswap Labs + the Uniswap Foundation that would activate protocol fees, introduce a programmatic UNI burn, and...
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Ethereum’s “HTTP Moment” with Marissa Posner & Yoav Weiss
In this episode of The Defiant podcast, Camila Russo sits down in Buenos Aires (Devconnect) with Marissa Foster (Product, Ethereum Foundation) and Yoav Weiss (security researcher, Ethereum Foundation) to unpack The Trustless Manifesto and the Ethereum Interop Layer (EIL), why “trust assumptions”...
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Becoming the "Institutions Chain" With Avalanche’s Morgan Krupetsky
In 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 today: the rapid institutionalization of blockchain and Avalanche’s strategy to lead it. Morgan walks us through…
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Tokenize Everything: Robert Leshner’s Vision for On-Chain Finance
Robert 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 this episode, Cami sits down with one of DeFi’s earliest pioneers to unpack: Why DeFi itself shouldn’t change — but assets...
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Is DYOR Dead? Building a Safer Web3 with Alex Katz
In 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 assets are gone, they are gone forever, with a near-zero chance of recovery. The old mantra of "Do Your Own Research" falls...
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Avalanche DeFi: the Journey to Bring Institutions Onchain
In 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 strategic redevelopment. The Defiant founder Camila Russo and Ava Labs' Chief Strategy Officer Luigi D’Onorio DeMeo are...
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Inside the PYUSD's takeover of PayPal with May Zabaneh, VP Crypto
In 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 cross-border payments, deliver faster settlement, and plug directly into PayPal’s existing ecosystem. The discussion…
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Why Yat Siu Believes Altcoins Will Surpass Bitcoin
In 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 valuable? Animoca Brands co-founder Yat Siu returns to explore this very question, detailing a vision for a trust layer...
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The AI CEO Era: Breaking Build Bottlenecks with Vibe Coding | Ahmad Shadid
In 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 and now leads a bold push toward “sovereign superintelligence”: an AI CEO framework that can govern, fund, and scale...
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How Avalanche is Tackling the Blockchain Trilemma
Avalanche 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 shared liquidity. In the genesis episode of our new ECOSYSTEMS podcast, Camila Russo and guest cohost Luigi D’Onorio…
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What Crypto VCs Want Now | Aryan Sheikhalian
Crypto’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 “crypto as an asset” to crypto as infrastructure: 24/7 markets, instant clearing and settlement, and new structured products...
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Solana vs. Bitcoin: Why Pantera Capital is All In | Paul Veradittakit
In 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 stablecoins, and the evolution of digital asset treasury companies. Paul shares insights on Pantera's $1.2 billion Solana fund,...
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Can Crypto Be Trusted? Ben Nadareski’s Answer to the Skeptics
In 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 institutional adoption. Ben shares how Solstice Labs is pioneering permissionless, institutional-grade yield strategies and...
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StarkWare Bets on Becoming Bitcoin's Execution Layer, Not on Attracting Corporate Chains
In 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 ZK proofs. From Bitcoin staking to the creation of an "integrity web," Eli shares groundbreaking insights into the…
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About this show
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.
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