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Validated

Austin Federa

When it comes to blockchain, the thing people talk about most — the price — is actually the least interesting part. Crypto conversations are too often about who’s up and who’s down, what to buy and what to sell, and today’s drama on Twitter. Most conversations about crypto miss how it’s going to change ... everything.

On VALIDATED, we’ll be talking to the people who are rethinking the internet — and our world. No hype cycles. No financial advice. Just conversations on the biggest ideas shaping the future of the internet.

Web3 is complicated, but never boring.

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  • 22 episodes
  • Avg 51 min
  • English

Episodes 22

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  • #91
    Yesterday · 45 min

    Building the Bitcoin Equivalent for AI Inference Compute with David and Daniil Liberman (Gonka)

    In this episode, Austin chats with David and Daniil Liberman of Gonka about the case for using crypto to build a permissionless, meritocratic AI compute network focused on inference rather than decentralized training. They argue that centralized AI infrastructure is rapidly concentrating both revenue and compute, and contrast Bitcoin’s immutable, open rules with corporate systems whose promises can change. With Bitcoin as their north star, Gonka’s protocol aims to verify inference outputs and validate the underlying hardware to guard against fraud, censorship, and model substitution, using proof-of-work-like measurements of real, always-on hardware rather than proof-of-stake incentives. 00:00 - Why Crypto for AI 03:10 - Inference Over Training 05:02 - Bitcoin as Compute Incentives 07:21 - OpenRouter Critiques 11:36 - Open Source and Safety 18:51 - How Gonka Works 20:14 - Verifiable Inference Proof 24:22 - Privacy and Encryption 29:07 - Decentralized Training Roadmap 34:16 - Keeping Frontier Labs Honest 42:44 - More on Why Bitcoin Provides an Ideal Compute Model 44:23 - Where to Learn More Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  • #90
    August 25 · 29 min

    What are Intents Actually Solving? with Declan Hannon (Aurora Labs)

    In this episode, Austin chats with Declan from Aurora Labs about building on NEAR’s Intents architecture. Declan explains why intents go beyond “a better bridge UI" and how Aurora Intents actually work, enabling one-click cross-chain journeys. They discuss how the protocol helps create liquidity, adoption metrics (over $21B lifetime volume, about $1B monthly), and use cases across wallets, neobanks, payments, RWAs, and more. The conversation also explores inherent cross-chain risks, as highlighted by a Litecoin reorg double-spend incident, and the need for insurance-like protections for onchain products. 0:00 - Aurora Intents Overview 02:57 - Intents vs Bridges 05:21- Solver Network Explained 06:23 - Aurora Intents’ Behind the Scenes Flow 07:43 - Liquidity and Market Making 08:55 - Real World Use Cases 11:25 - Confidential Intents 16:11 - Intents’ Speed Tradeoffs and Risks 17:30 - Litecoin Incident Earlier This Year 19:51 - Liability and Insurance 26:08 - Future Verticals for Intents 28:36 - Where to Learn More Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  • August 14 · 45 min

    OUT OF SCOPE Ep. 2: Anything But Crypto with David Hoffman

    In this episode, Austin and Tori join David Hoffman (Bankless) to talk about "anything but crypto." Their conversation spans longevity and mind-uploading, the challenges of changing opinions in public, and how modern media incentives distort nuanced ideas. They also discuss social media, the future of long-form content, AI risk and alignment, what it means to “win” the AI race, regulatory uncertainty, and ... yes, David's ideas around fitness. 00:00 - Welcome and intro 01:46 - How Do You Want to Live? 06:17 - Changing Your Mind as a Public Figure 09:35 - Media Distortion Effects 14:34 - Quality of Content vs Virality 16:33 - Yudkowsky and AI Doom 24:58 - Base Models' Values 27:55 - China and AI's Moral Core 30:01 - What Winning the AI Race Means 36:46 - Why CLARITY Stalled 41:47 - Hypertrophy and Longevity 44:23 - Conclusion Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  • #89
    June 26 · 1 hr 12 min

    OUT OF SCOPE, Ep. 1: Hot Takes Roundtable with Tori Pastore (Soup) and Austin Campbell (Zero Knowledge)

    And now for something (almost) completely different. Welcome to Out of Scope, a new sub-series where Austin and Tori Pastore (aka Birb Bernake) riff with guests on hot takes from the frontiers of tech, finance, policy, and whatever else is the flavor of the week In this debut episode, they sit down with Austin Campbell to discuss... quite a few things: running stablecoin reserves, repealing the 17th Amendment, why banks resemble cartels, insider trading, market structure, why regulators should be paid more and held to higher standards, modernizing the BSA, and—most importantly—a definitive ranking of video conferencing tools. 00:00 - Introducing Tori 01:24 - Chinese Peptides Explained 02:45 - GLP 1 Hype Cycle 05:40 - Peptides and Food Science 10:49 - Enter Austin Campbell 16:11- Stablecoin Reserve Rules 20:35 - Gold Doom Scenarios 22:59 - Banks' Payment Monopoly 34:38 - AI Lobbying and EA critiques 38:20 - Prediction Markets Incentives 43:59 - Fixing Regulator Accountability 47:39 - Prediction Markets 48:47 - Market Manipulation Debate 59:54 - Perps Versus Futures 01:02:51 - Assassination Markets Debate 01:06:21 - Austin's Magic Wand Reforms 01:10:40 - Blooper Reel Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  • June 12 · 44 min

    Why Crypto Fails without Privacy with Mert Mumtaz (Helius)

    In this episode, Austin chats with Mert about why privacy is becoming essential for crypto and on-chain finance. They discuss how ZK-based privacy works via shielded pools, commitments, proofs, and nullifiers, contrasting it with Monero’s probabilistic obfuscation. Mert explains Zcash’s renewed adoption through improved usability, macro and regulatory shifts, and fairer historical distribution. He argues privacy layers fail when they lack tangible benefits, and outlines a new fully on-chain, composable, atomic privacy protocol for Solana built with Light Protocol’s compression approach, including permissionless and enterprise “zones” with configurable compliance features and reduced MEV via encrypted swaps. 00:00 - Why Privacy Matters 03:05 - Zcash And ZK Origins 06:26 - How Shielded Pools Work 09:56 - Why Zcash Broke Out 15:52 - Why Privacy Layers Fail 19:47 - Solana Privacy Protocol 22:57 - Composability Breakthrough 25:51 - Go-To-Market Plan 30:50 - Compliance And Zones 32:40 - Onchain Versus Off Chain 34:58 - Zcash And Solana’s Future 40:29 - Bitcoin Privacy And Quantum 43:48 - Closing And Where To Find Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  • #88
    June 2 · 42 min

    Why Privacy Tech Is Having Its Moment with Seth for Privacy (Cake Wallet)

    In this episode, Austin chats with Seth (Cake Wallet) about why privacy is gaining traction after years of being niche, tracing Seth’s entry through Monero and other privacy-preserving products. They compare Zcash’s seemingly influencer-driven pump with Monero’s quieter but rising real-world usage, discuss Cake Wallet’s UX-driven approach (including enforced auto-shielding for Zcash), and debate how criminal adoption can actually validate that privacy tools work in adversarial settings while emphasizing legitimate use cases and storytelling. They explore why app-layer privacy on major L1s has weak adoption versus privacy-native L1s, the importance of defaults, and what’s next for privacy in DeFi and stablecoins. 00:00 - Seth’s Personal and Professional Privacy Journey 05:53 - Zcash vs Monero Adoption 09:51 - Crime Compliance and Privacy Ethics 15:25 - Why Privacy-Preserving Wallet UX Has Lagged 20:49 - Privacy L1s vs. App-Layer Privacy 27:30 - What’s Next Private DeFi 30:07 - Why Monero Has Survived CEX Delistings 32:35 - Privacy in the Age of AI Surveillance 41:51 - Conclusion Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  • May 5 · 44 min

    Solana Mobile's Vision Beyond Seeker with Emmett Hollyer (Solana Mobile)

    In this episode, Austin chats with Emmett Hollyer about the evolution and future of Solana Mobile. They reflect on how the successes and missteps of the Saga phone informed the more refined Seeker, with a focus on improvements in design, pricing, and usability. Emmett discusses scaling production to meet over 100,000 preorders, strategies for attracting developers, and the rationale behind launching a token to align incentives across the ecosystem. The conversation also explores plans to expand

  • April 21 · 42 min

    Crypto's Market Making Arms Race with Rahul Jain (Ellipsis Labs)

    In this episode, Austin chats with Rahul Jain (Head of Trading at Ellipsis Labs) to explore the evolution of market making in crypto. Rahul discusses what gives crypto market makers an edge, why being early matters, and how crypto has created new challenges around MEV, transaction landing, and execution. They explore the future prospects of prop AMMs, perps, MCP, and what it will take for on-chain finance to scale beyond crypto-native users and compete with traditional markets.

  • April 10 · 1 hr 12 min

    The Constellation Debate Part 2, with Brennan Watt (Anza)

    In this episode, Austin sits down with Brennan to unpack Constellation, Solana’s latest market structure proposal, and what it could mean for the network’s future. The conversation centers on Brennan’s perspective on why Solana’s current leader-based design creates challenges around transaction ordering, predictability, and censorship resistance, and how Constellation aims to address those issues through a new multi-proposer framework. They explore the trade-offs between latency, complexity, and fairness, debate whether the proposal strikes the right balance for traders and validators, and discuss how it fits into Solana’s broader roadmap. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  • April 9 · 1 hr 26 min

    The Constellation Debate, Part 1 with Ben Coverston (Temporal)

    In this first part in a series of debates on Constellation (Anza's MCP proposal), Austin chats with Ben from Temporal. The conversation focuses on Ben’s measured critical perspective, highlighting his concerns around the proposal’s trade-offs, including added complexity, potential unintended effects on market structure, and whether alternative approaches could achieve similar gains in censorship resistance and throughput. They dig into the proposal’s underlying motivation, debate whether current

  • #87
    March 24 · 52 min

    MegaETH Mainnet and the Real-Time ZK Endgame w/ Lei Yang

    In this episode, we sit down with the team behind MegaETH to discuss the launch of their mainnet and the vision for a new generation of high-performance Layer 2 blockchains. We explore how MegaETH is pushing block times into the millisecond range, what that means for onchain markets, and why ultra-low latency could fundamentally change blockspace auctions and transaction ordering. The conversation also covers token utility, sequencer incentives, fraud proof security, and why the long-term endgame for rollups is real-time ZK proving. We also dive into the practical challenges of building high-performance crypto infrastructure — from co-location and distributed RPC networks to designing an ecosystem that can actually take advantage of that speed. To learn more about MegaETH, check out: https://www.megaeth.com/ https://rabbithole.megaeth.com/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  • #86
    March 6 · 36 min

    How Shelby Makes Decentralized Storage Faster and Cheaper w/ Pranav Raval

    In this episode, Austin chats with Pranav Raval (Aptos Labs) about Shelby, a new decentralized storage protocol designed to address the performance and cost limitations of earlier decentralized storage systems. The conversation dives into Shelby’s architecture and market opportunities. Unlike previous systems that rely on unreliable “spare capacity” nodes, Shelby uses professionally operated data centers, erasure coding for reliability, and incentives for fast data retrieval. This design enables new use cases beyond simple file storage, including verifiable advertising analytics, IP-protected generative media, AI data marketplaces, and distributed AI inference at the network edge. Pranav explains how Shelby can position itself as infrastructure for data-intensive applications—especially those driven by AI—while offering an alternative to the expensive egress fees and regional data silos of traditional cloud providers. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  • #85
    January 28 · 56 min

    How Wyoming Built the First State-Issued Stablecoin w/ Anthony Apollo

    In this episode, Austin talks with Anthony, Executive Director of Wyoming’s Stable Token Commission, about how Wyoming became the first U.S. state to issue its own government-backed stablecoin. They discuss the state’s decade-long push into crypto policy, why Wyoming chose to operate digital financial infrastructure instead of just regulating it, and how the Frontier Stable Token is designed to be fully backed, legally neutral, and usable for any lawful purpose. The conversation covers constitutional safeguards around privacy and due process, how reserves generate public revenue, and why a small, agile state may be uniquely positioned to experiment with on-chain money—offering a glimpse into what the future of state finance could look like. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  • Dec 9, 2025 · 51 min

    Inversion's Vision for Real-World Crypto w/ Santiago Roel Santos

    In this episode, Austin chats with Santiago Roel Santos, founder of Inversion, discussing why crypto has struggled to reach mainstream adoption and what it will take to change that. Santiago explains how Inversion applies a private-equity-style model to deploy capital into real-world use cases, rather than chasing speculative cycles. He outlines why stablecoins are emerging as crypto’s strongest product-market fit, what infrastructure still needs to mature, and how regulatory clarity is shaping global distribution. The conversation also covers chain selection, the limits of “casino onboarding,” and why genuine adoption depends on building products that solve practical problems for people and businesses. 00:00 - Understanding Inversion and Its Origins 07:18 - Crypto's Consumer to Enterprise Shift 12:59 - Interoperability and Choosing the Right Blockchain 17:16 - Private Equity in a High Interest Rate Environment 20:16 - Distribution vs. Product in Crypto 25:50 - The Future of Crypto and Stablecoins 33:19 - Global Economic Power and Technology 35:51 - Crypto's Impact on Corporate Structures 40:32 - Tokenized Stocks and Market Access 48:02 - Advice for Founders in the Crypto Space Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  • Nov 18, 2025 · 45 min

    Maple's Model for Institutional Lending w/ Sid Powell

    In this episode, Austin chats with Sid Powell, co-founder and CEO of Maple Finance, to explore how institutional credit is moving on-chain. Sid breaks down how Maple has facilitated over $5 billion in loans, how it manages risk and transparency in a post–Celsius world, and what’s next for tokenized private credit. We also discuss stablecoins, regulation, and how crypto finance is maturing for the long term. 00:00 - Understanding Maple Finance 02:03 - Comparing Maple to Celsius 09:39 - Institutional Clientele 16:42 - Maple's Navigation of Different Blockchain Ecosystems 22:58 - The Case for Vertical Integration 23:57 - Challenges in Financial Services 25:12 - Crypto's Overall Growth 26:49 - The Future of Banking and Crypto Adoption 30:57 - Stablecoins and Cross-Border Payments 38:21 - Automation and Efficiency in Crypto Lending 44:00 - Conclusion Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  • Oct 31, 2025 · 1 hr 19 min

    Kevin Bowers on the True Costs of Scaling Crypto

    In this episode, Kevin Bowers returns to explain Jump's expansion from trading to core infrastructure, centered on what he calls the "great inversion": the real bottleneck in tech isn't compute, but data and I/O. He introduces Shelby, a new storage network, as a direct challenge to the "Hotel California for Data" model used by cloud providers. This same focus on efficient data flow—not just processing power—was the key to scaling Solana with Fire Dancer. Finally, Kevin explains how FPGAs from high-frequency trading are the critical hardware solution, allowing blockchains to bypass software's inefficient "Tower of Babel" and "get close to the wire" for true high performance. 00:00 - Expanding Beyond Trading and the Vision for Shelby 02:31 - Challenges in Storage and Data Management 04:37 - Building High-Performance Systems 08:04 - The Evolution of Jump's Technology 11:55 - The Economics of Cloud Storage 29:07 - Fire Dancer and Frankendancer 42:03 - The Cost of Optimization 42:48 - Machine Learning and Custom Networks 43:47 - Project Prioritization and Entropy 46:48 - Challenges in High-Performance Computing 56:38 - The Role of FPGAs in Trading and Blockchain 01:13:45 - Future of Hardware Acceleration in Blockchain 01:18:54 -Conclusion and Final Thoughts Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  • #84
    Aug 26, 2025 · 33 min

    Prop AMMs, MEV, and the Realities of Solana's Roadmap w/ Connor (Temporal) and Brennan Watt (Anza)

    In this episode, Connor (Temporal) and Brennan (Anza) offer a unique perspective on Solana's evolution, contrasting practical building with core protocol development. The conversation delves into the real-world challenges of building on Solana, from physical infrastructure failures to the ever-present reality of MEV. Connor highlights how transparency tools have exposed sandwich attacks and slot-lagging, forcing the ecosystem to adapt. Looking forward, they debate the path to a more robust marke

  • Aug 5, 2025 · 42 min

    Reinventing Onchain Order Books on Solana w/ Tristan Frezza (Bullet)

    In this episode, Austin chats with Tristan (Bullet) to discuss the significant evolution of decentralized finance (DeFi), particularly focusing on the re-emergence of Central Limit Order Books (CLOBs) and the innovative development of Bullet on Solana. Tristan dives into the history of order books, their challenges in the DeFi space, and the technological advancements that are now overcoming these obstacles. They explore the unique position Bullet occupies in the Solana ecosystem, advancements i

  • Jul 22, 2025 · 48 min

    An Investor's Evolving Thesis of a Maturing Market w/ Jon Charbonneau (DBA)

    DBA co-founder John Charbonneau discusses his journey from TradFi to crypto, detailing his evolution from an Ethereum maximalist to a multi-chain pragmatist. He argues that as the crypto market matures beyond hype cycles, real revenue and cash flow are becoming key valuation metrics. He points to Hyperliquid's controversial rise as a prime example of the industry's struggle with decentralization, noting the irony of Solana advocates lodging critiques once used against them. Looking ahead, Charbo

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