The Contango Podcast

Hosted by Mike Grantis

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Latest episode

May 2024

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EN-US

About the show

This is the Contango Podcast, where we take you behind the scenes as we identify, diligence and discuss private investment opportunities at the bleeding edge of web3. We interview the founders, investors and researchers that are driving the industry forward. The podcast is hosted by Mike Grantis, co-Founder and Managing Director at Contango Digital Assets, a forward looking venture firm focused on building and investing in innovative companies that make web3 globally accessible.

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24 recent

May 29, 202438 min

#23| Shrapenl: the World's First AAA Blockchain First-Person Shooter

Follow Contango: @ContangoDigitalFollow Mike: @MikeGrantisFollow Don: @DonNorburyFollow Shrapnel: @playShrapnelShrapnel is the world's first blockchain based triple A first person shooter game. It's built on avalanche and represents really a step change in quality from anything we've seen in the blockchain gaming space today. The team behind shrapnel has led productions on games like Call of Duty, BioShock, Halo, Star Wars and much more.The team is also building an equally interesting infrastructure that makes games like shrapnel possible. It's currently codenamed Game Bridge, but by the sounds of it, it may drive some monumental shifts in our ability to produce composable and upgradable blockchain games. The shrapnel token trap just went live on a number of exchanges, and by the looks of it, the community engagement thus far has been just crazy.

May 22, 202438 min

#22 | Arcade: Unlocking GameFi Rewards with Mission Pools

Follow Contango: @ContangoDigitalFollow Josh: @JoshField Follow Josh Poole: @MissonPooleFollow Arcade: @Arcade2Earn Today's guest is Josh Poole, CEO at Arcade. Arcade is a GameFi platform that offers users the opportunity to earn rewards from web3 games through their mission pools architecture.Crypto.com Capital, KuCoin ventures, Merit Circle, and yours truly Contango digital assets. Most recently, Arcade had their ARK utility token listed on KuCoin. And now they're back to building.

February 19, 202452 min

#21 | Bittensor Guru: Dynamic TAO & Cellular Automata

Follow Contango: @ContangoDigitalFollow Mike: @MikeGrantisFollow Keith: @KeithSingery

February 2, 202456 min

#20 | Mog Machine: Bittensor, Corcel, Taostats & the Future of Incentivized A.I.

Follow Contango: @ContangoDigitalFollow Mike: @MikeGrantisFollow Mog Machine: @MogMachine Follow Corcel: @Corcel_XFollow TaoStats: @taostats

October 31, 202327 min

#19 | Ethena: Creating a New Era in Stablecoin with USDe

Follow Contango: @ContangoDigitalFollow Mike: @MikeGrantisFollow Ethena: @Ethena_LabsFollow Conor: @ConorRyderHey, everyone. I'm excited to share with you my conversation with Connor Ryder, head of research at Ethena Labs. Ethena is solving one of the most pressing issues in Defi right now. They're developing a decentralized yield bearing stablecoin backed by Ethereum liquid staking token derivatives. Unlike Fiat backed stablecoins like USDC and USDT with opaque reserves, 0% yield sharing and unhedged regulatory and censorship risk.USDe has 100% on chain auditable reserves with no inherent confiscation risk unlike over collateralized crypto native stablecoins like FRAX and DAI, USDe is capital efficient and offers yield from both Ethereum staking derivatives and exchange based arbitrage. The STABLECOIN is minted by opening up delta neutral positions through onboarding long lost reserves and shorting Ethereum Perpetuals with 1X leverage.This creates a fixed price asset with added benefits of Ethereum staking yields alongside short arbitrage yield. The emergence of this digitally native decentralized dollar unlocks the power of the Internet bond, creating a yield curve that can be used to create permissionless on-chain savings products. The project has just raised a 6.5 million seed round led by Dragonfly Capital

October 26, 202336 min

#18 | Energi: Elevating Blockchain Security with Unyielding Defense-in-Depth

Follow Contango: @ContangoDigitalFollow Mike: @MikeGrantisFollow Energi: @Energi Follow Tommy: @TommyWorldPower Hey, everyone. I'm excited to share with you my conversation with Tommy Rostami, the founder of Energi. Energyi is an EVM compatible L1 protocol built with security at its core. It uses a security mechanism called Defense in Depth and has managed to remain hack free over the last three years. They've recently recorded over 1 million in stolen user funds that have been mitigated through their Energy Bureau of Investigations.Energy is to Etherium what Kusama is to Polkadot. It's a great place to deploy code and test smart contracts in the open without widespread risk of bugs and hacks. This conversation digs into blockchain security, the importance of decentralization and the mission of Energiand so much more.

October 4, 202343 min

#17 | Quai Network: Decoding the Future of Money Beyond Fiat & Bitcoin

Follow Contango: @ContangoDigitalFollow Mike: @MikeGrantisFollow Quai Network: @QuaiNetwork Follow Alan: @AlanOrwickI'm excited to share with you my conversation with Alan Orwick, co-founder at Quai Network. Quai Network is an incredibly ambitious project, looking to create a new crypto based global monetary system. There a proof of work blockchain aiming to improve on many of the paradigms invented by Bitcoin and by creating a more scalable monetary system without compromising on decentralization.

September 18, 202322 min

#16 | Kakarot: Zero Knowledge, Limitless Potential with Ethereum VM on Cairo

Follow Contango: @ContangoDigitalFollow Mike: @MikeGrantisFollow Kakarot: @KakarotZkEvmFollow Elias: @ETazouI'm excited to share with you my conversation with Elias Tazartes founder at Kakarot. Kakarot is a zero knowledge, Ethereum Virtual Machine implementation built on the Cairo coding language. It's designed to work out of the box with all developer tools and wallets built on Ethereum, and they've been open source since day one and will soon be implemented on Starknet Layer 2 and Layer 3.

September 5, 202337 min

#15 | Polemos: Leveling Up Blockchain Games

Follow Contango: @ContangoDigitalFollow Mike: @MikeGrantisFollow Polemos: @Polemos_io Follow Sascha: @SaschaZeehee Hey, everyone. I'm excited to share with you my conversation with Sassha, the founder and CEO of Polemos. Polemos is an all in one platform for gamers looking to enter the blockchain gaming space. They are an information and education provider as well as an asset rental platform and a community of gamers voyaging into the world of blockchain games. Polemos is very much a top of the funnel resource for anyone from experts all the way down to those new to blockchain games.

August 29, 202326 min

#14 | Eclipse: Transforming the DApp Landscape with Customizable Roll-Ups

Follow Contango: @ContangoDigitalFollow Mike: @MikeGrantisFollow Eclipse: @EclipseFNDHey, everyone. I'm excited to share with you my conversation with Veronica Buron and Grant Gerber of Eclipse. Eclipse is a customizable roll up provider for developers building decentralized applications. Their unique architecture allows developers unmatched customization, superior speeds and security when deploying their applications. Their testnet is already live and has over 30 applications building on top of it. At time of recording, they're also in the process of rolling out their self-service toolkit, which allows developers the ability to spin up and deploy Eclipse rollups in a fully self-sufficient way.