Validated

Hosted by Austin Federa

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Episodes

175

Latest episode

Jun 2026

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About the show

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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60 recent

June 12, 202644 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.

June 2, 202642 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, 202644 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 beyond in-house devices through partnerships with Android manufacturers, positioning Solana Mobile as a broader crypto platform rather than just a hardware company. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

April 21, 202642 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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

April 10, 20261 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, 20261 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 limitations in Solana’s architecture are being correctly diagnosed, and explore what these design decisions could mean for the next generation of on-chain trading and market infrastructure. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

March 24, 202652 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.

March 6, 202636 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.

January 28, 202656 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.

December 9, 202551 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 Stablecoins33:19 - 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.