The Index Podcast

The AI labs are IPO-ing this year and they're all asking the same question behind closed doors: "Where did this training data actually come from, and can you prove it?" Avi Patel (Founder & CEO, Kled AI) and Andrea Muttoni (CEO, The DATA Foundation, formerly Story Protocol) built the receipts layer that answers that question, and they're pulling back the curtain on the messy, multi-billion dollar world of AI training data.

In this episode, we get into:

🧾 Trace: The Data Foundation's flagship product that puts a verifiable, immutable, on-chain "receipt" on every piece of data a lab...

Everyone talks about Jupiter, but what happens when the aggregators start competing with each other?

In this episode, Tim Lee, CMO of Titan Exchange, breaks down how Titan built Solana's first meta-DEX aggregator, why its on-chain router DART is putting up numbers that beat Binance's top VIP tier, and what's coming next with Titan Pro.

This is the inside look at how execution, routing, and pure basis-point obsession are reshaping trading on Solana.

🚀 In this episode, we cover:

🥇 How Titan launched Solana's first meta-DEX aggregator and why 2025 was the perfect moment

⚡...

Solana just turned every asset into something tradable. Now HawkFi is turning every tradable asset into yield, and it's doing it with AI agents that work while you sleep.

In this episode of The Index Podcast, host Steve sits down with Brad ("Bradydonut"), Co-Founder of HawkFi, the agent terminal letting retail deploy 24/7 liquidity and market-making agents in under 10 seconds, no screen time required.

They dig into how HawkFi rebalances positions up to 120 times an hour, why that kind of speed is only possible on Solana, and the freshly stealth-launched "MEV Boost" feature that lets everyday...

Ever wondered how a $100 deposit on Solana can plug you into the same market neutral strategies that Wall Street quants use to print steady returns? Derek Lee, Co-Founder & CEO of Neutral Trade, sits down with us to break down how his team went from a Colosseum hackathon to managing capital across nine live quant strategies, backed by Solana Labs, Ergonia, Black Pine, Skyland Ventures and more.

If you've ever gotten burned by an unsustainable APY, this episode is your masterclass in telling real yield from a ticking time bomb.

🔑 What we cover:

What if the biggest unlock in crypto isn't moving money faster — it's not having to move it at all? Ethan Buchman, co-founder of Cosmos, CEO of Informal Systems, and founder of Cycles, sits down with Alex Kehaya to explain why 16th-century bankers may have understood finance better than we do today — and how he's bringing their playbook on-chain.

From medieval merchant credit networks to a decentralized clearing protocol built for modern crypto market makers, this conversation goes deep into the history of money, why platforms are "dead" in this cycle, and what real product-market fit looks like in 2...

He almost got scammed by a fake "producer" minutes before this interview even started. Then he told us why he wakes up at 5am hearing phantom AI music. Matt Van Horn, Lyft co-founder and now Founder & CEO of Lyft, has built an army of coding agents that ship dozens of open source PRs a day, and on this episode of The Index he breaks down exactly how.

What we cover:

🕵️ The wild near-scam that almost derailed this episode, plus the one phrase that reliably outs North Korean hackers on a call
 🤖 "AI psychosis": why Matt wake...

Stablecoins on Solana just hit $15B, and Eco Co-Founder & CEO Ryne Saxe says that number is going to look laughably small in five years. On this episode of The Index Podcast, Ryne breaks down why Solana pulled ahead in the stablecoin race, why Visa and Mastercard are quietly rebuilding their entire plumbing around digital dollars, and how Eco is building the routing layer that ties every chain and every stablecoin together.

If you've ever had USDC, USDT, USDG, and a few more scattered across five wallets and had no idea how to move them, this one's for...

He bought her sick cat's medicine with USDT because no bank or pharmacy would touch it. That same "get it done, on-chain" energy is now powering Rosentica, an original multimedia IP turning old, retired trading cards into a full battle economy on Solana. In this episode, Natsuki, Founder & Executive Producer of Rosentica, breaks down how their game One Arena pulled in $3.3M in volume and $1.8M in revenue in just six weeks by turning pack ripping itself into the game.

🎮 What we cover:

🃏 How One Arena turns "ripping packs" into a real PvP game...

Brazil banned crypto players from moving big money, so this founder got a bank license instead. Now Trace Finance processes over $10B in cross-border volume and powers the top 4 global payment companies in Latin America.

On this episode of The Index Podcast, Bernardo Brites, Co-Founder & CEO of Trace Finance, breaks down how stablecoins plus real bank infrastructure (not stablecoins alone) are quietly becoming the backbone of global money movement, and why the US dollar's dominance might depend on it.

🎯 What we cover:

💰 Trace Finance's $32M Series A led by CoinFund, with Coinba...

She turned "everyone hates spreadsheets" into a 320,000-user, 150-country AI company, without taking a single dollar of outside funding. Agnese Jaunošāne, COO & Co-Founder of Ajelix, sits down to break down why she and her co-founder said no to VC money, bet big on open-source AI, and are now building their own hardware to own their entire intelligence stack. If you care about who actually controls AI, and why that question matters as much as any Web3 debate, this one's for you.

What we get into:

Silver is the one commodity everyone forgot to tokenize. Mark Tormey, founder of Dominion, is fixing that: real, vaulted, audited silver, one token per ounce, live on Solana and built to plug straight into DeFi. This episode is a masterclass in what it actually takes to bring a physical asset on-chain without cutting corners on trust.

What we cover

🥈 What Dominion actually is: one token = one ounce of real silver, tracking spot price and fully DeFi composable on Solana

🏦 Custody and proof of reserves: how NDV vaults, insures, and audits every bar in...

Prediction markets called the 2024 election before the media did. Now Nass Diba, ex-CPO of Rarible and alum of Aave and Dharma, is betting that permissionless, AI-powered prediction markets on Solana are the next big media format. On this episode of The Index Podcast, we get into why Worm just raised $4.5M, why leverage belongs in prediction markets, and how half a million users learned to trade with zero risk through the Worm Cup.

What we cover:

Why prediction markets are the "next era of media," and why the timing (AI plus info chaos...

Sports cards just found their liquidity engine and it's built on Solana. This week on The Index, Alex sits down with Hadi, founder of Gacha Sports, the platform letting fans rip digital packs and pull real, graded sports cards live on-chain. From a childhood card-shop addiction to a fully bootstrapped platform built in 13 days, this is the RWA story crypto Twitter hasn't caught onto yet.

In this episode:

🃏 Why sports cards are the OG real-world asset and why Hadi bets they outgrow Pokémon 🎰 What a "gacha machine" actually is, and why ripping packs i...

Most of the world cannot buy a single share of Nvidia. Brian Huang, co-founder and CEO of Glider, returns to The Index to explain how tokenized stocks change that, and why capital is quietly rotating out of crypto and into equities.

Glider is a non-custodial platform for managing wealth on-chain. Brian breaks down the messy new landscape of on-chain stocks, who actually has the best execution, and whether AI can manage your money better than a human advisor.

Links: 

Ever tried explaining to your private banker why your money is spread across three countries, two exchanges, and a crypto wallet? Shimon Newman, former Director of Research at Squads and now Founder & CEO of Moto, is building the card that makes that whole headache disappear. This one's for globally mobile customers who are tired of slow settlement times, FX fees, and banks that only pay attention once you've already made it.

In this episode of The Index Podcast, Shimon breaks down why he left one of crypto's best companies to build a "secured credit card" that actually...

Domains are the most entrenched, least liquid asset class on the internet, and it's about to change forever. Inder Singh, VP of Product & Tech at D3 (the team behind Doma Protocol), joins The Index Podcast to break down how a $360B+ industry still run like it's 1999 is finally getting an on-chain upgrade, built natively on Solana.

From spot-trading domains like stocks, to fractional ownership of premium names, to AI agents that manage your domain on autopilot, this episode is your crash course in the next big RWA narrative.

🔑 What we cover:

🌐 Why do...

Alex Kehaya sits down with Avery Ching, co-founder and CEO of Aptos Labs and former lead engineer on Meta's Libra project, for a wide-ranging conversation on what happens when AI absorbs all of our data, and who ends up owning the intelligence that comes out of it. From Shelby's plan to put your data on encrypted, decentralized rails to Decibel's on-chain trading engine, this episode digs into where crypto and AI actually intersect, and why Avery thinks we have less time than we realize to get it right.

In this episode:

🧠 Open Intelligence: Ave...

Most crypto investors are chasing a lottery ticket. Jake Claver is building the system that keeps you from losing it all when you finally win.

Jake Claver is the CEO and Principal of Digital Ascension Group. a firm helping high-net-worth individuals and institutions navigate wealth, sovereignty, and the seismic shift happening in global finance. With a community of 17,000+ members and a mission to help 1 million people reach financial freedom, Jake brings a rare mix of street-level hustle and institutional-grade thinking to every conversation.

In this episode, Jake and Alex go deep on:

What if every community, your baseball team, your college campus, your favorite creator's fanbase, had its own currency that worked like real money from day one? Ted Livingston, the founder who built Kik into one of the world's largest messaging apps and launched the first token on Solana, is back with his boldest bet yet: Flipcash.

In this episode, Ted breaks down why Bitcoin, Kin, and stablecoins each got it partially right and how Flipcash is designed to capture the best of all three. This one is a must-watch for anyone serious about where crypto payments are...

From trading desks at UBS to leading global growth at one of the fastest-growing blockchains in the world — Xen Baynham-Herd's journey through crypto is as wild as the industry itself.

In this episode, Alex sits down with Xen, Head of Marketing & Global Growth at Base, to unpack what it really takes to bring the world on-chain. If you're building in Web3 or just trying to understand where this is all going, this one's for you.

Topics covered:

🏦 How Xen went from UBS fixed income trader to crypto OG — and why he's been in the spa...

The man behind one of Solana's most foundational DeFi protocols finally sits down with us. Michael Hwang, CEO of Orca, breaks down how a protocol that's been quietly powering Solana's liquidity for 5+ years is now stepping into the spotlight — and building infrastructure for the next era of on-chain finance.

What we cover:

🏦 From BlackRock to Solana — Michael's backstory and why he believes blockchain is building the financial rails of the future

🌊 Orca's evolution — How the protocol went from a retail-friendly DEX to the back-end liquidity engine for institutions, RWAs, and hybrid assets

🔐 Regulate...

What if every hot take you had could instantly become a trade? Jason Rodrigues, Founder of Cesto, is building exactly that on Solana — and it might be the most exciting DeFi product you haven't heard of yet.

Cesto lets anyone invest in curated baskets of assets built around ideas, narratives, and trends — from semiconductors and AI to sports teams and geopolitical headlines. In this episode, host Nicki Scans sits down with Jason to explore how Cesto is turning finance into something you actually feel — and how Solana makes it all possible.

🔑 Topics Covered:

What does it take to build a truly decentralized exchange that can compete with traditional financial markets?

In this episode of The Index Podcast, Dhrumil, Co-Founder of Archer Exchange, joins us to discuss why Solana is uniquely positioned to power the next generation of on-chain trading and how Archer is building a fully on-chain order book designed for transparency, efficiency, and deep liquidity.

From democratizing market making to creating infrastructure for tokenized real-world assets, Dhrumil shares the vision behind Archer and what it takes to build an exchange that stays true to DeFi principles.

What happens when you combine rare whiskey, real-world assets, and Solana?

In this episode of The Index Podcast, Alex Kehaya sits down with Tzvi Wiesel, Founder & CEO of Baxus, to explore how one of the most unique RWA platforms in crypto is bringing rare spirits, collectibles, lending, and liquidity fully onchain.

From tokenized whiskey bottles and decentralized financing to physical asset authentication and viral whiskey vending machines, Todd shares how Baxus is building the future of collectibles on Solana.

What You'll Learn: 

🥃 How Baxus is transforming the global whis...

What if you could turn an idea into a live Solana app without writing code?

In this episode of The Index Podcast, host Alex Kehaya sits down with Jordan O’Neill, CMO and co-founder of Eitherway, to explore how AI agents are making Web3 app development faster, easier, and more accessible for builders around the world.

Jordan breaks down how Eitherway helps users prompt, build, deploy, and monetize production-ready apps across Web2, mobile, and Web3 — with deep integrations across the Solana ecosystem.

In this episode, we cover:
 🚀 How Eitherway lets users build apps fro...

What does it take to build the best perps trading experience on Solana?

In this episode of The Index Podcast, Alex Kehaya sits down with Hunter Simmons, CTO & Co-Founder, and Jordan Prince, CEO & Co-Founder, of Imperial Perps to unpack why Solana perps are evolving fast, what traders actually need, and how Imperial is building a clearer, more transparent trading experience for the next wave of onchain users.

From fee transparency to better routing, liquidation risk, UX, and the “seek truth” mindset behind great products, this conversation breaks down where Solana DeFi is heading — without the jargon...

AI agents are coming on-chain — and Clawpump wants Solana to be their home base. In this episode of The Index Podcast, Nicky Scanella sits down with Bunny, Mauricio Trujillo Ramirez, co-founder of Clawpump and Tektonic, to unpack how autonomous AI agents could trade, earn, pay for compute, and interact with DeFi in real time.From “eternal agents” to x402, Solana speed, and the future of agentic finance, this conversation breaks down one of the most exciting intersections in Web3: AI x crypto.In this episode, we cover:
 🤖 What Clawpump is building as the “House of Agentic Finance” on Solana
 ⚡ Why Sol...

What if markets — not committees — made the big decisions behind crypto fundraising?

In this episode of The Index Podcast, Alex Kehaya sits down with Proph3t, co-founder of MetaDAO, to unpack how Solana-native fundraising is evolving, why token launches are being reimagined, and how decision markets could reshape how founders raise, govern, and scale.

In this episode, we cover:

🚀 How MetaDAO is changing internet-native fundraising on Solana
🧠 What decision markets are — and why they matter
💰 Why post-raise treasury oversight could reduce rugs and misaligned incentives
⚖️ The real trade-offs of launching a token vs. raising...

Crypto adoption isn’t just about better tech… it’s about better culture.
In this episode, John Wilson & Amol Gharte, cofounders of Solana Spaces, break down how real-world experiences are onboarding the next wave of Web3 users.

From viral pop-ups to global community building, this is what happens when crypto steps out of the screen and into real life.

🚀 In this episode, we cover:

What if you could launch a full Solana application just by describing your idea in plain English? Amit Ishairzay and Bilal Shahid, co-founders of Poof (poof.new), are building exactly that — and it's already live.

From prediction markets to token escrows to DePIN apps for cleaning up dog poop (yes, really), builders are shipping on-chain products faster than ever. Here's how they're doing it.

In this episode:

What if ripping open Pokémon packs as a kid was actually your billion-dollar origin story? Jake, Co-Founder of Phygitals, built a $180M on-chain trading card marketplace on Solana,  bootstrapped, shot down by 7 VCs, and still winning. This one hits different. 

In this episode, we cover:

🃏 What Phygitals actually is — a tokenized collectibles marketplace where physical cards live in vaults and trade at the speed of blockchain 🔐 The vault system — how PSA, Fanatics, and Alt Vault secure the physical cards behind every NFT 💸 The 92% instant buyback model — why it works and how they make money on the...

Most DeFi protocols are one hack away from collapse. Plish is building Hylo differently — and in this episode, he breaks down exactly why.

From winning the Colosseum Radar Hackathon to crossing $100M TVL, Hylo is rewriting the rules of decentralized stablecoins on Solana. No external dependencies. No borrowed risk. Just battle-tested code.

What we cover:

🧱 What is Hylo? — A DeFi platform issuing a yield-bearing stablecoin (HiUSD) and a leveraged SOL ETF (xSOL), built entirely on-chain with zero external protocol dependencies

⚠️ What Solana DeFi is getting wrong — Why composability is both DeFi's s...

What does it take to build the most trusted wallet in the Solana ecosystem and keep it that way?

What happens when every trade you make on-chain is public — and your friends start copy-trading you without asking? That's what pushed Kru Shah to build Umbra, the first live app on Arcium's Mainnet Alpha, and he's here to break down exactly how confidential compute is about to change everything on Solana.

In this episode: 🧱 What Arcium actually is — the confidential compute engine powering Umbra (and why it matters beyond DeFi) 🔄 How private swaps work on Umbra — and why 7 se...

Animoca Brands co-founder Yat Siu sits down with host Alex Kehaya to talk about digital ownership, the agentic economy, and why everything we built in Web3 was secretly a proof of concept for what's coming next. This one hits differently.

Alex shares how Nansen went all-in on agentic AI, deploying 75 OpenClaws across their entire team, building shared skill repositories, and pioneering what he calls "claw fooding" — getting AI agents to test and fix their own product. We also get deep into agentic trading, Nansen's new CLI that lets your AI agent trade on-chain, and why Alex believes th...

What if the real crypto opportunity isn't in Silicon Valley but in cargo ports, agricultural corridors, and emerging markets that Wall Street ignores? Arnold Lee moved there to find out.

Arnold is the co-founder & CEO of Sphere Labs, building stablecoin payment infrastructure on Solana for the markets that need it most. This conversation goes deep.

In this episode:

What We Cover:

What happens when a company has more AI agents than human employees? Nansen CEO Alex Svanevik joins The Index to break down exactly that and a whole lot more.

Alex shares how Nansen went all-in on agentic AI, deploying 75 OpenClaws across their entire team, building shared skill repositories, and pioneering what he calls "claw fooding", getting AI agents to test and fix their own product. We also get deep into agentic trading, Nansen's new CLI that lets your AI agent trade on-chain, and why Alex believes the traditional trading interface is dead.

In this...