Web3Unlocked Podcast

Accelerating Web3 builders, products, and networks.
Podcasting the conviction, craft, and scale behind them.
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[Web3Unlocked Podcast @Web3UnlockedHQ]

Amid Venezuela's suspicious @Polymarket win, Rep. Ritchie Torres is fast-tracking his bill to bar officials from trading on nonpublic info.

Here's why getting prediction market rules right could shape their future as trusted tools — or exploits for our political elites.👇

~~ Analysis by @dikshaksagar ~~

The Political Case

The argument for restricting public officials is straightforward: if politicians can legally profit from bets on outcomes they directly influence or have advance knowledge of, it twists incentives and erodes the already near-record low public trust in the U.S. government.

This dynamic already plays out in traditional securities markets, where the STOCK Act of 2012 was supposed to address congressional insider trading. The results have been underwhelming. Despite the law's existence, examples of suspicious trading by members of Congress have continued to surface with regularity:

- Senator Richard Burr sold $1.7M in stock immediately following a classified COVID-19 briefing; the DOJ later dropped the investigation without charges.
- Senator Kelly Loeffler offloaded millions in assets after the same confidential pandemic warning, yet faced no legal consequences when federal probes concluded.
- Senator Tommy Tuberville traded millions in defense contractor stocks and violated the STOCK Act's reporting deadline 132 times, yet faced no significant consequences.

Since the STOCK Act passed in 2012, not a single member of Congress has been prosecuted under its provisions, while the penalty for concealing trades is a trivial $200 fee, which ethics committees routinely waive.

Prediction markets present an even more direct temptation. Unlike stock trading, where connections between policy decisions and price movements can be complex and deniable, prediction markets offer explicit bets on government actions. Will a military intervention occur? Will a bill pass? The path from insider knowledge to profit proves incredibly clear.

While the specifics are still unclear,
@RitchieTorres

bill reportedly extends STOCK Act principles to prediction markets, hopefully with greater, more meaningful enforcement. Legal frameworks matter and must be established. Without clear rules explicitly covering prediction markets, prosecuting suspicious trades becomes even harder.

Why It Matters for Prediction Markets

The broader issue extends way beyond politicians.

Prediction markets generated over $44B in combined trading volume in 2025. They've proven their value as information aggregation tools — Polymarket's accuracy during the 2024 election cycle demonstrated what these platforms can do when they function properly.

Functionally, insider participation doesn't necessarily break these markets. The transparency of blockchain-based platforms means suspicious positions are visible. Traders can tail wallets showing unusual activity. Information still gets priced in, even if the source is questionable.

But reputation is a different matter. Prediction markets are still fighting for legitimacy with regulators, institutions, and the broader public. If the prevailing narrative becomes that these platforms are just another vehicle for connected insiders to profit from privileged information, the policy progression and mainstream adoption get harder when every major market move triggers headlines about who knew what and when.

There's also a pragmatic concern: if today's broadly crypto-friendly regulators don't work with platforms to address these issues, hostile administrations of the future could do so with a much heavier hand. The window for self-regulation and productive collaboration is now.

The Path Forward

None of this means prediction markets need heavy-handed regulation across the board. Skepticism toward regulatory overreach is warranted. But there's a meaningful difference between resisting regulatory capture and acknowledging that certain narrow restrictions serve everyone's interests.

Legally barring public officials from betting on outcomes they can influence falls squarely in the latter category. Few believe politicians should have new avenues to monetize their positions. The broader crypto community, which arose in part as a check against establishment abuse, has reason to support exactly this kind of accountability.

We don't yet know the full details of Torres's bill. The specifics will matter. But the direction is right. Prediction markets work because they aggregate dispersed information into prices, and that function can survive some insider activity. The bigger risk is reputational: repeated incidents of apparent insider trading invite the kind of regulatory scrutiny that could constrain the industry far more than targeted rules around public officials ever would.

The honest reality is that this behavior will likely continue regardless of what rules get passed. Enforcement is hard. Proving intent is harder.

But there's much to be said for establishing clear norms and for the transparency that blockchain-based markets provide. Every trade on Polymarket is visible. Wallet activity can be tracked. The same infrastructure that enables suspicious trades also enables scrutiny of them. Researchers and journalists can monitor for patterns. Communities can call out suspicious activity in real time.

These are formative years for these technologies, which, if stewarded well, will reshape how we aggregate information about uncertain futures. Getting the foundations right matters. Ensuring that government officials can't exploit these tools for personal profit seems like a reasonable place to start.

[Web3Unlocked Podcast @Web3UnlockedHQ]

“What happens when someone inside one of the most iconic retail platforms of the last cycle sees its limits up close?”

@kenzimoriyama speaks with @jayendra_jog, Co-Founder of @SeiNetwork, to trace the path that took him from the early days of @Robinhood in Palo Alto — through hypergrowth, the IPO era, and the shock of the GameStop moment — to building in crypto.

They discuss how witnessing the mechanics and constraints of traditional financial infrastructure firsthand reshaped his thinking, why the suspension of buys during one of retail’s most defining episodes left such a lasting impression, and how that experience ultimately pushed him toward systems designed to be more open, more resilient, and less dependent on centralized control.

[Web3Unlocked Podcast @Web3UnlockedHQ]

“High-performance infrastructure only matters if it expands what users can actually do onchain — and makes that experience accessible at scale.”

@sachikagetsu sits down with @jayendra_jog, Co-Founder of @SeiNetwork, to examine why parallelized execution is becoming increasingly important for the next generation of onchain applications.

From trading and DeFi to high-frequency user activity that simply breaks in low-throughput environments, they discuss how lower fees and greater execution capacity can fundamentally reshape the user experience — especially for smaller participants who are otherwise priced out.

They also explore how this plays out in practice through projects like Bancor’s Carbon DeFi, where Sei has emerged as the ecosystem driving the strongest activity and volume, underscoring how performance advantages translate into real adoption.

[Web3Unlocked Podcast @Web3UnlockedHQ]

“Virtual machines are like cities — once they reach critical mass, they become magnets that are incredibly hard to displace.”

@dikshaksagar catches up with @jayendra_jog, Co-Founder of @SeiNetwork, to unpack this idea at a deeper level — why systems with flaws can still dominate simply because that’s where the activity, liquidity, and people already are.

From New York and San Francisco to onchain environments like the EVM, they explore how network effects compound over time, why newer ecosystems struggle to pull users away even with better tech, and what it actually takes to break that inertia.

[Web3Unlocked Podcast @Web3UnlockedHQ]

This week’s episode features Jayendra Jog (@jayendra_jog), Founder of @SeiNetwork.

We dive into Jay’s journey from traditional finance at @Robinhood to building Sei Network, and unpack how his view of markets, users, and product feedback shaped the way he thinks about blockchain infrastructure.

The conversation explores the parallels between established cities and virtual machines: why dominant systems like the EVM are so difficult to displace, what makes developers stay, and what it actually takes for a new ecosystem to earn attention.

We also dig into the need for higher throughput in Web3, how parallelization can help solve today’s performance limits, and why scalability matters if crypto applications are going to serve real users at a much larger scale.

Jay also reflects on the role of memecoins, not just as speculation, but as community-driven movements that can reveal how culture, attention, and network effects form onchain.

[Web3Unlocked Podcast @Web3UnlockedHQ]

Selling crypto to cover expenses hurts: you trigger taxes and lose exposure.

DeFi borrowing fixes both. Instead of selling your ETH, lock it as collateral, borrow USDC instantly onchain, spend like cash, and stay long — no taxable event in the U.S.

And now, do this directly through Coinbase👇

~~ Analysis by @KenziMoriyama ~~

This is an integration I can happily recommend to my family and friends, as @coinbase is one of the most trusted and easy-to-navigate crypto exchanges, while @Morpho is one of the most proven and dependable DeFi lending protocols.

With this integration, you can now borrow against your ETH without leaving the comfort of the Coinbase app. Assuming you already have some ETH holdings on Coinbase, you just:

1. Click on your ETH balance to bring up your Ethereum dashboard.

2. Scroll down to the "Borrow" tab and press "Start."

3. Review the primer info—your Borrow up to amount (based on your ETH deposited to Coinbase), the Variable rate (the fluctuating interest Morpho will charge on your loan), and the Liquidation LTV (the "loan-to-value" point at which your underlying ETH could be liquidated for repayment)—and then press "Continue."

4. Input the amount of USDC you want to borrow, then click "Review loan."

5. Check that your loan details are satisfactory. When ready, press "Borrow now," then "Accept and continue." Your loan will be submitted, though it may take a minute or two to finalize in Coinbase's UI.

That's all it takes to get started!

If you open a loan, navigate to your Coinbase "Cash" tab and in the "Borrow" section you'll see a "Manage Loans" button. Go here for the "Repay" option to pay back the USDC you borrowed over time.

These ETH-backed loans have a flexible term, so you don't have to pay back specific amounts per a specific schedule. Just repay whenever in whatever amounts suit you, though keep a close eye on your loan health to avoid liquidation.

Also, keep in mind that USDC borrowed on Coinbase can't be used for buying crypto on Coinbase, so this particular avenue is meant for cashing out and spending.

As far as DeFi onramps go, this integration is about as simple and safe as it gets. If you or someone you know hasn't gotten around to borrowing against ETH yet, this is certainly a good place to start.

[Web3Unlocked Podcast @Web3UnlockedHQ]

It's been one month since Hyperliquid's HIP-3 went live, letting anyone stake 500K $HYPE can now launch custom markets backed by the platform’s deep liquidity.

The result is an exchange where you can long or short anything: stocks via Trade or Felix, commodities, bonds via Aura, pre-IPOs via Ventuals, even Pokémon cards via Trove.

Learn how HIP-3 works and how it make impact Hyperliquid 👇

~~ Analysis by @DikshaNanduri ~~

The upgrade works like this: a deployer stakes 500K
$HYPE (~$19.3M at time of writing). They can then list three markets for free before entering an auction process to secure additional slots.

For each market they launch, the deployer sets leverage limits, configures the oracle, and manages key technicalities. To ensure acceptable standards, deployers risk having their stake slashed, though Hyperliquid notes this mechanism is temporary and expected to fade as standards and tooling improve.

Once live, the deployer earns 50% of the fees from their markets, with Hyperliquid taking the other half. To balance revenue, HIP-3 market fees are set at double those of standard markets, keeping @HyperliquidX's take roughly equivalent.

While most deployers are still building, early activity from just one HIP-3 market already live — to the tune of $1.3B in volume — paints a positive picture that the upgrade's potential may match its hype.

What Will the Impact of HIP-3 Be?

As a result of how it's designed, HIP-3 introduces new supply crunches on $HYPE, additional revenue for buybacks, and potentially increases rewards earned by stakers and traders.

➢ Locking up
$HYPE: Each deployer must stake 500K $HYPE, effectively removing that amount from circulation. The result is persistent buying pressure as new deployers acquire $HYPE to secure their slots. For example, Trove raised $20M to purchase $HYPE for its launch. Further, Hyperliquid Digital Asset Treasuries (DATs) like @HyperionDeFi and @HypeStrat have already begun exploring how to get involved in HIP-3, alleviating the threat of these vehicles dumping their tokens as we're seeing more DATs do.

➢ Additional revenue for buybacks: The 50/50 fee split on HIP-3 markets provides a new inflow to the protocol Assistance Fund, which uses 97% of all fees to buyback its token. Because HIP-3 market fees are set higher than standard ones, this stream will not be reduced by the split in fees with the deployer, potentially offering a significant source for $HYPE buybacks if even a handful of markets achieve sustained volume.

➢ Incentive Wars: A likely next phase is direct competition among deployers for trader flow, especially given the success of @tradexyz's XYZ100 HIP-3 market, which generated $100K in fees before it even reached two weeks. Expect escalating incentive programs — liquidity mining, fee rebates, staking boosts — as providers fight to draw and retain users. These will likely extend to $HYPE stakers too as validators vie for stake to participate in secondary economics like "exchange-as-a-service" models, where staking providers like @kinetiq_xyz essentially crowdsource $HYPE to lower the cost of launching a market.

Together, these dynamics tighten HYPE's supply, expand its buyback base, and create new competitive layers across the ecosystem.

How Could HIP-3 Fail?

HIP-3's success will depend on two things: quality markets launching, and those markets generating sustained demand.

Permissionless listings don't guarantee quality. A HIP-3 market is only as strong as its deployer — how they configure leverage, oracles, and risk parameters. Deploying non-crypto or thinly traded assets like stocks or bonds requires continuous data and stable pricing. Without that, markets face thin liquidity, wide spreads, and erratic execution that will quickly drive traders away.

Oracle providers like @redstone_defi are building hybrid systems that blend onchain and offchain data, maintaining live pricing even when the base asset isn't trading. HIP-3's architecture allows deployers to implement proper oracles into individual markets and tailor risk parameters accordingly.

But demand remains the harder part. As @felixprotocol's founder Charlie (@0xBroze) notes, the lion's share of Hyperliquid's volume comes from five markets, mostly composed of major assets like $BTC, $ETH, and $SOL.

Smaller assets tend to be left with little natural flow, meaning nascent, niche assets launched via HIP-3 will face a cold-start problem. Without early liquidity, traders hesitate; without traders, liquidity providers leave.

If simply introducing novel markets isn't enough to spark activity, deployers will need to experiment with market structures and pairs, introducing new collateral for perps or unique pair-markets like $BTC / $GOLD. Incentive programs should help smooth the initial launch, but in the end, these markets will have to stand on their own.

Ultimately, HIP-3's trajectory depends on the competence of its deployers. The framework is in place, but its outcome will hinge on whether deployers can build markets that trade well and sustain activity.

Final Thoughts

HIP-3 represents another structural bet on decentralization — a next step for Hyperliquid shifting responsibility for growth from the protocol to its participants.

Whether it succeeds will come down to the quality of the markets that launch, the liquidity they attract, and the flywheel effects that follow. If deployers can navigate those early hurdles, HIP-3 could define the next phase of onchain market design.

It doesn't need scale in the traditional sense to succeed. As Charlie noted, just a few high-performing markets could validate the model and materially impact both Hyperliquid's growth and $HYPE's price, with one firm,
@FalconXGlobal, estimating $.8B in additional fees if HIP-3 captures less than one percent of Mag7 derivatives trading.

For the platform that keeps defying expectations, rising from a fully-bootstrapped team to become a protocol responsible for earning 35% of all blockchain revenue some months, the success of HIP-3 wouldn't be something I bet against.

[Web3Unlocked Podcast @Web3UnlockedHQ]

After 7 years, Aztec’s Ignition mainnet is live.

Yet zero transactions or apps work yet. The chain is deliberately empty – because true protocol-level privacy can’t be rushed.

Here’s how this phased, decentralization-first launch positions Aztec as the leading private L2 on ETH👇

~~ Analysis by @SachiKagetsu ~~

What's Actually Running

Think of Ignition like Ethereum's beacon chain from 2020. The governance and consensus infrastructure is operational, but the execution layer remains offline. The team is running what amounts to a live stress test with real money on the line.

Each sequencer staked at least 200K $AZTEC tokens to participate. They're producing blocks, provers are generating validity proofs, and the whole system is settling on Ethereum, just without any transactions.
The goal of running Ignition with real economics for 2-3 months will (hopefully) surface any remaining issues before transactions go live in early 2026, while setting the network up to be decentralized from day one.

The Decentralization Push

In Aztec's eyes, launching an L2 with a centralized sequencer from the get go rarely translates to decentralization down the road.

Centralized sequencers generate $40-150M annually in fees. Once you're locked into those cash flows, decentralization means making transactions slower and more expensive. The tension never resolves.

Instead, @aztecnetwork will launch fully decentralized from day one across three dimensions:

➢ Ownership is decentralized through $AZTEC token holders who control network parameters, fee schedules, and protocol upgrades.

➢ Block Production runs through 617 decentralized sequencer nodes using proof-of-stake. These nodes order transactions and produce blocks. To prevent any single party from gaining control, a small committee of sequencers is randomly selected to validate blocks before they are submitted to Ethereum.

➢ Proving is permissionless from the get-go. Provers generate the zero-knowledge proofs that cryptographically confirm all transactions in a batch are valid. They aggregate blocks and submit a single, final proof to Ethereum for verification, guaranteeing the integrity of the entire rollup.

When transactions go live, Aztec will qualify as a Stage 2 rollup, the highest decentralization tier for L2s. Most chains have pushed boundaries in one direction. Hitting all three pillars simultaneously is rare.

In Aztec's eyes, decentralization isn't optional for privacy. Centralized sequencers would face pressure from governments to install backdoors. Privacy requires cryptography plus decentralization, not one or the other.

What Happens Next

There are two major upcoming events, one technical and one token-related.

On the technical side, Ignition will remain live for 2-3 more months with sequencers producing empty blocks while the team monitors for issues. Early 2026 is when transactions flip on. Users will be able to send payments, deploy smart contracts, and interact with applications. By the end of 2026, block times should drop from the current 36-72 seconds down to 4 seconds, faster than Ethereum's 12-second blocks.

On the token side, the pre-allocation for the $AZTEC token sale is currently live, with the sale beginning December 2nd and running for 4 days. The sale uses @Uniswap's continuous clearing auction mechanism, meaning if you bid early, part of your bid clears at early prices and part clears later. This levels the playing field between early and late participants while letting price discovery happen naturally. When the auction ends, it automatically creates a Uniswap V4 liquidity pool at the final clearing price.

To participate in the sale, you must register prior to December 2nd.

For compliance, Aztec is using @ZKPassport, enabling people to prove cryptographically that they're from allowed jurisdictions and not on sanctions lists without traditional KYC. The sale is open to US retail and nearly every country worldwide, with the exception of sanctioned countries on the standard OFAC list.

The current 500 sequencers already staked $AZTEC tokens they purchased in a whitelisted genesis sale. They're earning rewards in $AZTEC right now. However, all tokens, whether from the genesis sale, the current public auction, or insider allocations, are non-transferable until Token Generation Event (TGE).

There is no set date for when TGE occurs, rather the community votes on it. However, the earliest date it can go live is February 11th, 2026. Once TGE happens, tokens purchased in the public auction unlock 100%.

7 Years in the Making

Overall, Ignition and the $AZTEC token sale demonstrate both the complexity of successfully executing privacy, as well as the extent to which Aztec is going to get this right.

First you have the need for decentralization from the get-go to ensure privacy endures, a feat unaccomplished by countless L2s launched so far. Then you have the tension between privacy and compliance, which the token sale's integration with ZK Passport helps solve.

Regardless of how mainnet goes, and I'm hopeful all goes well, this launch process shines as a testament to diligent design, demonstrating that forces like decentralization, privacy, and compliance can all coexist

[Web3Unlocked Podcast @Web3UnlockedHQ]

“Bitcoin was the first distributed systems paper I read with an economic layer built into it — and that changed everything.”

@kenzimoriyama catches up with @averyching, Co-Founder & CTO of @Aptos, to trace his journey from high-performance computing and supercomputers, to scaling data infrastructure at Meta, to discovering Bitcoin and realizing that crypto was distributed systems with incentives natively embedded — the insight that ultimately led him to co-found Aptos Labs.

[Web3Unlocked Podcast @Web3UnlockedHQ]

“We focused on four core areas: finance, gaming, social, and entertainment — but DeFi on @Aptos has seen the strongest traction.”

@sachikagetsu sits down with @averyching to unpack Aptos’ real-world use cases and why DeFi has emerged as the breakout category: the safety of Move, the composability that allows products to plug into larger protocols, and an ecosystem that is now beginning to hit meaningful momentum.

[Web3Unlocked Podcast @Web3UnlockedHQ]

“What inspires you to get up and build every day? For me, it’s pushing Web3 forward — making blockchain a true public utility for everyone.”

@dikshaksagar sits down with @averyching (Co-Founder & CTO of @Aptos) to talk about what drives him: building the next era of the internet where blockchain brings ownership back to users and enables permissionless, trustless transactions that connect people globally.

[Web3Unlocked Podcast @Web3UnlockedHQ]

New episode out today featuring @AveryChing - Co-Founder & CTO of @Aptos.

We explore the intersection of crypto and Al, Aptos' fundraising journey, how the network compares to other Layer 1s such as Solana and Ethereum, and what lies ahead for the Move programming language.

Avery also shares his perspective on decentralized use cases, Aptos' long-term ambitions, and how more than a decade spent scaling distributed systems at Meta — including his work on the Diem blockchain — continues to shape his vision for the future of Web3 infrastructure.

[Web3Unlocked Podcast @Web3UnlockedHQ]

Artists mint across chains and platforms, making it tough to showcase work cohesively.

Collectors juggle holdings over Ethereum, Solana, Tezos, and more—wallets scattered everywhere.

That's why Raster, a project tackling this mess, has my full attention.👇

~~ Analysis by @dikshaksagar ~~

Collecting, not archeology

Introduced in September 2025 by @thefunnyguysNFT and @0xmetaclass, Raster is a new digital art marketplace. It consolidates:

➢ Chains — The platform launched with support for NFTs on Ethereum, Ethereum L2s, and Tezos, with Bitcoin and Solana integrations incoming.

➢ Markets — @raster_art aggregates listings, offers, and etc. from OpenSea, Magic Eden, and beyond. If you list your NFTs on Raster itself, the platform cross-posts to external marketplaces for added reach.

➢ Profiles — A Raster profile compiles an artist's works from all supported chains into a clean, singular gallery. Conversely, collector profiles pull together holdings from any connected wallets, displaying them by artist and with live activity feeds of your recent sales, offers, etc.

For example, one of my favorite artists is Gremplin. When I go to his Raster profile, the page surfaces +40 collections—it's easy to look through and discover pieces that are hard to find elsewhere.

And when I go to my collector profile, I find all my holdings organized neatly by artist.

The combination of cross-chain support and clean, easy-to-navigate UX makes Raster an awesome new resource for onchain creatives and collectors. Royalties are honored here, too.

Of course, the platform only just arrived, so its indexing isn't comprehensive yet. But with 16M tokens and 100k artists tracked so far, the scope is already expansive.

For instance, I noticed Raster indexed an old art collection of mine that I minted on Tezos in 2021. I forgot about the series, and it's basically unknown to anyone else. So it's cool to see Raster going both deep and wide in its coverage.

Things will get deeper and wider too, especially once Bitcoin and Solana support are added. In the meantime, the Raster team's fielding feedback, so if you notice any works or artists are missing from the site, you can use the contact pop-up in the FAQ to let them know!

[Web3Unlocked Podcast @Web3UnlockedHQ]

Last week you might have seen Jesse's post about an agent called Oracle by Noice.

It read: if you like this tweet, you buy Oracle. Whether it worked for you isn't important — it's what Oracle envisions that you should pay attention to.

But first let's understand exactly what Oracle is and how it works.

~~ Analysis by @SachiKagetsu ~~

Developed by the @noicedotso team (the same group behind the viral tipping app on Farcaster), the oracle
@noiceagent is a new solution for buying predetermined amounts of whitelisted Internet Capital Markets (ICM) tokens across Base and Solana directly on Twitter by simply liking or replying to a tweet from oracle agent which mentions a specific ticker.

(Tokens are whitelisted when the agent tweets about them, and can be submitted for consideration via DM.)

Of course you need to set the agent up first which can be done on their website:

- You connect your Twitter
- Fund your wallet on Base or SOL
- Set the default buy amount, just like you would with Noice previously
- Start liking Oracle's tweets to buy tokens

There are two types of buys: regular spends, triggered by liking tweets, and super aligned buys, triggered by commenting "aligned" under an Oracle tweet.

The platform also has its own token, ORACLE, which is paired with NOICE. The Noice team has stated that the ORACLE token is simply meant to be a proving ground for the platform, rather than the central component of it. However, it does operate from a $20K treasury, charges a 1% swap fee on both likes and "aligned" buys, and uses all realized profits and fees to buy back and burn ORACLE.

While eliminating friction may be interesting to some, what has my attention here is how Oracle looks set up to be an emerging curation layer.

In its vision, Oracle details an upcoming scout program, where users can tag Oracle to identify new founders for Noice and earn from successful referrals. Selected founders, in turn, would be able to launch tokens directly through Oracle and embed buy actions into their own timelines, just like we can now do with Oracle.

Further, given the @jessepollak beta trial, I expect this could extend to not just founders, but also to CT personalities, though I could very much be wrong.

Closing Thoughts

While Oracle is a fun mechanism, I still hold skepticism, given that similar experiments, most notably Solana Blinks, tried to embed blockchain-native actions into Twitter and failed to take off.

Granted, Blinks did depend on stricter user requirements, including Phantom installation and specific feature toggles, which may have limited its reach. Oracle's simplicity could give it a different trajectory.

That said, beyond taking a shot on a bigger court, a defensible instinct, I'm still unsure why Noice prioritized Twitter over @farcaster_xyz, which feels structurally better suited to this behavior and is also where Noice has already shown traction.

Overall, Oracle reads as a proof of the (seemingly) most promising development trends in crypto right now: AI and internet-capital markets. It emerges from genuine momentum and demonstrates the expansion a team can pursue once they've developed a product actually in demand. I'm excited to see what will come.

[Web3Unlocked Podcast @Web3UnlockedHQ]

Crypto’s social x money wave keeps heating up with content coins, creator tokens, mini-apps, and tipping.

The latest standout? Towns — a group chat app on Base where communities (free or paid) can earn, trade, and run bots right inside the convo.

If onchain group chats that actually make money sound like the future, this one’s worth watching👇

~~ Analysis by @KenziMoriyama ~~

What Is Towns?

@townsapp is a messaging protocol and app designed around a straightforward but bold idea: Your group chats should be able to move money. Your wallet should be native to the chat. And creators should be paid directly by their communities.

Under the hood, Towns runs on a custom L2 chain for messaging, offchain stream nodes for real-time decentralized chats, smart contracts on @base that handle payments and memberships, and the $TOWNS token, which secures the Towns Network via staking.

As a user, all that complexity is abstracted away. What you see is Discord-like chats with built-in wallets, onchain paywall support, native tipping, and customizable bots.

Why does this approach matter? Crypto activity is already socially driven. Towns embraces this reality by making chats themselves into economic spaces. You don't leave a conversation to transact; you transact inside conversations.

Plus, it's yet another onchain business model for creators and communities to consider. Anyone can spin up a Towns chat, deploy their own bots, and kick off new revenue rails for their audience.

How to Try Towns

Another pro with Towns is that it's simple to dive into:

➢ Head to app (dot) towns (dot) com — Log in via Privy by spinning up an embedded wallet linked to your Google, Twitter, Farcaster, Rabby wallet, etc. If you want funds for joining chats, tipping, or trading, click the wallet icon in the top right to pull up "Deposit" and "Send" tabs for your embedded wallet.

➢ Explore Towns chats — The linked page is the app's main discovery hub; you can surf and join chats via recent activity, featured communities, top earning groups, and trending projects. Some Towns are free; others require a fee to subscribe.

➢ Create your own Town — In the app's left sidebar, press the "+" button to pull up the "New Town" deployer UI. Input your Town name, select from the "Free" or "Paid" options, and deploy. It's basically as easy as spinning up a new Discord server.

➢ Stake your TOWNS — If you decide to go deeper, head to the "Token" tab on the main Towns website and delegate your TOWNS to a node operator. This secures the Towns Network. Review operators' yield and commission stats, then make your pick and click "Stake."

The Big Picture

As social platforms have spent the past couple of decades becoming more extractive and closed down, Towns is moving in the opposite direction: open, onchain, programmable, community-centric.

Whether it can become the "Telegram of crypto" remains to be seen, but it certainly has potential, and if you're looking for a fresh corner of onchain social to explore, Towns is one experiment you can currently jump straight into. Explore a few chats and see what you think!

[Web3Unlocked Podcast @Web3UnlockedHQ]

Last week, Ethereum’s ecosystem (L1 plus rollups) blasted through a new high, briefly hitting 24,000 transactions per second.

From 0.7 TPS in 2015 to regular spikes above 10,000 TPS today on @growthepie_eth, the modular bet is delivering explosive gains after a decade of building.

Welcome to Ethereum’s exponential age.👇

~~ Analysis by @SachiKagetsu ~~

To be sure, the bulk of this current TPS surge is stemming from Lighter, the newer perps L2 whose custom appchain architecture minimizes what data touches Ethereum.

@Lighter_xyz just posts compressed state diffs and proofs to the L1 while keeping its high-frequency order flow offchain. This zk appchain design is unique in the rollups scene today, but more teams will experiment with this model and extend it in new directions.

Beyond this design evolution, Ethereum's roadmap has plenty of ecosystem-wide advances on the way that will help push performance gains. Foremost to mind is PeerDAS, which the Fusaka upgrade will bring to mainnet next month.

PeerDAS will be a powerful upgrade, as it's projected to facilitate around an 8x increase in Ethereum's blob capacity. With improved data availability, rollups are set to march past 1 million in ecosystem TPS in short order.

For instance, @base hit 1,500 TPS in June 2025 with Ethereum's current blob limits. Blob capacity going up 8x makes 10,000+ TPS feasible for the L2 at some point next year.

This math applies to zk appchains like Lighter, too. If Lighter can handle ~45,000 TPS today, it can potentially pass 350,000 TPS in 2026. Of course, there will be impactful project-level advances as well. ZKsync's upcoming Atlas upgrade has the potential to facilitate 15,000+ TPS for ZK Stack L2s. And that's just one stack and one upgrade.

So yes, Ethereum is scaling horizontally, and the prospects here are impressive. But Ethereum also has considerable vertical scaling potential. There are ongoing efforts, like EIP-7938 and "Lean Ethereum," that can help the L1 reach 10,000 TPS in its own right.

With this "all of the above" approach, we can dream big. We can build a new substrate for all the world's commerce and culture. And all of that builder potential is possible precisely because Ethereum is going tall and wide in its scaling.

This is the endgame: many chains spreading out to the horizon in every direction for any need, all anchored around an incredibly secure and robust network that's worthy of powering an entire civilization.

The progress here is clear. Meanwhile, the Ethereum community will continue to create its own destiny, just as it always has. We know the path forward, and nothing can stop us now.

[Web3Unlocked Podcast @Web3UnlockedHQ]

“Proof of Collaboration = how strong the swarm is. Proof of Contribution = what each agent actually moved, with permanent on-chain audit trails.”

@ronbodkin (Founder, @TheoriqAI) joins @sachikagetsu to break down trusted performance in Theoriq: actions are committed on-chain as non-repudiable evidence, and evaluators use transparent scoring rules over the full history—while the system stays open for specialized eval agents.

[Web3Unlocked Podcast @Web3UnlockedHQ]

“DeFAI = DeFi as an agent economy: set the strategy, let agents execute, watch feedback in real time.”

@sachikagetsu x @ronbodkin (Founder, @TheoriqAI) on how AI-run DeFi could bring smart-money infrastructure to everyone — not only institutions.

[Web3Unlocked Podcast @Web3UnlockedHQ]

In 2017, I stepped into Google Cloud’s CTO Office because I could feel the shift coming. AI wasn’t a feature — it was the next operating layer of the world. Google was leading that wave.

@kenzimoriyama in conversation with @ronbodkin (Founder, @TheoriqAI) about the Google years that sharpened Theoriq’s vision — and the early signals that made the AI trajectory impossible to unsee.

[Web3Unlocked Podcast @Web3UnlockedHQ]

“Responsibility means steering crypto + AI toward outcomes that benefit everyone — and giving the community real power to set the course.”

Our host @dikshaksagar in conversation with @ronbodkin (Founder, @TheoriqAI) on why responsibility in crypto + AI starts with governance from day one — so the future isn’t dictated by monopolies or closed-door incentives.

[Web3Unlocked Podcast @Web3UnlockedHQ]

New episode out today featuring Ron Bodkin (@ronbodkin) — CEO and Co-Founder of Theoriq (@TheoriqAI).

We explore the intersection of crypto and AI, the role of responsibility and governance, and how Web3 can reshape the future of artificial intelligence.

Ron shares his journey from Google to founding Theoriq and ChainML, reflecting on the shift from corporate AI leadership to startup innovation.

We also dive into agent collectives, AI standardization, decentralized AI metrics, and Theoriq’s core pillars — interoperability, composability, and decentralized innovation.

Ron also breaks down Proof of Contribution and Collaboration as trust-building mechanisms for AI, along with his perspective on token economics, governance, company culture, and the future of AI.