The DeFi Decoded Podcast

Hosted by @alextapscott. Crypto, fintech and AI — straight from the builders, investors and policymakers. New guest every week. Since 2021.

[The DeFi Decoded Podcast @defidecodedpod]

Episode 252: How Decentralized Compute Markets Solve AI Bottlenecks with Greg Osuri of Akash Network

@alextapscott @gregosuri @akashnet @CMCC_Global

0:00 Introduction

3:37 The state of compute: the biggest build-out in human history

4:27 Is AI demand slowing? Reading one lab’s soft quarter

8:27 Humans prompt once a minute, agents a thousand times

10:36 Will people pay for AI? Newspapers vs. the internet

15:14 “We let go any engineer that doesn’t use AI”

19:14 The subsidized party: a $200 plan worth $8,000 of compute

21:37 CoreWeave’s jitters and the leverage problem

23:25 Energy, permits, and the pushback stalling data centers

28:19 Training vs. inference, and the gigawatt problem

32:55 Why inference can run anywhere: Macs, offices, homes

36:37 Akash Home Node: putting your gaming PC to work

39:04 Akash today: nearly a trillion tokens a month

41:26 Making compute contracts tradable

47:00 Where to find Greg, and why homes are the future of AI

[Alex Tapscott @alextapscott]

New @defidecodedpod is out!

I sit down with @gregosuri of @akashnet to discuss why decentralized compute networks could power the next wave of AI.

Infrastructure bottlenecks, data centre backlash, and power shortages means we must tap into GPU capacity wherever it exists—even in our own homes.

Always a blast chatting with Greg.

Check it out!

[The DeFi Decoded Podcast @defidecodedpod]

@alextapscott @gregosuri @akashnet Greg was cooking. But what does it mean for $AKT

[The DeFi Decoded Podcast @defidecodedpod]

@Aryonchain Yesssir!

[The DeFi Decoded Podcast @defidecodedpod]

Also, there's always a pod for that:

'Dying on ETH Maxi Hill' with @AndrewY_SX

https://t.co/oQ855Aetaa

[The DeFi Decoded Podcast @defidecodedpod]

Public infrastructure wins again. Bullish ethereum:native

[Alex Tapscott @alextapscott]

JP Morgan selected Ethereum to launch JPM Coin.

The world's biggest bank is building on the world's biggest public blockchain network.

Public infrastructure wins again!

[The DeFi Decoded Podcast @defidecodedpod]

@alextapscott Not a crazy idea

[Alex Tapscott @alextapscott]

JP Morgan will make $107 BILLION on net interest income (NII) next year.

NII, simply put, is the difference between what the bank pays for deposits and what it earns on its loans.

Rates are rising. Your savings rate isn’t.

That’s why banks fought to ban stablecoin yield in GENIUS and even modest rewards in CLARITY.

They’re protecting the spread, not you.

[The DeFi Decoded Podcast @defidecodedpod]

@alextapscott Banks serve consumers, not the other way around.

Time to think about them for once?

https://t.co/joUPXb27si

[The DeFi Decoded Podcast @defidecodedpod]

Being great in Canada is just not enough. We need to be competing on a global stage — and I want to set that example.

— @jeffcanadamson, Co-Founder & Chief Commercial Officer of @neofinancial

[The DeFi Decoded Podcast @defidecodedpod]

Episode 251: The Man in the Arena: Olympic Wrestler Turned Founder Jeff Adamson of Neo Financial on Why Canada Is Playing to Win

@alextapscott @jeffcanadamson @neofinancial @CMCC_Global

0:00 Introduction

3:52 Wrestling in a Saskatoon attic, and seeing excellence up close

6:54 Why combat sports are a language

9:14 Individual sport, team company - and why being great in Canada isn't enough

13:09 Post-Olympics: "I literally Googled what a startup was"

16:12 The delivery decision that almost killed Skip

17:13 Going head-to-head with DoorDash and Uber Eats on no capital

19:50 Leaving Skip and why banking was the next problem

22:02 2008 as the best marketing coup the banks ever got

25:00 How friction lets fees creep up, unconsciously coordinated

27:13 The Costco effect: negotiating deposit rates on behalf of billions

28:24 Deposit flight, stablecoins, and what's coming for Canadian banks

30:49 Hot money, agentic finance, and bidding on your tap

34:47 Why fintech 1.0 wrappers broke when cheap money ended

37:29 Credit, home ownership, and underwriting with AI

39:18 Credit bureaus older than women's suffrage

43:36 Canada's moment, and building for a global stage

48:46 Joining a startup: ask if you'll learn, not if it'll work

[The DeFi Decoded Podcast @defidecodedpod]

A friend said "what about doing a startup?" I thought he was missing a word. I literally Googled "what is a startup."

— @jeffcanadamson, Co-Founder & Chief Commercial Officer of @neofinancial

[The DeFi Decoded Podcast @defidecodedpod]

Episode 251: The Man in the Arena: Olympic Wrestler Turned Founder Jeff Adamson of Neo Financial on Why Canada Is Playing to Win

@alextapscott @jeffcanadamson @neofinancial @CMCC_Global

0:00 Introduction

3:52 Wrestling in a Saskatoon attic, and seeing excellence up close

6:54 Why combat sports are a language

9:14 Individual sport, team company - and why being great in Canada isn't enough

13:09 Post-Olympics: "I literally Googled what a startup was"

16:12 The delivery decision that almost killed Skip

17:13 Going head-to-head with DoorDash and Uber Eats on no capital

19:50 Leaving Skip and why banking was the next problem

22:02 2008 as the best marketing coup the banks ever got

25:00 How friction lets fees creep up, unconsciously coordinated

27:13 The Costco effect: negotiating deposit rates on behalf of billions

28:24 Deposit flight, stablecoins, and what's coming for Canadian banks

30:49 Hot money, agentic finance, and bidding on your tap

34:47 Why fintech 1.0 wrappers broke when cheap money ended

37:29 Credit, home ownership, and underwriting with AI

39:18 Credit bureaus older than women's suffrage

43:36 Canada's moment, and building for a global stage

48:46 Joining a startup: ask if you'll learn, not if it'll work

[Alex Tapscott @alextapscott]

Most people won’t pay for AI.

My guess: paid adoption tops out around 16%, roughly the share who pay for online news.

For everyone else, free will be good enough.

[Alex Tapscott @alextapscott]

This was one of the most thoughtful and fun interviews I’ve done this year.

@jeffcanadamson weighed in on how @neofinancial is building the future of finance, why fintech 2.0 differs from the first era, and how Canadian builders are moving differently now.

As Jeff says “being great in Canada is just not enough”

Check it out 👇

[The DeFi Decoded Podcast @defidecodedpod]

Everyone has a character arc getting to their first company. Mine runs through a warehouse attic in Saskatoon, where the guys coming off the mats had grown up a block over and become national champions.

— @jeffcanadamson, Co-Founder & Chief Commercial Officer of @neofinancial

[The DeFi Decoded Podcast @defidecodedpod]

Episode 251: The Man in the Arena: Olympic Wrestler Turned Founder Jeff Adamson of Neo Financial on Why Canada Is Playing to Win

@alextapscott @jeffcanadamson @neofinancial @CMCC_Global

0:00 Introduction

3:52 Wrestling in a Saskatoon attic, and seeing excellence up close

6:54 Why combat sports are a language

9:14 Individual sport, team company - and why being great in Canada isn't enough

13:09 Post-Olympics: "I literally Googled what a startup was"

16:12 The delivery decision that almost killed Skip

17:13 Going head-to-head with DoorDash and Uber Eats on no capital

19:50 Leaving Skip and why banking was the next problem

22:02 2008 as the best marketing coup the banks ever got

25:00 How friction lets fees creep up, unconsciously coordinated

27:13 The Costco effect: negotiating deposit rates on behalf of billions

28:24 Deposit flight, stablecoins, and what's coming for Canadian banks

30:49 Hot money, agentic finance, and bidding on your tap

34:47 Why fintech 1.0 wrappers broke when cheap money ended

37:29 Credit, home ownership, and underwriting with AI

39:18 Credit bureaus older than women's suffrage

43:36 Canada's moment, and building for a global stage

48:46 Joining a startup: ask if you'll learn, not if it'll work

[Alex Tapscott @alextapscott]

New DeFi Decoded is out!

Awesome discussion with @jeffcanadamson, co-founder of @neofinancial.

Before startups, Jeff was a Canadian wrestling champion and Olympian. Then he co-founded SkipTheDishes, a massive Canadian success story.

His encore? Reinventing finance from the ground up with Neo Financial.

We went long for good reason. Topics include:

• How elite sport prepares you for founder life
• Why being great in Canada is no longer good enough
• Resilience in business and life: getting back up every time you hit the mat
• Fintech 1.0’s “digital wallpaper” vs. Fintech 2.0’s digitally native, agentic finance
• How Neo thinks about AI and the future of banking

And plenty more.

[The DeFi Decoded Podcast @defidecodedpod]

@alextapscott @jeffcanadamson @neofinancial Unreal way to start Q4. @jeffcanadamson was cooking!

[The DeFi Decoded Podcast @defidecodedpod]

Episode 251: The Man in the Arena: Olympic Wrestler Turned Founder Jeff Adamson of Neo Financial on Why Canada Is Playing to Win

@alextapscott @jeffcanadamson @neofinancial @CMCC_Global

0:00 Introduction

3:52 Wrestling in a Saskatoon attic, and seeing excellence up close

6:54 Why combat sports are a language

9:14 Individual sport, team company - and why being great in Canada isn't enough

13:09 Post-Olympics: "I literally Googled what a startup was"

16:12 The delivery decision that almost killed Skip

17:13 Going head-to-head with DoorDash and Uber Eats on no capital

19:50 Leaving Skip and why banking was the next problem

22:02 2008 as the best marketing coup the banks ever got

25:00 How friction lets fees creep up, unconsciously coordinated

27:13 The Costco effect: negotiating deposit rates on behalf of billions

28:24 Deposit flight, stablecoins, and what's coming for Canadian banks

30:49 Hot money, agentic finance, and bidding on your tap

34:47 Why fintech 1.0 wrappers broke when cheap money ended

37:29 Credit, home ownership, and underwriting with AI

39:18 Credit bureaus older than women's suffrage

43:36 Canada's moment, and building for a global stage

48:46 Joining a startup: ask if you'll learn, not if it'll work

[Alex Tapscott @alextapscott]

The CLARITY Act failed—but crypto got some clarity anyway.

The SEC and CFTC stepped in where Congress did not.

Will rulemaking be enough to unlock the next wave of crypto adoption—or will the momentum prove fleeting?

My take for @CoinDesk in this week’s Crypto for Advisors 👇

[The DeFi Decoded Podcast @defidecodedpod]

Every cycle before this one was driven by price. This one is being driven by companies that actually want to use the thing.

— @alextapscott, CEO of @CMCC_Global Capital Markets

[The DeFi Decoded Podcast @defidecodedpod]

Episode 250: Will Aave Eat Wall Street? with Luigi D'Onorio DeMeo of Aave Labs

@alextapscott @luigidemeo @aave @CMCC_Global

0:00 Introduction

3:48 Leaving Avalanche and landing at Aave

7:17 From ETHLend to the largest lending protocol in crypto

11:16 $80B in deposits, no back office

12:12 How overcollateralized lending works and why people borrow

15:49 Why Celsius and BlockFi blew up and Aave didn't

18:46 What's being built on top of Aave

21:12 Life after CLARITY, and the cost of uncertainty

23:55 Does uncertainty advantage the risk-tolerant?

26:20 Why stablecoins cut at the heart of the bank model

29:29 Deposit insurance as a taxpayer subsidy

31:22 Fintech as digital wallpaper and why that's ending

33:34 Moving loans off balance sheets and onto Aave

37:23 The DTCC and the next killer app

[The DeFi Decoded Podcast @defidecodedpod]

I speak to every fintech out there, and every single one is already using crypto products for their customers, or trying to.

— @luigidemeo, Chief Strategy and Business Officer at @aave

[The DeFi Decoded Podcast @defidecodedpod]

Episode 250: Will Aave Eat Wall Street? with Luigi D'Onorio DeMeo of Aave Labs

@alextapscott @luigidemeo @aave @CMCC_Global

0:00 Introduction

3:48 Leaving Avalanche and landing at Aave

7:17 From ETHLend to the largest lending protocol in crypto

11:16 $80B in deposits, no back office

12:12 How overcollateralized lending works and why people borrow

15:49 Why Celsius and BlockFi blew up and Aave didn't

18:46 What's being built on top of Aave

21:12 Life after CLARITY, and the cost of uncertainty

23:55 Does uncertainty advantage the risk-tolerant?

26:20 Why stablecoins cut at the heart of the bank model

29:29 Deposit insurance as a taxpayer subsidy

31:22 Fintech as digital wallpaper and why that's ending

33:34 Moving loans off balance sheets and onto Aave

37:23 The DTCC and the next killer app