The Edge Podcast

Leo Lanza is a well known Ethereum investor and content creator.
Markets are panicking. ETH is down 50% from its all-time high. Sentiment across all crypto markets is at multi-year lows. But Leo remains steadfast.
He breaks down why Ethereum can't be replicated, why the four-year cycle is breaking, and how the CLARITY Act could be crypto's biggest catalyst ever. He explains why ETH is valued like gold or oil, not a tech stock, and walks through the math behind his $80,000 price target.
In this episode, we cover:
+ Why Ethereum is like Netflix replacing Blockbuster
+ His $80,000 ETH thesis
+ Why the CLARITY Act changes everything for institutional adoption
+ L2s as Ethereum's weapon for distribution and growth
+ What could break Leo's bull case
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💎 THIS EPISODE'S PARTNERS
🔒 KPK | Best risk-adjusted yield through automated vaults

🏙 MAINSTREET | Bringing proven TradFi yield strategies to DeFi markets

🌅 NEUTRL | The next generation of crypto-native yield

🛡️ ACCOUNTABLE | Real-time financial verification

🕛 NOON | The highest and safest stablecoin yield, built for the long term

⚔️ KATANA | Deep liquidity & real yield

🏦 MANTLE | MNT is now live on Solana

🐡 PUFFER INSTITUTIONAL | ETH staking solutions for scale

⚙️ GEARBOX PROTOCOL | Onchain lending reimagined

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⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Intro
3:04 - Leo’s background
4:18 - Why focus on Ethereum?
5:45 - Why Leo came out swinging when Ethereum was being attacked
9:46 - ETH is not a tech stock: It's like gold or oil
18:02 - The $80,000 ETH price target and how we get there
20:39 - The four-year cycle is breaking: Liquidity vs. halving
28:32 - Are we in a bear market or just a pullback?
34:52 - The CLARITY Act: Crypto's biggest catalyst ever
41:23 - Tokenization: The $100 trillion opportunity
44:15 - Private blockchains are smoke and mirrors
46:56 - DTCC is a dinosaur trying to survive
52:22 - Vitalik's L2 tweet: What he actually meant
1:00:06 - Rapid fire: ETH flips BTC, TVL matters most, scaling misconceptions
1:03:05 - When clarity passes, what will the market get wrong?
1:04:06 - What signal would tell us the BTC 4-year cycle is broken?
1:05:46 - When will ETH reach new highs?
1:06:26 - ETH hits $80K when TVL reaches $3 trillion
1:07:13 - What could break Leo’s bull case?
1:09:44 - Closing
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🔗 GUEST LINKS
► Leo's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@l3olanza
► Leo Lanza on X: https://x.com/leolanza
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🎙️ MORE FROM THE EDGE PODCAST AND EDGE NEWSLETTER
► Newsletter: https://the-edge.xyz
► Apple: https://tinyurl.com/edgepod
► Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/edgepodspotify
► Linktree: https://linktr.ee/edge_pod
► Follow DeFi Dad: https://x.com/DeFi_Dad
► Follow Nomatic: https://x.com/Nomaticcap
► Learn DeFi: http://defidad.com/
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DISCLAIMER: Nothing said on The Edge Podcast is a recommendation to buy or sell tokens or securities. This content is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing shared here is financial advice. Any views expressed by hosts or guests on the show are solely their opinions. Always do your own research. DeFi Dad, Nomatic, and guests may have positions in the assets or other matters discussed in this podcast. DeFi Dad, Nomatic, and Leo all hold ETH.

Vlad Novakovski is the Founder and CEO of Lighter, a high-performance ZK-based perps and spot exchange, built on Ethereum.
A year ago, Lighter hadn't even launched. Today it's processing billions in daily volume, handling 500 million orders at a total cost of around $50K. Vlad's background spans STEM Olympiads, Harvard at 18, Citadel trading, and being an early advisor to Robinhood. Now he's building the infrastructure layer for when TradFi and DeFi merge.
Vlad breaks down how Lighter achieves centralized exchange performance on Ethereum, what Robinhood's $68M investment means for tokenized equities, and the post-TGE reality for LIT: token down, volumes pulled back, but fundamentals unchanged.
In this episode, we cover:
+ Scaling Ethereum's top perps DEX
+ Robinhood's $68M bet and tokenized equities
+ LIT token utility and value capture
+ Roadmap: options, prediction markets, fixed income
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💎 THIS EPISODE'S PARTNERS
🔒 KPK | Best risk-adjusted yield through automated vaults

🏙 MAINSTREET | Bringing proven TradFi yield strategies to DeFi markets

🌅 NEUTRL | The next generation of crypto-native yield

🛡️ ACCOUNTABLE | Real-time financial verification

🕛 NOON | The highest and safest stablecoin yield, built for the long term

⚔️ KATANA | Deep liquidity & real yield

🏦 MANTLE | MNT is now live on Solana

🐡 PUFFER INSTITUTIONAL | ETH staking solutions for scale

⚙️ GEARBOX PROTOCOL | Onchain lending reimagined

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⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Intro
2:19 - Vlad’s background
6:47 - What is Lighter? Five goals, one platform
10:36 - How ZK proofs enable high-performance trading on Ethereum
14:41 - Processing 500 million orders a day
16:33 - Why Lighter was at Bitmine's annual shareholder meeting
18:32 - Robinhood's $68M investment and the tokenized equities opportunity
22:16 - The competitive landscape: Lighter vs. Hyperliquid and CEXs
26:33 - How the LLP works and how it differs from other DEX LPs
29:51 - The LIT token launch: What went well
31:45 - Post-TGE reality and the marathon ahead
33:48 - LIT token utility: Staking, fees, and LLP access
37:31 - Revenue and buybacks, what drives LIT value
39:43 - The new Lighter mobile app
41:03 - DeFi is not antithetical to regulators
43:00 - What’s next? Tokenized stocks, options, prediction markets
45:12 - Closing
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🔗 GUEST LINKS
► Lighter website: https://lighter.xyz/
► Lighter on X: https://x.com/lighter_xyz
► Vlad Novakovski on X: https://x.com/vnovakovski
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🎙️ MORE FROM THE EDGE PODCAST AND EDGE NEWSLETTER
► Newsletter: https://the-edge.xyz
► Apple: https://tinyurl.com/edgepod
► Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/edgepodspotify
► Linktree: https://linktr.ee/edge_pod
► Follow DeFi Dad: https://x.com/DeFi_Dad
► Follow Nomatic: https://x.com/Nomaticcap
► Learn DeFi: http://defidad.com/
------
DISCLAIMER: Nothing said on The Edge Podcast is a recommendation to buy or sell tokens or securities. This content is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing shared here is financial advice. Any views expressed by hosts or guests on the show are solely their opinions. Always do your own research. DeFi Dad, Nomatic, and guests may have positions in the assets or other matters discussed in this podcast.

David Choi and Conor Moore are CoFounders of Permian Labs, the builders behind USDai.
AI infrastructure is projecting trillions of dollars in CapEx spend, but there's a problem: traditional finance can't keep up. Banks move too slow. Private credit funds can't scale. The most important commodity in the world has no liquid debt market.
USDai is filling this gap by financing AI infrastructure with GPU-backed loans, offering stablecoin depositors 10-15% APR. David and Conor break down how they're using DeFi rails and tokenization to create liquid debt markets for GPUs, enabling institutional borrowers to access capital and retail users to earn yield on productive AI infrastructure.
In this episode, we cover:
+ Why trillions in AI CapEx can't get traditional financing
+ How USDAI structures loans against GPUs, not businesses
+ Why this could become "the interest rate of artificial intelligence"
+ Their two-token model: USDai vs. sUSDai
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💎 THIS EPISODE'S PARTNERS
🔒 KPK | Best risk-adjusted yield through automated vaults

🌅 NEUTRL | The next generation of crypto-native yield

🛡️ ACCOUNTABLE | Real-time financial verification

🕛 NOON | The highest and safest stablecoin yield, built for the long term

⚔️ KATANA | Deep liquidity & real yield

🏦 MANTLE | MNT is now live on Solana

🐡 PUFFER INSTITUTIONAL | ETH staking solutions for scale

⚙️ GEARBOX PROTOCOL | Onchain lending reimagined

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⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Intro
1:45 - Founders background from NFT lending to AI infra
5:52 - “The more you know the price, the less money you make”
8:51 - The AI infrastructure financing gap, trillions in CapEx, no capital
15:22 - What is structured credit and why does it matter?
19:33 - How USDai GPU-backed loans work
24:54 - Addressing the Pine Analytics critique: Lagging utilization
34:13 - Why AI infra borrowers can use crypto rails
36:00 - Real-time GPU monitoring with Chainlink oracles
36:51 - “Mercenary capital” vs common sense capital
39:14 - Why launch the token before full PMF?
42:34 - Are USDai borrowers riskier to lend to?
45:26 - Warehouse receipts and UCC 12: How USDai tokenizes GPUs
50:58 - Managing GPU depreciation risk
53:28 - What keeps the founders up at night
54:05 - USDai vs. sUSDai, the two-token model explained
58:25 - The CHIP governance token
59:10 - What’s next: The road to $1B in loans
1:00:21 - Closing
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🔗 GUEST LINKS
► USDai website: https://usd.ai/
► USDai on X: https://x.com/USDai_Official
► David Choi on X: https://x.com/0xZergs
► Conor Moore on X: https://x.com/_ConorMoore
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🎙️ MORE FROM THE EDGE PODCAST AND EDGE NEWSLETTER
► Newsletter: https://the-edge.xyz
► Apple: https://tinyurl.com/edgepod
► Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/edgepodspotify
► Linktree: https://linktr.ee/edge_pod
► Follow DeFi Dad: https://x.com/DeFi_Dad
► Follow Nomatic: https://x.com/Nomaticcap
► Learn DeFi: http://defidad.com/
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DISCLAIMER: Nothing said on The Edge Podcast is a recommendation to buy or sell tokens or securities. This content is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing shared here is financial advice. Any views expressed by hosts or guests on the show are solely their opinions. Always do your own research. DeFi Dad, Nomatic, and guests may have positions in the assets or other matters discussed in this podcast.

Benjamin is the Founder of Cap and DeFi Dave is the Founding Head of Growth.
Token launches are broken. Founders pay exchanges 5-10% of supply, airdrop to farmers who dump immediately, and wonder why everything goes to zero. Benjamin calls it "the conveyor belt to death." Cap is breaking the playbook: no CEX listing fees, no token airdrops, and no TVL deals paid in tokens. Instead, they're doing the first-ever Stabledrop—$12 million in stablecoins to early supporters, funded by their upcoming ICO on Uniswap.
In this episode, we cover:
+ Why the status quo token launch playbook leads to death
+ The Stabledrop: How $12M in stablecoins rewards early users
+ Cap's three rules: No airdrops, no CEX fees, no token TVL deals
+ ICO mechanics on Uniswap and who's eligible
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💎 THIS EPISODE'S PARTNERS
🌅 NEUTRL | The next generation of crypto-native yield

🛡️ ACCOUNTABLE | Real-time financial verification

🕛 NOON | The highest and safest stablecoin yield, built for the long term

⚔️ KATANA | Deep liquidity & real yield

🏦 MANTLE | MNT is now live on Solana

🐡 PUFFER INSTITUTIONAL | ETH staking solutions for scale

⚙️ GEARBOX PROTOCOL | Onchain lending reimagined

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⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Intro
1:34 - Breaking the playbook: Cap's three fundamental rules
15:54 - What is Cap and how it works?
16:49 - The Stabledrop: Airdrops reimagined with stablecoins
18:17 - How founders and the community responded
19:24 - How is the Stabledrop calculated?
25:06 - Homestead Program: Double points in first month
27:21 - How the $12M Cap Stabledrop works
29:44 - CAP ICO mechanics: How the Uniswap sale works Feb 9th
35:50 - Closing
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🔗 GUEST LINKS
► Cap website: https://cap.app/
► Official Cap Stabledrop details announced: https://x.com/capmoney_/status/2019079426823303371?s=20
► Cap on X: https://x.com/capmoney_
► Cap Labs Limited on X: https://x.com/caplabslimited
► Benjamin on X: https://x.com/Benjamin918_
► DeFi Dave on X: https://x.com/defidave22
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🎙️ MORE FROM THE EDGE PODCAST AND EDGE NEWSLETTER
► Newsletter: https://the-edge.xyz
► Apple: https://tinyurl.com/edgepod
► Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/edgepodspotify
► Linktree: https://linktr.ee/edge_pod
► Follow DeFi Dad: https://x.com/DeFi_Dad
► Follow Nomatic: https://x.com/Nomaticcap
► Learn DeFi: http://defidad.com/
------
DISCLAIMER: Nothing said on The Edge Podcast is a recommendation to buy or sell tokens or securities. This content is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing shared here is financial advice. Any views expressed by hosts or guests on the show are solely their opinions. Always do your own research. DeFi Dad, Nomatic, and guests may have positions in the assets or other matters discussed in this podcast. DeFi Dad and Nomatic invested in the Cap seed round.

Grant is the Founder & CEO of Blocmates, and 563 is Head of Research.
Crypto is winning, but tokens aren't. Headlines that would have pumped markets 30-40% in 2021 barely move prices today. There's a massive disconnect between fundamentals and price action--record adoption, institutional integration, real-world use cases, yet token prices are bleeding. Grant and 563 break down why this paradox exists, where the industry goes from here, and what actually matters this year in their newly published Blocmates 2026 Thesis.
In this episode:
+ The paradox: Why fundamentals are up but token prices are down
+ Token distribution and fixing tokenholder rights for real ownership
+ Why we don't need more L1s and what wins: distribution or innovation
+ ZK as the unlock for Ethereum scaling and new on-chain products
+ Where Blocmates is deploying capital in 2026
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💎 THIS EPISODE'S PARTNERS
♉︎ TOROS | Exponential gains with leveraged tokens

🌅 NEUTRL | The next generation of crypto-native yield

🛡️ ACCOUNTABLE | Real-time financial verification

🕛 NOON | The highest and safest stablecoin yield, built for the long term

⚔️ KATANA | Deep liquidity & real yield

🔊 DECIBEL | The new sound of trading

🥞 SYRUPUSDC BY MAPLE | DeFi's premium yield asset

🏦 MANTLE | Innovating the future of onchain finance

🐡 PUFFER INSTITUTIONAL | ETH staking solutions for scale

⚙️ GEARBOX PROTOCOL | Onchain lending reimagined

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⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Intro
1:40 - Blocmates 2026 thesis overview
4:37 - Crypto is winning, tokens aren’t, the paradox explained
16:53 - The token distribution problem: founders vs. community expectations
21:06 - Why we don't need more general-purpose chains
23:41 - Distribution vs. innovation: What wins in 2026?
29:45 - Will TradFi rebuild, acquire, or partner with DeFi?
34:28 - Fixing tokenholder rights: Tokens as real ownership
41:29 - x402 is the start of something big
45:32 - How ZK unlocks Ethereum scaling and new onchain products
53:06 - Why demand for onchain privacy is coming
56:33 - Could RWAs become the most traded assets onchain?
1:00:18 - Why regulation could be crypto's biggest catalyst
1:03:20 - Where Blocmates is deploying capital in 2026
1:06:56 - Closing
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🔗 GUEST LINKS
► Blocmates website: https://blocmates.com/
► Blocmates on X: https://x.com/blocmates
► Grant on X: https://x.com/Grantblocmates
► 563 on X: https://x.com/563defi
► The Blocmates 2026 Thesis: https://www.blocmates.com/articles/the-blocmates-2026-thesis
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🎙️ MORE FROM THE EDGE PODCAST AND EDGE NEWSLETTER
► Newsletter: https://the-edge.xyz
► Apple: https://tinyurl.com/edgepod
► Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/edgepodspotify
► Linktree: https://linktr.ee/edge_pod
► Follow DeFi Dad: https://x.com/DeFi_Dad
► Follow Nomatic: https://x.com/Nomaticcap
► Learn DeFi: http://defidad.com/
------
DISCLAIMER: Nothing said on The Edge Podcast is a recommendation to buy or sell tokens or securities. This content is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing shared here is financial advice. Any views expressed by hosts or guests on the show are solely their opinions. Always do your own research. DeFi Dad, Nomatic, and guests may have positions in the assets or other matters discussed in this podcast.