The Engine Media

The new episode of The Engine is up! This week’s topic: Building in Consumer Crypto and Crypto Art. TL;DR: The NFT craze of 2021 was insane and will probably never be repeated, but digital art will only continue to take up more space in our lives. This week’s guests: Jordan Lyall Jordan is the founder of VenturePunk, a venture studio behind Prohibition, Skylab community, and other projects.? He was one of the Co-Founders of Nifty's, an NFT platform that launched some of the household name NFTs, such as Matrix and Game of Thrones.? Prior to that, Jordan founded the MEME Project, an early experimental NFT protocol.? And before that Jordan led the product team for the DeFi division at ConsenSys and served as the CPO at Totle, a crypto liquidity network. More recently, he launched Heart & Craft, an inclusive NFT collection merging the digital and physical, inviting the holders to create 3D prints of the NFT hearts that they can design. Jordan co-created the collection with Snowfro. Follow Jordan and his projects: https://lnkd.in/ggDcU7rm? https://venturepunk.com/? https://prohibition.art/? https://heartandcraft.xyz/? https://www.skylab.xyz/ DevonFigures Devon is the founder of the WhiteWalls app and is also interested in the intersection of digital and physical.? The WhiteWalls app is bridging the gap between digital ownership and physical viewership, activating the displays we already own. Follow Devon and WhiteWalls: https://lnkd.in/dt3duYYU? https://lnkd.in/dVZyMzzR YouTube link: https://lnkd.in/ddC_XtGN The Engine is powered by Skylab and supported by Threshold Network and build_cities.????? For more content about building in crypto and with crypto, follow The Engine. Website: https://lnkd.in/gtsjy5Yj YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gekbJnGC Substack: https://lnkd.in/gh6B8Me4 Twitter (X): https://lnkd.in/g9DcDHiJ Farcaster: https://lnkd.in/geAtNSdr #Onchain #ConsumerCrypto #cryptoart #NFTs #CryptoPunks #web3 #SmartContracts #Entrepreneurship #DigitalOwnership #NFTCommunity #BuildingBusiness #CryptoCulture #StartupLife #BlockchainForBusiness #cryptonews?#BTC #Bitcoin #ETH #Ethereum #SOL #Solana #ordinals #ETF #Memecoins

The new episode of The Engine is up! TL;DR: Now is really the time to build DeFi - the infrastructure is here, the institutions are here, Bitcoin community is ready to be Ethereum pilled. The regulation will just have to catch up. Let’s go! The guests this week: Yoshua Urioste Schwartz, aka Tenzent, Head of Business Development at Silo Finance - a lending protocol that allows you to borrow any crypto asset with another on isolated lending markets where risk is always siloed. https://www.silo.finance/ Beachball is a core contributor at Synonym, which is a cross-chain money market. https://lnkd.in/gcgq4idc The Engine is supported by Threshold Network and build_cities. YouTube link: https://lnkd.in/gfziVJ-K #Onchain #Crypto #DeFi #BuildingonBTC #BuildingBusiness #CryptoCulture #StartupLife For more content about building in web3 and with web3 follow The Engine. Website: https://lnkd.in/gtsjy5Yj YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gekbJnGC Substack: https://lnkd.in/gh6B8Me4 Twitter (X): https://lnkd.in/g9DcDHiJ Farcaster: https://lnkd.in/geAtNSdr

The new episode of The Engine is up! This week, we’re talking about Building Builder Communities. Community is one of the most overused and misunderstood words in crypto. It’s easy to get caught up in the chase for green candles and alpha and forget that a community is about more than just making a bank. It's about shared values, support, and collective growth. It’s where you find a sense of belonging and a platform for collaboration. This week’s guests: Angelo Alessio is a co-founder of build_cities, a global cooperative of startup cities. Igor Lilic - ex-Consensys, ex-DFINITY, the founder of Blackcomb Software, and co-founder of BreakOut, a web3 community in Brazil. (https://breakout.info/) We touched on the relationship between decentralization and community, got into the challenges of financial incentivization within communities. We talked about the ethical considerations when introducing financial incentives, some of the potential pitfalls of tokenization, and the need for a strong culture and product-market fit. We also touched on the value of in-person interactions and the need for authenticity, creativity, boldness, and a long-term vision when building communities. The Engine is supported by Threshold Network and build_cities. YouTube link:?https://lnkd.in/grnjPYWW For more content about building in crypto and with crypto, follow The Engine in your favorite podcatcher and also - Website: https://lnkd.in/gtsjy5Yj YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gekbJnGC Substack: https://lnkd.in/gh6B8Me4 Twitter (X): https://lnkd.in/g9DcDHiJ Farcaster: https://lnkd.in/geAtNSdr #BuilderCommunities #Onchain #Crypto #Decentralization #Tokenization #CommunityBuilding #Culture #ProductMarketFit

The new episode of The Engine is up! This week, we’re talking about STABLECOINS. The killer use case of crypto. We talk about why stablecoins are so important.? We talk about different stable coins: USDT, USDC, DAI, thUSD. All pegged to US dollar and yet competing against each other. We touch on the importance of user experience for onboarding new users. We talk about possible futures for stablecoins and what role might CBDCs play in that future. And there are some hot takes there! This week’s guests: Evandro Saturnino? - Threshold Network developer, responsible for spearheading the UI/UX of Threshold USD for the past two years.? Jack Vinijtrongjit Co-Founder and CEO of Saakuru Labs. Saakuru Blockchain Protocol is consumer-centric L2 protocol with zero transaction fees. Jack Landon, the sole developer of Taffy, a gas-less decentralized exchange that recently launched on the Saakuru. The Engine is supported by Threshold Network and build_cities YouTube link: https://lnkd.in/ggixsHBz ?#BuildingBusiness #Founder #Crypto #Blockchain #stablecoins #cryptoindustry #value #risks #benefits #CBDCs #adoption #usability #yield #DeFi #tokenization #Bitcoin #Ethereum #Solana #Layer2 For more content about building in crypto and with crypto, follow The Engine in your favorite podcatcher and also - Website: https://lnkd.in/gtsjy5Yj YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gekbJnGC Substack: https://lnkd.in/gh6B8Me4 Twitter (X): https://lnkd.in/g9DcDHiJ Farcaster: https://lnkd.in/geAtNSdr

The new episode of The Engine podcast is up! Crypto and Government. This week’s guest, Russell Castagnaro is a Venture Steward at Bufficorn Ventures. He is a digital transformation leader, he is passionate about blockchain & web3, eGovernment & eCommerce. For many years he was in charge of building the digital side of the State Government in Hawaii. And in 2017 he caught the crypto bug and created Wampei Inc, a startup that helped unbanked companies to do their business electronically, without a local bank. He then returned to State service but in the State of Colorado, working on digital identity. And then back to the private side to Bufficorn Ventures and SporkDAO. Most people who work in the space are familiar with ETHDenver - the flagship event of SporkDAO and one of the best builder festivals in the US. Russel has a ton of experience both in the government and on the private side, so we talked about Crypto and Government. This episode of The Engine is brought to you by Threshold Network and build_cities. YouTube link: https://lnkd.in/g4fFey99 #Crypto #BuildingBusiness #Bitcoin #Ethereum #Blockchain #Founder For more content about building in web3 and with web3 follow The Engine. Website: https://lnkd.in/gtsjy5Yj YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gekbJnGC Substack: https://lnkd.in/gh6B8Me4 Twitter (X): https://lnkd.in/g9DcDHiJ Farcaster: https://lnkd.in/geAtNSdr

The new episode of The Engine is up! This week, we talk about startup cities. At one point in our lives, we all face the question - where should I live? And it’s a complicated one. Conventional wisdom tells us that you want to be where the best are at what you aspire to be. If you’re in entertainment, you come to LA. If you’re in business and finance, it’s New York. If you’re building in tech, you come to San Francisco. Or at least it used to be so. Things have been changing for a long time, but they have really picked up momentum since the pandemic, when so many teams became remote. Now, you could technically live in a remote ski resort or on an island in the Caribbean as you’re building your future unicorn startup and turning your sleepy village into a new startup city. But how realistic is it? And what goes into that? This week on The Engine, my guests are Nick Smoot and Christopher Pennino. Both have a ton of experience in creating both startup communities and developing build environments optimized for startups. Nick is an entrepreneur, investor, real estate developer, and ecosystem builder who has been executing the community-first, real-estate second thesis for the last decade. His work in startup ecosystems has been recognized by Google, Brookings, Milken Institute, and Bloomberg. He has spent time in over 200 cities in the last decade, working with government, education, industry, and community members. He is also the author of the book Better - How to Build Creative Communities that Transform The World. Chris is an architectural scholar, designer, and consultant. His personal research focuses on Special Economic Zones, and how technology developments impact our built environments. He serves as the Head of Architecture and Urbanism at Vid Sertsya Budova, a startup city that's being built outside of Kyiv for internally displaced people. He is also the Chief of Research and Development at build_cities. Nick explains the concept of transforming existing cities rather than building new ones from scratch, "I personally believe a startup city can be quite simply a city who's been in an industrial revolution malaise that finally decides they want to put both feet on the ground again and get out of bed and quit doomscrolling about their past." Chris defines a startup ecosystem even broader as “any kind of pushback against perceived austerity or kind of staleness in one's perception of the built environment.” If you find yourself in one of these doom-scrolling cities stuck in their industrial malaise, you may be in just a perfect place to get a startup ecosystem going. YouTube link: https://lnkd.in/gVA45ewQ #StartupLife #BuildingBusiness #StartupCities #Blockchain #FounderLife For more content about building in web3 and with web3 follow The Engine. Website: https://lnkd.in/gtsjy5Yj YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gekbJnGC Twitter (X): https://lnkd.in/g9DcDHiJ

The new episode of The Engine is up! Matt Luongo is our guest this week. He is the CEO of Thesis*, a crypto venture studio behind Fold, Keep that became part of Threshold Network, tBTC, Saddle, Tally Ho! And now also thUSC and Mezo. Among their investors are such names as Andreessen Horowitz, Polychain Capital, Draper Associates, and Dragonfly. Matt has been building in the space for over ten years. And so it was terrific to have him on the show to talk about Bitcoin and Matt’s path as a builder. We discuss why Bitcoin is important, not just as a speculative financial instrument but also as an alternative to a centralized economy. We talk about the current cycle in crypto and the headwinds and tailwinds around Bitcoin. Matt has an interesting take on the ETFs. We talk about how Bitcoin has changed and hasn’t changed, specifically how building on Bitcoin has become such a major narrative despite being counterintuitive in the context of the original vision of digital gold. From there, we touch on a very uncomfortable topic of Bitcoin security challenges where Matt is, in fact, optimistic. We of course talk about Threshold, we talk about why bridges are important and how tBTC is unique. We talk about thUSD and crypto loans. We also touched on Matt’s personal story as a builder, and he even shared some parenting tips. For more conversations with builders, follow The Engine: Website: https://lnkd.in/gtsjy5Yj YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gekbJnGC Farcaster: https://lnkd.in/geAtNSdr Twitter (X): https://lnkd.in/g9DcDHiJ #Bitcoin #Halving #Web3 #BuildingBusiness #Crypto #Blockchain #TheEngine #DigitalOwnership #NFTs #CryptoCulture #viral #bitcoin #ethereum #StartupLife #BlockchainForBusiness #cryptonews #BitcoinETF https://lnkd.in/gQ3A72Cc?

The new episode of The Engine is up! I talked with Angelo Alessio (of build_cities) and Sven Hermann (of Incented). Sven shares his beef with lean methodology, and Angelo gives an insight into Houston's Bitcoin scene. But mostly, we talk about building in web3 and balancing innovation and execution. It’s something that every founder, every builder, every creative person has to deal with. You have an ambitious vision, you have conviction and you start building your thing - and you have to work with reality. With limited resources. With the constraints of existing technology. With confusing feedback. With market conditions and changing trends. And you have to adapt and keep your eyes on the prize, on your vision. We talk about how in crypto the infrastructure for your vision sometimes is being built up at the same time as you’re building and how you need to stay flexible and adapt. Crypto, being a new industry, allows builders to take bigger leaps and innovate boldly, whereas, in legacy industries, many paths have often been explored back and forth, leaving space only for minor upgrades. We talk about the challenge of balancing conviction and commitment to a vision with the need to receive feedback and iterate. We cover a lot! https://lnkd.in/g2kgc4rb #Web3 #Bitcoin #BuildingBusiness #Crypto #Blockchain #Founder For more content about building in web3 and with web3 follow The Engine. Website: https://lnkd.in/gtsjy5Yj YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gekbJnGC Substack: https://lnkd.in/gh6B8Me4 Twitter (X): https://lnkd.in/g9DcDHiJ Farcaster: https://lnkd.in/geAtNSdr

Check out our new article about navigating crypto cycles. TL;DR: Hang on to the memes and take care of yourself. jk. but not.

In crypto, every company is responsible for its own "soft landing" after going to the moon with the entire industry. In this episode, Andy Boyan, Ph.D. (of Last) and Angelo Alessio (of build_cities) talk about crypto industry cycles and how to build a business that grows in the summers and survives the winters. Crypto is a crazy industry to be in. It’s innovative and ambitious. It’s heartbreaking. It’s exciting and fun. It never slows down. It does go up and down though. A lot. Andy compared crypto to farming:? Sometimes, there's a good year, and you get a good harvest, but sometimes, there's a drought or a blight, and you get nothing. "We just need to make sure we're planning ahead for that and stocking money away and stocking goodwill and honesty and good relationships away as well." https://lnkd.in/gRwzQsRp #Web3 #Bitcoin #BuildingBusiness #Crypto #Blockchain #DigitalOwnership #NFTs #CryptoCulture #ethereum #solana #StartupLife #BlockchainForBusiness #cryptonews