The Index Podcast

What if staking could be seamless, secure and DeFi-friendly? In this episode of The Index, host Alex Kehaya talks with Michael Repetny, Co-founder and CEO of Marinade Finance, the largest staking protocol on Solana with over $1.5 billion in crypto assets under management.

Michael shares the remarkable journey behind Marinade—from a scrappy Solana hackathon project to a cornerstone of Solana’s infrastructure. Built by a team that tur...

What’s stopping DeFi from going mainstream—and how can better UX, infrastructure, and automation unlock its full potential? In this episode of The Index, host Alex Kehaya talks with Vikram Arun, Co-founder of Superform, about building the future of on-chain wealth management. After managing a $100B DeFi book at BlockTower, Vikram saw a clear problem: if even institutional investors struggled with yield strategies, how could everyda...

How do you build a DePIN network with 2.7M+ devices, zero CAC, and data streams optimized for AI—without draining batteries or compromising user trust?

In this episode of The Index, Alex Kehaya sits down with Jesse Adams, serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Uprock, to unpack how they’re building the world’s first mobile-first DePIN for AI.

Jesse’s journey spans building an adult app store, launching an encrypted browser (Tenta, acq...

Ever wondered what happens to those domain names gathering digital dust in your GoDaddy account? In this episode of The Index, host Alex Kehaya sits down with Michael Ho, Co-founder of D3, to explore how blockchain technology is transforming the overlooked world of domain trading and ownership.

The domain industry hasn’t changed much since the ’90s. Selling a valuable name still involves clunky escrow services, manual transfers, and...

What if you could rebuild telecom from the ground up—open, decentralized, and powered by crypto? In this episode of The Index, host Alex Kehaya chats with Frank Mong, COO of Nova Labs, the team behind Helium Mobile—the decentralized wireless network now partnering with AT&T and Telefónica.

Helium started with a bold idea: replace legacy cell towers with a community-powered network. The key unlock? Blockchain incentives. After ye...

What if you could bring Solana’s speed to every major blockchain—and onboard millions of new users with zero friction?

In this new episode of The Index, host Alex Kehaya welcomes back Joanna Zeng, Co-founder & CEO of SOON, for an exciting update on how her team is breaking down the walls between blockchain ecosystems and building the infrastructure for a more unified Web3.

Soon is pioneering a decoupled SVM architecture—separatin...

The future of AI needs a new internet. Coinbase is laying the foundation.
 In this episode of The Index, host Alex Kehaya talks with Nemil Dalal, Head of Coinbase’s Developer Platform, about how Coinbase is building crypto-native infrastructure to power the next generation of applications, starting with autonomous AI agents.

Nemil shares his background in crypto, from meeting Brian Armstrong at Y Combinator to helping scale USDC...

What if launching a decentralized network didn’t require reinventing tokenomics or compromising on trust and security?

This week on The Index, host Alex Kehaya sits down with Misha Putiatin, Co-founder of Symbiotic, to explore how their novel approach to universal staking is changing the game for protocol builders. Instead of issuing a new token to bootstrap security, Symbiotic enables networks to leverage existing assets like ETH, ...

What does it take to make DeFi yield simple, transparent, and unstoppable?

In this episode of The Index, we sit down with Sunand Raghupathi, Co-founder and CEO of VEDA, to explore his journey from leaving a computer science PhD program to building one of DeFi’s fastest-growing platforms. VEDA has grown to $2 billion in assets and 100,000+ users in just over a year, proving there’s massive demand for easy, accessible crypto yield.

Wha...

What if blockchains could communicate as easily as APIs? In The Index's Everything SVM episode, Alex Kehaya and Omar Zaki sit down with Dean Little, Co-founder and Chief Scientist at Zeus Network, which is building a seamless way to connect Bitcoin and other major blockchains to the Solana ecosystem. His other work includes cryptography research at Jupiter Research Center, where he focuses on advancing secure blockchain system...

What if the world’s most powerful AI wasn’t controlled by a handful of tech giants, but was open, accessible, and owned by everyone?

In this episode of The Index, we sit down with Vincent Weisser, Co-founder and CEO of Prime Intellect, to explore his groundbreaking vision for democratizing artificial intelligence. Vincent pulls back the curtain on the technical and philosophical innovations behind Prime Intellect, from distributed t...

How do we rebuild trust in a decentralized financial system that’s been rocked by collapses and scandals?

This week on The Index, host Alex Kehaya sits down with Alexandre Elkrief, Co-founder and CEO of August, to discuss the future of crypto, stablecoins, and DeFi—and how his team is rebuilding trust in the ecosystem with Upshift. 

Designed to replace blind trust with verifiable transparency, Upshift is a breakthrough protocol that’...

New on The Index— What happens when $1.5B disappears overnight?

Host Alex Kehaya chats with Andres Monteoliva, Co-founder and CEO of Range—a blockchain security and intelligence platform—about the high-profile crypto hacks that have exposed major gaps in Web3 and how they’re shaping the future of blockchain security.

Together, they unpack the real-world failures behind some of the biggest exploits and explore how Range is using real-...

What if the original vision for the internet—a decentralized, permissionless, and open system—could still be realized?

On this episode of The Index, host Alex Kehaya is joined by Danny O’Brien, Senior Fellow at the Filecoin Foundation, to explore how we got here—and how we can build something better.

Danny’s career spans decades at the frontlines of digital freedom, from the early days of the free software movement to today’s push fo...

What if smart contracts could manage keys, secure assets, and run AI agents autonomously?

This week on The Index podcast —Host Alex Kehaya sits down with David Sneider, co-founder of Lit Protocol, to dive into decentralized key management, threshold cryptography, and the future of AI in Web3.

David shares his journey from building in the Bay Area tech scene to launching Lit Protocol, with stops along the way that ...

What if launching your own Layer 1 blockchain was as fast and seamless as spinning up a cloud server? In this episode of The Index, Jin Kwon, Co-founder of Saga.xyz, shares how Saga is redefining how developers scale in Web3. Rather than relying on rollups or months of coordination, Saga lets you launch your own Layer 1 chain—called a chainlet—in just minutes.

Jin explains how his computer architecture and finance backgrou...

How do we unlock the true potential of decentralized AI? In this episode of Everything Bagel, co-hosts Alex Kehaya and Bidhan Roy dive into the powerful intersection of blockchain and AI, fresh from ETHDenver and the OpenAGI Summit.

Bidhan, founder of Bagel, shares insights from hosting a Builder’s Breakfast that exceeded all expectations, drawing triple the anticipated attendance. He unpacks how Bagel is tackling one of decentraliz...

The Future of Finance: How Blockchain is Bringing Real-World Assets On-Chain

This week on The Index, Alex Kehaya joins Eli Cohen, General Counsel at Centrifuge, to break down how crypto is transforming traditional finance by bringing real-world assets (RWA) on-chain.

Eli’s blockchain journey began in 2017 at CME Group, where he helped launch Bitcoin futures, exposing him to the inefficiencies of legacy markets. Municipal bonds take t...

Can small, agile teams outpace massive, well-funded engineering orgs in AI and open-source innovation?

Co-hosts Alex Kehaya & Bidhan Roy, Founder of Bagel Network joins Greg Osuri, Founder of Akash Network, for a deep dive into the open-source AI stack, decentralization, and the engineering principles behind lean, high-impact teams.

Greg shares how Akash is revolutionizing cloud computing with decentralized infrastructure, the po...