Technology

The Rollup

Where digital assets and finance converge. Live from the financial capital of the world.

Website: https://therollup.co/

Latest Episodes:

Cathie Wood: The Next Bull Market Is Here (…What It Will Look Like) Apr 27, 2026

Show notes

Cathie Wood joins The Rollup to break down her innovation platforms thesis, the story behind her firm, ARK Invest and its foray into digital assets. She also unpacks her belief in the tokenization thesis, what 'good deflation' is, her "Big Four" crypto assets.

We ask her about the 4-year cycle and where the macro liquidity landscape is currently at, and finally and agentic AI is converging with blockchain at scale.

Cathie Wood is the CEO and CIO of ARK Invest, one of the world's leading active investment managers focused on disruptive innovation with over $10 billion in AUM across five innovation platforms.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets and finance converge. Live from the financial capital of the world.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:22 5 Innovation Platforms

04:53 Why ARK Started

08:11 Bitcoin's Institutional Journey

12:38 First Bitcoin Position

15:11 Institutional Adoption Today

17:33 Larry Fink's Conversion

19:30 Stablecoins Are Impactful

22:06 $11T Tokenization Thesis

23:07 DeFi Value Accrual

28:48 Bitcoin & The Big Four

32:39 Macro Liquidity Dynamics

34:24 Bitcoin vs Gold

35:38 ARK's $730K Case

38:00 The Fed & Good Deflation

41:15 New Fed Chair

45:05 Four Year Cycle Debate

46:10 Why Agentic AI Needs Blockchain

49:15 Self-Driving Labs & Healthcare

𝗗𝗜𝗦𝗖𝗟𝗔𝗜𝗠𝗘𝗥: 𝘐𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘳𝘺𝘱𝘵𝘰𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘋𝘦𝘍𝘪 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘪𝘯𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘬𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘬, 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘳, 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮 𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦. 𝘈𝘵 𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘭, 𝘸𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘺 𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘳 𝘧𝘦𝘦 𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱, 𝘪𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳. 𝘞𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮, 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘦 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘦. 𝘞𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘧𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘴 𝘰𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘴.

Alfonso Gómez-Jordana on Why Every AI Agent Will Need a Wallet Apr 25, 2026

Show notes

Alfonso Gómez-Jordana joins AI Supercycle to break down scope cards, verifiable intents, and why Mastercard and Amex are now partnering with crypto-native infrastructure to power agent payments.

Alfonso Gómez-Jordana is the founder of Crossmint, a programmatic finance infrastructure company building stablecoin enablement and AI agent payment solutions for developers, fintechs, and major card networks.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets and finance converge. Live from the financial capital of the world.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

00:38 Crossmint Catch-Up

02:11 Why Mastercard Takes You Serious

03:40 Scope Cards Explained

05:57 Lobster Cash Explained

07:25 Verifiable Intents Explained

10:02 Agent Adoption Targets

12:08 How To Set It Up

13:48 Stablecoins vs. Scope Cards

16:35 How Agents Actually Pay

18:02 Agent Security Explained

20:56 Blast Radius Minimized

22:18 Agents Ready For Commerce?

24:33 Payment Inventory Still Small

26:00 Alfonso's Agent Stack

Website: https://therollup.co/

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1P6ZeYd...

Podcast: https://therollup.co/category/podcast

Follow Rob on X: https://x.com/robbieklages

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Join our TG group: https://t.me/+TsM1CRpWFgk1NGZh

The Rollup Disclosures: https://goodidea.ventures

Mike Dudas: The State of Digital Asset Investing in 2026 (What’s Changed) Apr 23, 2026

Show notes

Mike Dudas joins us in the Tokenization Tower to unpack the state of crypto VC, where flows are going, the stablecoin war, why pumpfun and Hyperliquid are misunderstood, how to think about Circle vs. Tether, OpenAI & Anthropic IPOs, and why now is a great time to invest in digital assets.

Mike Dudas is the co-founder and General Partner of 6th Man Ventures, one of the most active early-stage digital asset funds with investments in Pump.fun, Plasma, Upshift, and others.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets and finance converge. Live from the financial capital of the world.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:06 Why Now For VC

03:00 Founders Lack Confidence

05:30 Where Flows Are Going

07:22 Alien Ideas Still Win

09:03 RWA Investing Paralysis

10:23 Pumpfun & Hyperliquid

13:05 Fundamentals Not Rewarded

15:28 Consumer Onchain Thesis

16:35 MegaETH & Base

19:10 Plasma, Arc, Tempo Thesis

21:18 Agent Payments Changing

23:00 General Purpose Chain Risk

24:45 Circle vs. Tether

29:04 New Stablecoins

31:20 Stablecoin Issuers: M0 & Bridge

34:16 Kraken & Paxos IPO

36:08 AI IPOs As A Signal

38:57 Why Prices Hold

41:30 Vaults & Risk Management

44:00 What Comes Next

Website: https://therollup.co/

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1P6ZeYd...

Podcast: https://therollup.co/category/podcast

Follow Rob on X: https://x.com/robbieklages

Follow Andy on X: https://x.com/andyyy

Join our TG group: https://t.me/+TsM1CRpWFgk1NGZh

The Rollup Disclosures: https://goodidea.ventures

Sky Co-founder: The Next Era of Onchain Finance Is Coming Apr 21, 2026

Show notes

For this weeks Stabled Up episode, Sky co-founder Rune Christensen breaks down recent DeFi exploits, Sky's risk model, the future of yieldcoins, onchain lending, and why the next era of DeFi scale will be centered around risk management.

Rune Christensen is the co-founder of Sky, formerly MakerDAO, the issuer of USDS.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets and finance converge. Live from the financial capital of the world.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:10 Exploit Initial Reactions

03:38 Fear Worse Than Hack

05:42 Schrodinger's Collateral Explained

08:03 USDS Yield Spike

09:00 Sky Product Stack

11:44 Flight to Quality

16:07 Spark Subsidized Liquidity

18:26 Sky's Collateral Philosophy

25:00 Skylink Explained

27:12 In-house Bridge Standard

29:06 Fed Rates & DeFi

33:44 Why Security Enables Scale

38:00 Isolated vs. Pooled Lending

42:07 DeFi Is Not Over

Website: https://therollup.co/

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1P6ZeYd...

Podcast: https://therollup.co/category/podcast

Follow Rob on X: https://x.com/robbieklages

Follow Andy on X: https://x.com/andyyy

Join our TG group: https://t.me/+TsM1CRpWFgk1NGZh

The Rollup Disclosures: https://goodidea.ventures

Rob Hadick: Where Does DeFi Go From Here? (…And Why) Apr 20, 2026

Show notes

Rob Hadick joins us in the Tokenization Tower to cover the $292M exploit this weekend unpacking how it happened, what this means for the future of low-risk DeFi, why DeFi founders are still treating finance like software, and his views on investing and predicting what comes next for onchain finance.

Rob Hadick is General Partner at Dragonfly, a leading digital asset venture fund.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets and finance converge. Live from the financial capital of the world.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

00:51 Major Weekend Exploit

01:38 Contagion & Composability Risk

02:28 LayerZero's Statement

05:22 Restaking As A Red Herring

06:53 Finance As Software

09:56 Risk Curation Incentive Problem

13:08 Path Dependency Post-Exploit

17:56 Despair As Current Sentiment

19:30 Institutional Views

21:25 Exotic Collateral Gets Repriced

23:57 Isolated vs. Pooled Lending

26:07 Institutions Want Segregated Markets

27:12 Yieldcoins Post-Exploit

30:11 The Great Consolidation

31:36 Frozen Funds on Aave

33:33 Rate Limits As A Standard

37:13 Permissionless vs. Institutional Split

41:18 What Reverses DeFi Sentiment?

Website: https://therollup.co/

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1P6ZeYd...

Podcast: https://therollup.co/category/podcast

Follow Rob on X: https://x.com/robbieklages

Follow Andy on X: https://x.com/andyyy

Join our TG group: https://t.me/+TsM1CRpWFgk1NGZh

The Rollup Disclosures: https://goodidea.ventures

Shuyao Kong on Why MegaETH Is the Only Option for Onchain Finance Apr 18, 2026

Show notes

Shuyao joins The Rollup to break down the KPI token model, novel asset strategy, and why MegaETH is building a fashion brand, not a blockchain.

Shuyao Kong is the co-founder of MegaETH, the highest throughput Ethereum Layer 2 focused on real-time blockchain performance and consumer-grade user experiences.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets and finance converge. Live from the financial capital of the world.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

00:40 MegaETH Launch Recap

02:23 Post-Launch Pros & Cons

05:18 What Apps Are Winning

06:28 UX Maxi No Copypasta

08:52 Layered DeFi Lego

09:34 Gamified Trading Still Bullish

10:43 KPI-Based Token Launch

11:52 Stablecoin Growth Challenges

12:38 Institutional Chain or Not?

14:19 Hyperliquid Brings Institutions

15:14 Performance Over Decentralization

16:40 Mega's Escape Hatch

18:04 Asset vs. Chain Centric

21:16 Chain As Fashion Brand

23:41 Token Design & KPI Vesting

26:53 No Pay-To-List Policy

28:21 Industry Sentiment Gap

30:47 Tokenized Assets on MegaETH

32:26 Mega vs. HYPE?

34:03 How MegaETH Makes Money

Website: https://therollup.co/

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1P6ZeYd...

Podcast: https://therollup.co/category/podcast

Follow Rob on X: https://x.com/robbieklages

Follow Andy on X: https://x.com/andyyy

Join our TG group: https://t.me/+TsM1CRpWFgk1NGZh

The Rollup Disclosures: https://goodidea.ventures

Charles Hoskinson: I Solved Privacy (How I Did It…) Apr 16, 2026

Show notes

Charles Hoskinson joins The Rollup to cover the Midnight launch, privacy onchain, ZEC & NEAR, how 34% of Bitcoin supply is vulnerable to quantum attack right now, how BIP 361 may be the only way to stop it, and much more.

Charles Hoskinson is the founder of Midnight and co-founder of Cardano, with 15+ years in digital assets.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets and finance converge. Live from the financial capital of the world.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

00:43 Why Big Companies Fail On-Chain

03:21 What Is Midnight?

07:04 Web 2.5 & Partner Chain Model

09:09 Token Distribution & Airdrop

12:06 Purism vs. Pragmatism Framework

14:27 AI Hacking Threat Coming

16:24 Midnight vs. Zcash

20:42 Near Intents & Account Abstraction

24:42 Midnight Passport Explained

31:23 Bitcoin's Three Quantum Options

33:56 BIP 361 Breakdown

36:56 DARPA Quantum Benchmarking

39:03 White Hat Race for Satoshi's Coins?

40:18 Hard Fork Problem for Bitcoin

Website: https://therollup.co/

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1P6ZeYd...

Podcast: https://therollup.co/category/podcast

Follow Rob on X: https://www.x.com/robbiek__

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Join our TG group: https://t.me/+TsM1CRpWFgk1NGZh

The Rollup Disclosures: https://goodidea.ventures

How Digital Assets Incentives Are Solving the Robotics Data Problem Apr 15, 2026

Show notes

Jansen Teng thinks crypto is the missing piece to scale robots globally.

Jansen Teng is founder of Virtuals Protocol, the leading agentic commerce platform with $500M in agent-to-agent transactions and counting.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets and finance converge. Live from the financial capital of the world.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

00:47 Virtuals Protocol Recap

03:53 The Westworld End Goal

07:14 Data Collection Explained

08:27 30 G1 Humanoids Launch

10:49 Commercial Pilots Live

11:52 Three Reasons Digital Assets Fit

16:16 Agentic GDP With Robots

18:57 What's Missing From Stack

20:37 Privacy in Physical AI

23:34 China Leads Hardware Race

26:01 Open Source vs. Closed

28:17 Agentic Risk Standards

Website: https://therollup.co/

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1P6ZeYd...

Podcast: https://therollup.co/category/podcast

Follow Rob on X: https://www.x.com/robbiek__

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Join our TG group: https://t.me/+TsM1CRpWFgk1NGZh

The Rollup Disclosures: https://goodidea.ventures

Why Saylor Is Wrong About the Quantum Threat | Alex Pruden Apr 14, 2026

Show notes

Alex Pruden joins The Rollup to break down the quantum threat to every major blockchain, why Saylor's "just hard fork it" answer is not enough, and why Ethereum may actually be better positioned than Bitcoin

Alex Pruden is the CEO and co-founder of Project Eleven, the leading company building post-quantum cryptography solutions for digital asset networks.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets and finance converge. Live from the financial capital of the world.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:23 State of Quantum Today

02:46 How Critical Is the Threat?

04:07 Saylor's Hard Fork Response

06:21 Proof of Work vs. Proof of Stake

07:18 Building Quantum Resistant Chains

10:00 Full Lift & Shift Explained

13:25 AI & Quantum Combined Risk

15:49 How Your UX Changes Post-Quantum

17:44 Is Zcash Quantum Resistant?

18:05 Is Algorand the Leader?

19:40 Quantum Resistant Layer Ones

21:34 Will Q-Day Actually Happen?

23:32 The Most Bullish Case for Digital Assets

25:55 Bitcoin vs. Broader Internet Risk

28:34 What If Satoshi Gets Hacked?

32:03 Saylor's STRK Product Explained

35:37 ETH vs. BTC Quantum Race

38:05 Project Eleven Roadmap

Website: https://therollup.co/

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1P6ZeYd...

Podcast: https://therollup.co/category/podcast

Follow Rob on X: https://www.x.com/robbiek__

Follow Andy on X: https://www.x.com/ayyyeandy

Join our TG group: https://t.me/+TsM1CRpWFgk1NGZh

The Rollup Disclosures: https://goodidea.ventures

Vladimir Novakovski on Why Lighter Is Built for the Future of Finance Apr 11, 2026

Show notes

Vlad Novakovski joins The Rollup to break down the Lighter EVM launch, the valuation disconnect vs. HyperLiquid, and why the future of finance runs on DeFi rails.

Vladimir Novakovski is the co-founder of Lighter, a ZK-powered on-chain exchange built on Ethereum for trading perps, spot, and tokenized assets with zero fees for retail users.

The Rollup is where the leaders of digital assets and finance converge. Live from the financial capital of the world.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:45 Lighter EVM Explained

04:20 Volatility & Risk Management

07:30 Regulatory Strategy & Architecture

11:15 Fee Model & Retail Focus

13:40 Sequencer vs. Localized Ingestion

18:00 Verifiability Over Decentralization

20:10 Telegram Wallet Partnership

24:30 Zero Fees & Revenue Model

27:00 Lighter vs. Hyperliquid Valuation