In this episode of When Shift Happens , I sit down with Bobby Ong, co-founder and CEO of CoinGecko, to discuss how he bootstrapped one of crypto’s most trusted data platforms with just $200 and no venture capital. Over the course of the conversation, Bobby reflects on discovering Bitcoin in 2013, building CoinGecko through multiple brutal market cycles, resisting the many shortcuts that exist in crypto, and why playing long-term games with long-term people may be the only way

In this episode of When Shift Happens , I sit down with Evan Cheng to discuss why he believes the architecture behind most major blockchains is fundamentally insufficient, what Sui was built to solve instead, and how the next wave of adoption may come. What makes the conversation especially interesting is that Evan is not simply arguing that Sui is faster or cheaper. He is making a deeper claim: that much of crypto is still built on a mental model of assets and ledgers that w

In this episode of When Shift Happens , I sit down with Anand Gomes, CEO of Paradex, to discuss what it really takes to survive crypto cycles, how most token launches misalign incentives, why Paradex locked 80% of its team tokens to public performance milestones, and why he believes perpetual exchanges are becoming the financial supercenters of the internet economy.  Health as a Founder’s First System The episode opens in an unexpected place, with Anand’s health. Over the pas

In this episode of When Shift Happens , I sit down with Jeff Yan, Founder of Hyperliquid Labs, to reflect on one of crypto’s most extraordinary moments: a $1 billion community airdrop that grew into $10 billion in value. But this conversation goes beyond wealth to focus on responsibility, decentralisation, integrity, and what it really means to “house all of finance” on chain. The $10 Billion Moment, and What It Meant When the HYPE token launched, roughly $1 billion was distr

In this episode of When Shift Happens , I sit down with Avichal Garg to discuss why most people lose in crypto, what it really takes to survive long enough to win, and the investing frameworks behind backing more than 25 unicorns. As co-founder and general partner at Electric Capital, and an early backer of companies like Figma, Solana, Kraken, Notion, and Bitwise, Avichal brings a long-term Silicon Valley lens to a simple but uncomfortable question: Are you here because you

In this episode of When Shift Happens , I sit down with Anthony Pompliano to discuss what real conviction looks like: why he once put 95% of his net worth into Bitcoin, how deep research separates concentration from gambling, and why he would rather risk going to zero than win at what he calls “insider games” that create no real impact. “Relentless” as a way of operating Pompliano describes himself simply: investor, entrepreneur, someone who likes to have fun, but at the same

In this episode of When Shift Happens , I sit down with Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer at Bitwise, to discuss why Bitcoin may be worth millions per coin, why Solana has one of the strongest setups he has ever seen, and why the most reliable path to wealth in crypto is also the least exciting one. Hougan is not a chain maximalist. He comes from traditional finance, spent more than a decade in ETFs, and now sits at the intersection of institutional capital and digital as

In this episode of When Shift Happens , I sit down with Kostas Chalkias to discuss why the next decade of blockchain won’t be defined by faster transactions, but by quantum-safe cryptography, AI-native infrastructure, and systems designed for machines and humans. Chalkias is the co-founder and chief cryptographer at Mysten Labs, best known for building the Sui Network after leaving Facebook’s Libra project. With over 15 years in cryptographic research and security, he brings

In this episode of When Shift Happens , I sit down with Andrej Majcen, co-founder and Group CEO of Bitcoin Suisse, to unpack one central idea: we are living through a narrow, five-year window that may define who preserves and compounds wealth, and who doesn’t. As pension systems strain, trust in institutions erodes, and inflation quietly eats away at savings, Andrej argues that Bitcoin is no longer a speculative trade but a structural response to a broken financial system. Th

In this episode of When Shift Happens , I sit down with Raagulan Pathy, founder of KAST and the “stablecoin guy”, to discuss what happens when a $100M company goes to zero, what eight years of debt repayment does to a founder’s mindset, and why he now believes stablecoins can power a global bank serving 150+ countries, and possibly a billion people. Raags is direct about the scale of what he’s trying to build. He says, on record, that KAST is a “trillion dollar plus” outcome

In this episode of When Shift Happens , I sit down with Raoul Pal for the 2nd time this year to discuss how to survive and succeed in crypto in 2026 without relying on luck, perfect timing, or constant trading. At the centre of the conversation is a deceptively simple framework: hold the right assets, understand your risk tolerance, and do absolutely nothing. Beneath that simplicity, however, lies a demanding discipline shaped by time horizons, liquidity cycles, and a thoroug

In this episode of When Shift Happens , I sit down with Sandeep Nailwal, founder of Polygon, to discuss what it takes to build through chaos, why he refused to “walk off” when crypto turned ugly in 2022, and what Polygon is really trying to become: not just another blockchain, but a global payments layer powered by stablecoins. Along the way, Sandeep reflects on his childhood, his obsession with individual sovereignty, and the philanthropic moment that turned crypto into a cu

In this episode of When Shift Happens , I sit down with Meow, founder of Jupiter, to unpack how a decision made in a ramen shop turned into one of crypto’s most important DeFi platforms, why he thinks crypto desperately needs an “iPhone moment,” and what he really means by Web4 and “social money.” From ramen shop to Jupiter Meow’s “cat” persona comes across as a meme, but it’s actually a metaphor for adaptability. Cats survive in any environment, and he wants to be “whatever

In this episode of When Shift Happens , I sit down with Matej Zak to discuss why self-custody matters, how Czech history shaped his worldview, and what it really takes to build Trezor, the world’s most trusted hardware wallet. From a brutal 1953 monetary reform in Czechoslovakia to today’s billion-dollar exchange hacks, Matej explains why most people in crypto still do not truly own their money, and what would need to change for that to become the norm. A Czech History Lesson

In this episode of When Shift Happens , I sit down with Brian Armstrong to discuss what it really takes to build something that lasts. We talk about the myth of the “smartest founder in the room,” the unglamorous muscle of unreasonable determination, and the emotional cost of scaling Coinbase over more than a decade. Brian opens up about burnout, loneliness, ambition, and the mindset shifts that helped him keep going when things felt heavy. We also get into why he believes ca

In this episode of When Shift Happens , I sit down with Anand Gomes to discuss why decentralised exchanges are becoming the new systemically important financial centres, how Paradex can offer zero fees without breaking, and what it really takes, mentally and structurally, to build the rails of a new on-chain economy. Built Different: The Reality Behind “Eating Glass” Anand is very clear: running a crypto exchange is not glamorous. When Paradex processed $5.4 billion in 24 hou

In this episode of When Shift Happens , I sit down with Mert Mumtaz, CEO and co-founder of Helius, to discuss why he’s betting hard on privacy, Solana infrastructure, and long-term conviction plays like Zcash, SOL, Bitcoin, and Hyperliquid. The conversation goes deep on first-principles investing, how internet connectivity reshapes price action, and the discipline it takes to build and capture value over a 3–5 year horizon. Mert’s worldview starts with time. “Every investment

In this episode of When Shift Happens , I sit down with Seung Yoon Lee to discuss the $80 trillion creative asset class, why creators are shut out of the value they generate, and how Story Protocol aims to tokenise and “programme” intellectual property so anyone can legally remix it while paying royalties automatically. Fixing Creator Economics Seung’s path to this problem began with a long apprenticeship in media economics. Fresh out of Oxford, he tried to fix journalism’s b

In this episode of When Shift Happens , I sit down with Zen and Soju to discuss how a 20-person team built Solana’s most advanced liquidity engine, why “Internet Capital Markets” are the next frontier, and what it really takes to launch culture-shaping tokens without losing the plot. Meteora didn’t begin as today’s sleek “liquidity layer”. Its roots trace back to Mercurial, a 2021-era Solana project that launched during the FTX boom. Zen, a product-first operator with a knack

In this episode of When Shift Happens , I sit down with Paolo Ardoino to discuss how Tether became one of the most profitable businesses per employee in history, why stablecoins matter most to people outside the West, and what it means to build a “stable company” in an unstable world. Ardoino, CEO of Tether and CTO of Bitfinex, is matter-of-fact about the numbers. Tether earned $13.7 billion last year and expects similar performance this year. Some of that windfall reflects m