The Smart Economy Podcast

In this episode of The Smart Economy Podcast, host Dylan Grabowski is joined by CEO of LayerTwo Labs Paul Sztorc, to discuss why years of attempting to bring Drivechain to Bitcoin ultimately led him toward launching a new Bitcoin fork. They explore Bitcoin's security budget, Sztorc's criticisms of the Lightning Network, the shift toward protocol ossification, prediction markets, and how eCash aims to create a new environment for Bitcoin-based experimentation.

In this episode of The Smart Economy Podcast, host Dylan Grabowski is joined by Nuva Labs CEO Anthony Moro to explore how blockchain is changing the infrastructure behind mortgages, alternative investments, and other real-world assets. They discuss how tokenization can remove financial intermediaries, why mortgages are among the hardest assets to bring on-chain, and Nuva's vision for making traditionally inaccessible investments available through blockchain-based vaults.

In this episode of The Smart Economy Podcast, host Dylan Grabowski is joined by OP Labs Chief Scientist Karl Floersch to discuss the evolution of Ethereum scaling and why OP Labs is increasingly focused on bringing institutions on-chain. They explore the origins of optimistic rollups, the shift toward customizable and sovereign blockchains, the need for interoperability between potentially millions of chains, and how Ethereum and the OP Stack are preparing for the long-term challenge of quantum

In this episode of The Smart Economy Podcast, host Dylan Grabowski is joined by Reserve co-founder Nevin Freeman to discuss the project's long-term goal of creating an asset-backed currency capable of preserving purchasing power. They explore Bitcoin's evolution as a store of value, Reserve's experience bringing stablecoins to Venezuela, the potential for tokenized real-world assets to expand DeFi, and the regulatory barriers standing between today's financial system and globally accessible on-c

Maciej Cepnik, chief marketing officer at Aureo, joins The Smart Economy Podcast to discuss what it takes to build Bitcoin financial infrastructure in Mexico. Cepnik explains how Aureo grew from a tool its founders built to spend their own Bitcoin into a non-custodial brokerage, why navigating Mexico's financial system can become a competitive advantage, and why the company's next opportunity may lie in serving businesses and larger Bitcoin holders.

In this episode of The Smart Economy Podcast, host Dylan Grabowski sits down with Al Qureshi, CEO and co-founder of Black Lake Digital Markets, to discuss how blockchain infrastructure could modernize mortgage capital markets. They explore the role of tokenization, zero-knowledge proofs, and asset verification in improving transparency, reducing costs, and creating new opportunities for institutional finance while connecting traditional capital markets with blockchain networks.