Latest Insights

2310, 2026
Spout Finance – Let Your Stocks Pay the Interest

|23 Oct 2026|Podcasts|

Marc Ryan is Co-Founder and CEO of Spout Finance, a Solana lending protocol that lets people borrow USDC against tokenized US stocks without paying interest. Based in New York, Marc first got into crypto during the 2017 ICO boom and stayed through DeFi summer and the NFT cycle. Meanwhile he worked as a technology investment banker at HSBC, covering fintech, software and hardware, and that experience showed him how cheaply wealthy clients could borrow against their portfolios compared with everyone else.

2110, 2026
Casper – Why AI Agents Need Their Own Payment Rails

|21 Oct 2026|Podcasts|

Michael Steuer is President and CTO of the Casper Association, the Swiss non-profit behind Casper Network, a proof-of-stake Layer 1 built for regulated real-world assets and payments between AI agents. Born in Amsterdam and based in Los Angeles for more than two decades, Michael has spent around 30 years in technology. That includes a stint as CTO for mobile at THQ, where his team shipped some of the first downloadable mobile games. He then co-founded Casper in 2018, built much of its ecosystem tooling through his company MAKE, and returned to lead the project in 2024.

1610, 2026
Orbs – DeFi’s Next Big Users Are Banks and Bots

|16 Oct 2026|Podcasts|

Ran Hammer is CEO at Orbs, a decentralized Layer-3 blockchain that works behind the scenes for DEXs. It gives smart contracts the automation and execution logic they lack on their own, which powers limit orders, TWAP, liquidity aggregation and perpetual futures across dozens of venues. Ran is an Israeli based in London and a former high-tech M&A lawyer. He has been with Orbs since its 2017 beginnings, working as general counsel, then in business development, then as chief business officer, before taking over as CEO in September.