Validated

And now for something (almost) completely different. 

Welcome to Out of Scope, a new sub-series where Austin and Tori Pastore (aka Birb Bernake) riff with guests on hot takes from the frontiers of tech, finance, policy, and whatever else is the flavor of the week In this debut episode, they sit down with Austin Campbell to discuss... quite a few things: running stablecoin reserves, repealing the 17th Amendment, why banks resemble cartels, insider trading, market structure, why regulators should be paid more and held to higher standards, modernizing the BSA, and—most importantly—a definitive ranking of video conferencing tools.

00:00 - Introducing Tori 

01:24 - Chinese Peptides Explained 

02:45 - GLP 1 Hype Cycle 

05:40 - Peptides and Food Science 

10:49 - Enter Austin Campbell 

16:11- Stablecoin Reserve Rules 

20:35 - Gold Doom Scenarios 

22:59 - Banks' Payment Monopoly 

34:38 - AI Lobbying and EA critiques 

38:20 - Prediction Markets Incentives 

43:59 - Fixing Regulator Accountability 

47:39 - Prediction Markets 

48:47 - Market Manipulation Debate 

59:54 - Perps Versus Futures 

01:02:51 - Assassination Markets Debate 

01:06:21 - Austin's Magic Wand Reforms 

01:10:40 - Blooper Reel

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In this episode, Austin chats with Mert about why privacy is becoming essential for crypto and on-chain finance. They discuss how ZK-based privacy works via shielded pools, commitments, proofs, and nullifiers, contrasting it with Monero’s probabilistic obfuscation. Mert explains Zcash’s renewed adoption through improved usability, macro and regulatory shifts, and fairer historical distribution. He argues privacy layers fail when they lack tangible benefits, and outlines a new fully on-chain, composable, atomic privacy protocol for Solana built with Light Protocol’s compression approach, including permissionless and enterprise “zones” with configurable compliance features and reduced MEV via encrypted swaps. 

00:00 - Why Privacy Matters 

03:05 - Zcash And ZK Origins 

06:26 - How Shielded Pools Work 

09:56 - Why Zcash Broke Out 

15:52 - Why Privacy Layers Fail 

19:47 - Solana Privacy Protocol 

22:57 - Composability Breakthrough 

25:51 - Go-To-Market Plan 

30:50 - Compliance And Zones 

32:40 - Onchain Versus Off Chain 

34:58 - Zcash And Solana’s Future 

40:29 - Bitcoin Privacy And Quantum 

43:48 - Closing And Where To Find

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In this episode, Austin chats with Seth (Cake Wallet) about why privacy is gaining traction after years of being niche, tracing Seth’s entry through Monero and other privacy-preserving products. They compare Zcash’s seemingly influencer-driven pump with Monero’s quieter but rising real-world usage, discuss Cake Wallet’s UX-driven approach (including enforced auto-shielding for Zcash), and debate how criminal adoption can actually validate that privacy tools work in adversarial settings while emphasizing legitimate use cases and storytelling. They explore why app-layer privacy on major L1s has weak adoption versus privacy-native L1s, the importance of defaults, and what’s next for privacy in DeFi and stablecoins.

00:00 - Seth’s Personal and Professional Privacy Journey 

05:53 - Zcash vs Monero Adoption 

09:51 - Crime Compliance and Privacy Ethics 

15:25 - Why Privacy-Preserving Wallet UX Has Lagged 

20:49 - Privacy L1s vs. App-Layer Privacy 

27:30 - What’s Next Private DeFi 

30:07 - Why Monero Has Survived CEX Delistings 

32:35 - Privacy in the Age of AI Surveillance 

41:51 - Conclusion 

 

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In this episode, Austin chats with Emmett Hollyer about the evolution and future of Solana Mobile. They reflect on how the successes and missteps of the Saga phone informed the more refined Seeker, with a focus on improvements in design, pricing, and usability. Emmett discusses scaling production to meet over 100,000 preorders, strategies for attracting developers, and the rationale behind launching a token to align incentives across the ecosystem. The conversation also explores plans to expand beyond in-house devices through partnerships with Android manufacturers, positioning Solana Mobile as a broader crypto platform rather than just a hardware company.

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In this episode, Austin chats with Rahul Jain (Head of Trading at Ellipsis Labs) to explore the evolution of market making in crypto. Rahul discusses what gives crypto market makers an edge, why being early matters, and how crypto has created new challenges around MEV, transaction landing, and execution. They explore the future prospects of prop AMMs, perps, MCP, and what it will take for on-chain finance to scale beyond crypto-native users and compete with traditional markets. 

 

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