UNCHAINED: The Catalysts for This Crypto Bull Market | AI, DeFi, Real World Assets?
CoinDesk Podcast Network
CoinDesk
4.8 • 689 Ratings
🗓️ 6 March 2024
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As the crypto bull market gets started, Alex Pack of Hack VC dives into why he thinks crypto is still so early and how his firm believes crypto and AI will intersect.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Fountain, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Pandora, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.
In this episode of Unchained, Alex Pack, managing partner at Hack VC. Pack discusses the firm's recent $150 million fundraise, the challenges of raising capital in a bear market, and the firm's focus on early-stage Web3 infrastructure. He also shares his thoughts on the intersection of crypto and AI, the future of DeFi, and the importance of security in the crypto space. Pack believes that the current infrastructure of crypto is still in its early stages and needs significant improvement before it can reach mainstream adoption. He also sees potential in the development of more secure smart contracts and the integration of AI into decentralized applications.
Show highlights:
- How Hack VC was able to raise $150 million in a bear market, especially after the blowups of FTX, 3AC, and Terra
- Alex's interaction with SBF, whom he calls a "sociopath," and why he didn't invest in FTX
- Hack VC's philosophy to "back hackers" in crypto
- The goals behind Zuzalu, the new community that resembles Balaji Srinivasan's idea of a network state
- What the main focus of Hack VC's investments are, including scalability, AI, and DeFi
- Why Alex believes that "we are still so early"
- How Alex believes crypto and artificial intelligence will intersect
- The role of AI agents and how to use them in decentralized applications
- Why he thinks that EigenLayer is a great solution for middleware applications
- Alex's opinion on the modular vs. monolithic approach for scaling blockchains
- How DeFi survived the last bear market, contrasted with the collapses of CeFi companies like Celsius, BlockFi and FTX
- Whether algorithmic stablecoins can ever work and what Alex thinks of Ethena's USDe
- How to improve security in crypto, according to Alex
- Why the outcome of the Bitcoin ETFs exceeded Alex's expectations
- What he believes the catalysts are for the next bull market
Thank you to our sponsors! Polkadot
Guest |
Alex Pack, Managing partner at Hack VC
Previous appearances on Unchained:
Dragonfly Capital on Why Ethereum Is So Far in the Lead
‘The Last Big Whale’: Why the Crypto Contagion of 2022 Eventually Hit Genesis
Links |
New fund
Bloomberg: Hack VC Raises $150 Million for Bets on Battered Crypto Industry
Hack VC Closes $150M Venture Fund I, Bringing AUM to $425M
Stablecoins:
Unchained:
What Is Ethena’s USDe Synethic Dollar? A Beginner’s Guide
What Is Terra and Why Did It Fail?
Why It's so Hard to Keep Stablecoins Stable
What Is Depegging in Crypto and Why Does It Occur?
What Is Real-World Asset (RWA) Tokenization? A Beginner's Guide
EigenLayer ecosystem
Unchained: What Is EigenLayer? A Guide to the Decentralized ETH Restaking Protocol
The Block: AltLayer closes $14.4 million strategic round co-led by Polychain and Hack VC
Modular vs. monolithic approach
Unchained:
What Are Modular Blockchains? A Beginner's Guide
Three Crypto Pioneers on Crypto’s Monolithic vs. Modular Debate
Crypto x AI crossover
io.net and Ritual Collaborate to Boost Global AI Compute Landscape
Ritual x EigenLayer: Restaking for AI
Unchained: 5 Use Cases of AI in Blockchain
Zuzalu
Decrypt: I Spent a Month Inside Vitalik Buterin’s Social Experiment—Here’s What It Was Really Like
-
Unchained Podcast is Produced by Laura Shin Media, LLC. Distributed by CoinDesk. Senior Producer is Michele Musso and Executive Producer is Jared Schwartz.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Audible brings your wildest adventures to life, delivering heart-pounding thrills at the touch |
| 0:05.8 | of a button. |
| 0:07.0 | Take Richard Osmond's The Thursday Murder Club, where four retirees turned amateur sleuths |
| 0:11.8 | solve crimes in the most unexpected ways, brilliantly performed by Leslie Manville. |
| 0:17.1 | Ready to unleash your adventure aside, from pulse racing suspense to epic quests, from supernatural |
| 0:22.6 | chills to far-off romances, every story comes alive through world-class narration. |
| 0:28.5 | Explore exclusive audible originals, chart-topping new releases, and unforgettable bestsellers |
| 0:34.4 | that transport you from the very first word, because the next great |
| 0:38.2 | adventure is just a listener way. Start your free 30-day trial at audible.com slash |
| 0:43.9 | Wondery UK. That's audible.com slash Wondery UK. |
| 0:49.7 | Thanks for listening to Unchained, your no-hype resource for all things crypto on the CoinDesk |
| 0:54.9 | Podcast Network. You can also listen to the episodes on the Unchained feed earlier if you subscribe |
| 1:00.5 | there. Plus, check out all our content on our website, Unchained Crypto.com. |
| 1:06.2 | In my opinion, we're still so early in the space. And if you think about the problem, |
| 1:10.5 | like the big problem is that I kind of think from an |
| 1:14.9 | analogy perspective, we're closest to like mid-90s internet, right? |
| 1:21.1 | And the similarities with some differences, but the similarities are like, there's millions |
| 1:24.5 | or maybe tens of millions of users of this stuff. |
| 1:35.7 | Hi, everyone. Welcome to Unchained. You're a no-hype resource for all things crypto. I'm your host, Laura Shin, author of The Cryptopians. I started covering crypto eight years ago, and as a senior |
| 1:41.2 | editor of Forbes was the first Main Tree Meter Porter to cover cryptocurrency full-time. |
| 1:45.2 | This is the March 5th, 2024 episode of Unchained. |
| 1:49.3 | Pocodot is a leading layer zero blockchain with over 2,000 developers. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from CoinDesk, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of CoinDesk and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.