The Pirate Pod

In this episode of PiratePod, Keli Callaghan interviews Joseph Onorati from DeFi Development Corp, discussing the evolution and future of Digital Asset Treasuries (DATs). With DFDV's stature as the best-performing US stock of 2025 so far, the chat explores the market potential, competitive strategies, and the role of DATs in ecosystem participation, particularly focusing on Solana. Joseph shares insights on innovations in capital raising, including preferred stocks and warrant dividends, and ...

In this episode of PiratePod, Colton Conley and Keli Callaghan chat with Nick from Mellow Protocol, a leading player in the DeFi space focusing on modular liquid staking. They discuss Nick's background, the evolution of the DeFi landscape, Mellow's innovative products, and the importance of institutional partnerships. The conversation highlights Mellow's unique vault architecture, risk management strategies, and future roadmap - with protocol growth accelerating amidst a more institutional an...

Bhaji Illuminati, the CEO of Centrifuge, joins the Pirate Pod to discuss the evolution and current state of Real World Assets (RWAs) and the maturation of the digital asset landscape. Bhaji shares insights on the challenges and opportunities in tokenization, the tailwinds of the regulatory landscape, institutional readiness and the technological innovations that Centrifuge is implementing. The discussion, held with Arrington Capital’s Keli Callaghan, also touches on recent events, announcemen...

In this episode of the Pirate Pod, Keli Callaghan interviews Hal Smith Steves, co-founder of Rilla, a decentralized streaming infrastructure company. They discuss Hal's journey into the crypto space, the challenges faced by the streaming industry, and how Rilla aims to disrupt the current model by utilizing peer-to-peer technology. The conversation covers the market size for sports streaming, the need for change in media economics (ie: decentralized tech for cost reductions), and the potentia...

In this episode, Shardeum Founder Nischal Shetty chats with Keli Callaghan about a new smart contract platform that linearly scales using dynamic state sharding. Nischal shares his journey into the crypto space, the evolution of the crypto market in India, and the importance of community engagement and education in driving adoption. He discusses the unique features of Shardeum, including its user-friendly transaction model and plans for future growth, emphasizing the role of community and nod...

In this episode of the Pirate Pod, Keli Callaghan interviews Julio Vieira, founder and CEO of Kluster.AI, a decentralized platform that enables developers to run and fine-tune large AI models using a global network of GPU providers. Julio shares his journey into the Web3 space, the challenges of GPU shortages, and how Cluster aims to provide cost-effective AI solutions through adaptive inference. The conversation explores various use cases, the importance of decentralization, and the future o...

Albert Castellana, cofounder of GenLayer (https://www.genlayer.com/), chats with Keli Callaghan about his company is revolutionizing smart contracts through the introduction of Intelligent Contracts that leverage AI for decision-making. Albert shares his background in crypto, the evolution of smart contracts, and the limitations of current systems. He discusses how Genlayer's unique architecture and the launch of the Intelligent Oracle aim to address these challenges, enabling more complex an...

Shady El Damaty, one of Holonym’s co founders, sits down with Keli to explore what privacy-preserving identity means - where every person is empowered with a key that only they can control to unlock rights to their digital person. Shady shares his journey from academia to deep decentralized tech, discussing the challenges of data sharing in scientific research and how it led to the creation of Holonym (spoiler alert: hackathon blind dating). The conversation delves into the innovative t...

Konstantin Tkachuk chats with Keli Callaghan about the new startup he has recently co-founded: Titan Network, a new incentive layer for global idle resources. The Titan Network team has a vision for being the one-stop show for DePIN cloud services and joins the podcast to outline how they are making it a reality for people to take available resources they own and put them to work and be rewarded for it. Konstantin shares his unique background in Web3 and the evolution of Titan Network a...

In this episode of the Pirate Pod, we sit down with Amir Sarhangi and Craig DeWitt from SkyFire, a payment network for AI agents to make autonomous transactions. The team sits down with Keli Callaghan as they announce their fundraise and what they plan to do as the main driver of a fundamental shift in how the internet and technology transacts. Having worked together previously (Ripple), Craig and Amir are well versed and knowledgeable in payments and talk at length about their new venture, S...

In slight a deviation from our norm, Todd Hollow-Bist joins the Pirate Pod from Pathwise Leadership (https://pathwiseleadership.com/), a graduate-level psychology program for teams and business leaders. Todd joins Keli (Arrington Capital) to discuss the importance of understanding personality styles and how they impact business leadership and team dynamics. Personality styles are not disorders but rather patterns of behavior that develop from a combination of genetics and environment and is a...

Founders from Drosera (www.drosera.io, @DroseraNetwork) and Lockchain(www.lockchain.ai, @lockchain_ai) join us for a conversation that should be paramount to all (though maybe not the most glamorous): how the web3 security landscape has evolved. These two experienced leaders discuss their unique approaches, being mindful of web2 operational security practices, cost models, the application security economy, addressing the risks associated with rapid speed of development and consolidation of ca...