A Prescription for Privacy | The Confab 30: Vik Sharɱa
About this episode
Max interviews Vik Sharɱa about his journey in privacy technology and cryptocurrency.
In this Confab, Max sits down with Vik Sharɱa, founder and CEO of Cake Wallet, for a candid journey from his early hacking days on the Apple II, through decades in the steel industry, to discovering Bitcoin in 2013 and Monero in 2016. Vik shares the eye‑opening moment Coinbase shut his account for a small darknet market purchase of antibiotics—an incident that catalysed his deep dive into privacy and ultimately inspired Cake Wallet’s creation. Max and Vik explore why privacy should be a default, how Monero’s out‑of‑the‑box protections compare with Bitcoin’s more complex privacy tooling, and why a multi‑coin world empowers users rather than divides them. Max and Vik also dig into the rapid rise of AI: how it’s reshaping software development, enabling non‑coders to build real tools, and what it might mean for self‑custody and user experience in the months ahead. Vik reflects on the growing global demand for financial privacy and access—especially via stablecoins as on‑ramps—while emphasising real‑world utility as the backbone of value. He recounts Cake’s experimental culture (silent payments, PayJoin v2, Lightning via Spark) and the team’s willingness to learn in public. Max…
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