
About this episode
Welcome back to the Gwart Show! Today we are joined by Alex Watts, CEO and co-founder of Fastlane Labs. They discuss MEV, Ethereum's challenges, and UX. He explores the tensions between DeFi and traditional finance, the potential risks of stablecoins, and the need for crypto to focus on real-world outcomes beyond just decentralization.
Follow our guest on Twitter: @ThogardPvP
Timestamps:
00:00 Start
00:57 Alex's background
01:35 Becoming a Seeker
03:13 MEV opportunities
04:56 Fastlane
06:36 Polygon sidecar?
09:36 MEV extraction
12:01 Composability
17:15 App Specific Sequencing on Solana
22:41 End of the PBS experiment
27:28 Fixing PBS
29:50 Multiple concurrent proposers
33:56 Effects of MPC
39:59 ETH l1 fees
43:37 Future of ETH L1
45:30 ETH as money
50:21 Are l2s parasitic?
52:33 ETH & hard truths
56:31 Valuing blockchains based on MEV
1:04:05 Validators: more than construct blocks
1:05:34 Institutionalization of validators
1:09:28 Future of blockchain activity
👋The Gwart Show is proudly presented by Ellipsis Labs! Ellipsis Labs is building foundational products in DeFi. Their first product @PhoenixTrade is the leading orderbook DEX on Solana. The team is growing—visit ellipsislabs.xyz for engineering opportunities.
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