It's an interesting time to be building in crypto. On the one hand, we're in the depths of the bear market, with token prices at their all time lowest. On the other hand, there are some promising signs from Washington about regulatory guidance for builders, with new and exciting products like friend.tech reducing the gap between consumer-friendly UX (that we're all accustomed to) and crypto-native primitives (that we're all striving towards).

With things moving so fast, having the ability to predict what's coming next is extremely valuable. In episode 3, Joey talks to three experienced builders who have honed the ability to do so.

Jess, Hadrien, and Patrick have seen it all—from the heights of bull market maximalism to the depths of bear market resilience—they've picked up valuable mental models along the way. This conversation promises to be valuable for builders at all stages of their journey.

This episode was recorded as a part of 100.builders, a four week program to support people building open tech in crypto and AI.

Chapters | Timestamps:

• 00:00 - intro
• 04:34 - the next generation social apps and gaming
• 10:20 - a marketing-first approach to building products
• 16:10 - the potential of ZK and emerging crypto primitives
• 24:40 - why distribution matters in crypto
• 29:02 - new paradigms for social networks
• 37:32 - self-custody of personal data in crypto
• 46:36 - value creation in crypto and open tech

Relevant Links:

• Backdrop - backdrop.so
• Backdrop on X - twitter.com/withBackdrop
• 100 Builders - 100.builders
• Joey on X - twitter.com/joey_debruin
• Jess on X - https://twitter.com/thattallguy
• Patrick on X - https://twitter.com/patrickxrivera
• Hadrien on X - https://twitter.com/dhadrien_
• Seed Club - seedclub.xyz
• The World's Largest - theworldslargest.com
• Sismo - sismo.io

The Backdrop podcast is produced by the team at Spectral.