"Fair Launch is a New Way for Founders to Express Themselves:" Gavin McDermott of IDEO CoLab

"Fair Launch is a New Way for Founders to Express Themselves:" Gavin McDermott of IDEO CoLab

Hello Defiers! In this week’s interview, I spoke with Gavin McDermott. He's an investor at IDEO CoLab Ventures, the venture arm of design firm IDEO, and he’s one of the creators of Fair Launch Capital. While the name might suggest otherwise, Fair Launch Capital isn’t an investment firm, or at least it’s not a traditional investment firm. Instead, it gives startups no-strings-attached funding so that they can afford security audits and launch their projects in a safe way. They’re asked to consider paying it forward by returning at least the same amount they got but ideally more, to fund the next project.

The idea came after the team saw that many founders in crypto were feeling forced to either sell tokens before their platform launched or raise venture capital as one option to pay for audits, or release their projects without the proper security checks. Gavin is hoping fair launch capital provides a viable alternative to venture capital, even if it does end up disrupting his fund's own business model. Since the group unveiled this new funding mechanism late august, the term “fair launch” has taken a life of its own, becoming a gold standard for any new DeFi venture.

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Becoming the "Institutions Chain" With Avalanche’s Morgan Krupetsky

Becoming the "Institutions Chain" With Avalanche’s Morgan Krupetsky

In this episode of The Defiant podcast we speak with Morgan Krupetsky, VP of OnChain Finance at Ava Labs, to break down one of the most significant shifts happening in crypto today: the rapid institut...

5 Joulu 202540min

Tokenize Everything: Robert Leshner’s Vision for On-Chain Finance

Tokenize Everything: Robert Leshner’s Vision for On-Chain Finance

Robert Leshner — the mind behind Compound, and now the founder of Superstate — believes the next trillion-dollar shift will come from bringing the world’s assets on-chain.In this episode, Cami sits do...

18 Marras 202522min

​​Is DYOR Dead? Building a Safer Web3 with Alex Katz

​​Is DYOR Dead? Building a Safer Web3 with Alex Katz

In a world of fast-advancing technology, we are told to trust in our own research. But as the crypto space matures, scams and exploits remain a constant presence. When your assets are gone, they are g...

14 Marras 202537min

Avalanche DeFi: the Journey to Bring Institutions Onchain

Avalanche DeFi: the Journey to Bring Institutions Onchain

In the second episode of Ecosystems: Avalanche, we track the protocol’s trajectory, which included a peak valuation of $13 billion, followed by a period of consolidation and strategic redevelopment.Th...

12 Marras 202515min

Inside the PYUSD's takeover of PayPal with May Zabaneh, VP Crypto

Inside the PYUSD's takeover of PayPal with May Zabaneh, VP Crypto

In this conversation, May Zabaneh breaks down PayPal’s move into stablecoins with PYUSD and why it matters for financial inclusion. We explore how PYUSD could lower costs for cross-border payments, de...

7 Marras 202542min

Why Yat Siu Believes Altcoins Will Surpass Bitcoin

Why Yat Siu Believes Altcoins Will Surpass Bitcoin

In Web3, we find ourselves in an age of digital phantoms, a "click-farm" era where identity is flimsy and easily fabricated. But what if reputation could be real, portable, and valuable? Animoca Brand...

21 Loka 20251h 1min

The AI CEO Era: Breaking Build Bottlenecks with Vibe Coding | Ahmad Shadid

The AI CEO Era: Breaking Build Bottlenecks with Vibe Coding | Ahmad Shadid

In this episode of The Defiant Podcast, Vinny sits down with Ahmad Shadid—former quant trader turned founder—who redirected the 2022 GPU crunch into a decentralized GPU network and now leads a bold pu...

17 Loka 202547min

How Avalanche is Tackling the Blockchain Trilemma

How Avalanche is Tackling the Blockchain Trilemma

Avalanche says it can finally square the circle: sub‑second finality, a large decentralized validator set, and thousands of sovereign L1s connected through native messaging for shared liquidity.In the...

14 Loka 202526min