Join Tommy Shaughnessy as he speaks with Mike McCormick, founder of Halcyon, about the urgent intersection of AI acceleration and safety. Mike shares his path from venture capital to launching a hybrid nonprofit–fund model focused on securing advanced AI systems. They dive into mechanistic interpretability, global competition for AGI, and what a safe superintelligence future could look like. Can we build superintelligence safely? How do we balance innovation with existential risk? And what happens to humanity when AGI arrives?

Halcyon Futures: https://halcyonfutures.org

🎯 Key Highlights

▸ Leaving VC to focus entirely on AI safety and security

▸ Why Halcyon flipped the model: nonprofit first, fund second

▸ Multi-layered “defense in depth” approach to AI biosecurity & cyber risk

▸ The acceleration vs. safety debate — finding middle ground

▸ Good Fire case: career grants into interpretability research

▸ The 2×2 dilemma — speed vs. slowdown, centralization vs. decentralization

▸ U.S.–China dynamics and fast takeoff scenarios

▸ AI underwriting: how insurance can drive safety standards

▸ Founder-market fit and mission orientation in AI startups

▸ Risk, diffusion, and the uncertain path to AGI

💡 Subscribe for more crypto & infrastructure insights! 🔔

🧠 Follow the Alpha

▸ Mike's Twitter: @MikeMcCormick_

▸ Halcyon's Twitter: @HalcyonFutures

🔗 Connect with Delphi

🌐 Portal: https://delphidigital.io/

🐦 Twitter: https://x.com/delphi_digital

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/delphi-digital/

🎧 Listen on

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/62PR1RigLG2YN5Pelq6UY9?si=18ac7ccf36ab4753&nd=1&dlsi=50105fd66e6c4124

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-delphi-podcast/id1438148082

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9Yy99ZlQIX9-PdG_xHj43Q

Timestamps

00:00 — Mike’s background & pivot to AI safety

03:00 — The realization: AGI could change everything

05:00 — Why VC wasn’t enough to solve the problem

06:00 — Halcyon’s hybrid model and early mission

08:00 — AI security concerns: misuse, bio, and control

12:00 — Defense in depth: pre-training → deployment

15:00 — The creativity vs. restriction trade-off

17:30 — Pause AI vs. Build Baby Build

20:00 — Speed vs. centralization: the 2×2 framework

24:00 — Good Fire: career grants & interpretability

27:00 — Writing to neurons: alignment and insight

30:00 — How insurance markets can enforce safety

36:00 — Mission-driven founders & conviction filters

44:00 — Geopolitical race: U.S., China, and compute

50:00 — Diffusion limits, adoption, and energy costs

57:00 — Mass unemployment and meaning after AGI

01:05:00 — What “winning” AGI means for humanity

01:12:00 — Critical thinking, sycophantic AI, and engagement traps

01:20:00 — UBI, adaptation, and new work paradigms

01:30:00 — Three AGI futures: scale, shift, or stall

01:36:00 — 20% catastrophic risk & asteroid analogy

01:40:00 — Final message: talent is upstream of everything

Disclaimer

This podcast is strictly informational and educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any tokens or securities or to make any financial decisions. Do not trade or invest in any project, tokens, or securities based upon this podcast episode. The host and members at Delphi Ventures may personally own tokens or art that are mentioned on the podcast.

Join Ashwath Balakrishnan and Neel Daftary as they explore the future of DeFi infrastructure with Connor Howe, co-founder of Enso. After nine years of building in crypto, Connor has created what he calls "the shortcut to building on-chain applications" - a developer tool that abstracts away the complexity of integrating with hundreds of DeFi protocols. From powering Berachain's $3.1 billion launch to enabling developers to reduce build times from seven months to just days, Enso is positioning itself as the Unity engine for Web3.

Enso: https://www.enso.build

🎯 Key Highlights

▸ Connor's nine-year journey from writing Solidity in Mist Wallet to building crypto infrastructure

▸ How Enso powered Berachain's $3.1 billion DeFi launch behind the scenes

▸ Reducing developer build times from 7 months to 1.5 days through abstraction

▸ Why crypto needs more apps (4,800) than blockchains (1,000+) for mass adoption

▸ The "fat engine thesis" - how abstraction layers will control blockchain routing

▸ Enso's upcoming network model: action providers, grafters, and validators

▸ The "Enso Drop" - accessing 370+ potential airdrops through network participation

▸ Security through simulation: 4ms response times vs industry standard 2.6 seconds

▸ Chain abstraction vs. application abstraction: the real path to user adoption

▸ Why product beats paper in crypto's current critical juncture

💡 Subscribe for more crypto & AI insights! 🔔

🧠 Follow the Alpha

▸ Connor's Twitter: @connor_enso

▸ Enso's Twitter: @EnsoBuild

🔗 Connect with Delphi

🌐 Portal: https://delphidigital.io/

🐦 Twitter: https://x.com/delphi_digital

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/delphi-digital/

🎧 Listen on

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/62PR1RigLG2YN5Pelq6UY9?si=18ac7ccf36ab4753&nd=1&dlsi=50105fd66e6c4124

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-delphi-podcast/id1438148082

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9Yy99ZlQIX9-PdG_xHj43Q

Timestamps

00:00 — Intro: Connor Howe, Enso co-founder

01:15 — Nine years building in crypto: from Bitcoin to Ethereum

03:00 — Early DeFi development challenges and the birth of Enso

05:00 — Chain abstraction vs. application abstraction philosophy

08:30 — Serving 8% of Web3's developer mindshare (2,250+ developers)

11:00 — Berachain's $3.1B launch: Enso's behind-the-scenes role

13:15 — AI agents, automation, and new use cases emerging

15:00 — Reducing build times: from 7 months to 1.5 days case study

17:30 — Security through simulation: 4ms response times

21:30 — Why we need products people actually want to use

23:15 — New developer onboarding trends and product directions

26:30 — The Enso Network: action providers, grafters, validators

30:00 — Self-service protocol integration and scalability

33:00 — Enso vs. Yearn comparison and strategy differences

35:15 — Network economics and fee distribution mechanisms

39:00 — Upcoming TGE and token utility design

41:00 — The "Enso Drop": accessing 370+ protocol airdrops

42:00 — Developer relations strategy: YouTube, universities, incubators

45:15 — Keeping developers away from crypto Twitter for innovation

47:15 — Fat protocols vs. fat apps: the abstraction layer thesis

51:30 — "Product beats paper" - crypto's critical juncture

Disclaimer

This podcast is strictly informational and educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any tokens or securities or to make any financial decisions. Do not trade or invest in any project, tokens, or securities based upon this podcast episode. The host and members at Delphi Ventures may personally own tokens or art that are mentioned on the podcast. Our current show features paid sponsorships which may be featured at the start, middle, and/or the end of the episode. These sponsorships are for informational purposes only and are not a solicitation to use any product, service or token.

Join Alex Golding as he sits down with Austin Federa, Co-founder of DoubleZero, to explore how they're building permissionless high-performance fiber infrastructure that could revolutionize blockchain performance. Austin shares the technical vision behind creating a parallel internet for distributed systems, starting with Solana validators as their initial market.

DoubleZero: https://doublezero.xyz

🎯 Key Highlights

▸ The internet bottleneck: why high-performance blockchains are hitting infrastructure limits

▸ Building a parallel internet with dedicated fiber, FPGAs, and multicast technology

▸ Proof of utility: weaponizing greed and capitalism for positive-sum network outcomes

▸ 16% of Solana network already running on testnet despite limited infrastructure

▸ Technical deep-dive: signature verification, packet deduplication, and jitter reduction

▸ Token economics and bandwidth contribution models vs traditional staking

▸ Long-term vision: replacing IP addresses with public-private key routing

💡 Subscribe for more crypto & infrastructure insights! 🔔

🧠 Follow the Alpha

▸ Austin's Twitter: @Austin_Federa

▸ DoubleZero's Twitter: @doublezero

🔗 Connect with Delphi

🌐 Portal: https://delphidigital.io/

🐦 Twitter: https://x.com/delphi_digital

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/delphi-digital/

🎧 Listen on

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/62PR1RigLG2YN5Pelq6UY9?si=18ac7ccf36ab4753&nd=1&dlsi=50105fd66e6c4124

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-delphi-podcast/id1438148082

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9Yy99ZlQIX9-PdG_xHj43Q

Timestamps

00:00 — Intro: Austin Federa and the internet bottleneck problem

02:00 — Building a parallel internet for distributed systems

06:00 — The Firedancer project and million TPS potential

09:15 — Technical architecture: fiber, FPGAs, and multicast technology

13:30 — Signature verification and packet deduplication explained

17:15 — Proof of utility: Shapley values and economic incentives

23:45 — Validator onboarding and network connection process

29:30 — Testnet success: 16% of Solana network adoption

33:15 — Latency, jitter, and bandwidth improvements explained

39:00 — Token economics: 2Z token and payment models

44:45 — Access models vs staking requirements for enterprises

51:30 — Validators.app badges and network transparency

59:15 — Governance roadmap: from mainnet beta to full decentralization

01:05:45 — Long-term vision: replacing IP addresses and DNS

01:09:15 — Lightning round: most misunderstood aspects

01:12:30 — Five-year vision: parallel internet for high performance systems

Disclaimer

This podcast is strictly informational and educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any tokens or securities or to make any financial decisions. Do not trade or invest in any project, tokens, or securities based upon this podcast episode. The host and members at Delphi Ventures may personally own tokens or art that are mentioned on the podcast.