The Smart Economy Podcast · 2025-12-11 · 1h 2m
In this episode of The Smart Economy Podcast, Dylan Grabowski speaks with Alex Gluchowski, co-founder and CEO of Matter Labs, the engineering team behind ZKsync and the ZK Stack powering Ethereum’s zero-knowledge ecosystem. Gluchowski shares his journey from growing up in post-Soviet Ukraine - where financial instability and institutional distrust were the norm - to discovering Bitcoin as a tool for freedom. He explains why zero-knowledge proofs felt “too good to be true,” how early cryptographic constraints slowed adoption, and how recent breakthroughs now make ZK the most scalable and secure path forward for blockchains. The conversation explores the growth of ZKsync, the introduction of the Elastic Network, and why Gluchowski believes all rollups will eventually migrate to ZK. He discusses the challenges of onboarding institutions, the rising demand for stablecoins and compliant privacy, and the pivotal role ZK infrastructure will play as real-world assets, enterprises, and global finance move on-chain.
Other episodes covering the same guests and topics, from across The B2B Podcast Index.
Interview: Maple Cofounder Joe FlanaganFintech Business Podcast · on Ethereum85 / 100
PayPal’s Stablecoin PlaybookThis Week in Fintech · on Ethereum82 / 100
QED LinkedIn Live Panel: Will stablecoins disrupt global finance?Fintech Thought Leaders · on Ethereum82 / 100
Zero-knowledge Proofs and Scalable infrastructure | A Conversation with Nana MurugesanThe Money Movement with Jeremy Allaire · on Ethereum82 / 100
Jake Brukhman (CoinFund) on Anthropic Fable 5, Agents & Asymmetry in AI the un# podcast · on Ethereum79 / 100
Crypto Wealth Management, Institutional Adoption & Digital Assets (Ep. 143)The Truth About Wealth · on Ethereum75 / 100
Andrés Salcedo of Etherfuse on Tokenizing Sovereign Bonds for Latin America80 / 100
Christian St. Louis of Ethereal Ventures on Building Through Crypto’s Quietest Cycle81 / 100
Web4 Explained: Anndy Lian on AI Agents, Blockchain, & Digital Sovereignty58 / 100
Illia Polosukhin of NEAR on AI Operating Systems & Blockchain Infrastructure72 / 100
From Market Making to AI Rails: Alexis Sirkia of Yellow69 / 100