Your go-to podcast for privacy, Web3 and AI. Each episode, we dive into the latest advancements, explore cutting-edge innovations, and bring you insights from experts shaping the future of Web3 and AI. From crypto techie degens to the ones in it for the tech, "Privacy Now" has you covered.
Your data is being fed into AI models without anyone asking you first. That's what ties this whole episode together.
We debate the claim that Web3 is dead and only DeFi and DePIN are left, Musk's petition to kill the FTC privacy order standing between him and training Grok on user posts, the new Siri running on Google Gemini and what that means for the company that built its brand on privacy first, GitHub Copilot's move to token billing and the end of subsidized AI, the first federal moves on AI regulation in the US, and a chaotic month in crypto with $1.8 billion liquidated in a single day.
We close with a few conspiracy theories, including the uncomfortable one: what if on-chain privacy was already cracked and nobody told us?
Stay safe, stay private.
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Mihnea (https://x.com/MinnyTheRapper)
Matej (https://x.com/matejanez)
Marko (https://x.com/markowifk)
Subscribe to our Youtube channel:
Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/@PrivacyNowWeb3/videos)
15 Jun 2026
Privacy Talks #4 - The Mass Extinction Event
The most consequential month in crypto and AI we've covered.
This episode breaks down the DeFi mass extinction event — 40+ protocols shut down and $770 million hacked in four months, with April the worst month in crypto history.
We cover the AI layoff wave hitting Coinbase and Meta, including the leaked recording of Meta training its models on employees before firing them.
We recap Google I/O 2026 and the agentic Gemini era.
And we close on a historic month at the top of the industry: Anthropic's first-ever profit and the Karpathy hire, OpenAI's IPO filing and its courtroom win over Elon Musk, and the SEC's conditional approval of Nasdaq Bitcoin index options.
Stay safe, stay private ✊
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Mihnea (https://x.com/MinnyTheRapper)
Matej (https://x.com/matejanez)
Marko (https://x.com/markowifk)
Subscribe to our Youtube channel:
Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/@PrivacyNowWeb3/videos)
6 May 2026
Privacy Talks Episode 3 - The Fragility Report
Episode 3 of Privacy Talks covers the most consequential month at the intersection of crypto security, AI, and privacy in recent memory.
We break down the $292M Kelp DAO exploit, how a single compromised verifier and a 1-of-1 configuration allowed North Korea's Lazarus Group to drain one of DeFi's biggest bridges, triggering $10B in Aave withdrawals and a very public blame war between LayerZero and Kelp.
We debate whether "code is law" still holds, and revisit the 2016 Ethereum DAO fork to ask if the community ever really settled this question.
We also cover the Vercel breach, a compromised employee account that exposed API keys across customer projects and what it reveals about the centralisation risk embedded in Web3 frontends.
On the AI side: Apple's $1B Gemini deal and why keeping Google's model doesn't mean keeping Google's data practices. Claude Mythos, the AI Anthropic built to find zero-days and chose not to release. And an honest take on whether Opus 4.7 and GPT-5.4 Cyber actually deliver on the hype.
Stay safe. Stay private.
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Mihnea (https://x.com/MinnyTheRapper)
Matej (https://x.com/matejanez)
Marko (https://x.com/markowifk)
Subscribe to our Youtube channel:
Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/@PrivacyNowWeb3)
14 Apr 2026
Privacy Talks #2 - Who Controls the Kill Switch?
Who gets to decide what AI can and can't do?
In Episode 2, we cover Discord's biometric surveillance rollout, Anthropic's refusal to give the Pentagon unrestricted access to Claude, the 2.5 million user boycott that made Claude the #1 app overnight, China's MiniMax releasing frontier AI at a fraction of the cost of US models, 30,000+ layoffs across Oracle and Block, a critical vulnerability in Claude Code that could silently steal your API keys, and the MacBook Neo, Apple's first $599 AI device. One episode. The whole battlefield.
Follow us on X:
Mihnea (https://x.com/MinnyTheRapper)
Matej (https://x.com/matejanez)
Marko (https://x.com/markowifk)
Subscribe to our Youtube channel:
Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/@PrivacyNowWeb3)
Welcome to the first episode of Privacy Talks, a new roundtable sub-series of the Privacy Now podcast.
In this episode, I sit down with colleagues Matej and Marko to break down what’s actually happening in AI, crypto, and privacy right now.
We discuss:
🔹 Moltbook – the social network where 14M AI agents talk to each other
🔹 Is the “AI social boom” already here?
🔹 Vitalik Buterin’s alternative to the AGI arms race
🔹 The rise of the invisible workforce & agent-to-agent commerce
🔹 DAC8 and the expansion of crypto reporting in Europe
🔹 AI-generated artists & synthetic fame
🔹 Claude Opus 4.6 and the future of AI as a coworker
Are we building a parallel digital civilization?
And if so… will privacy survive inside it?
Follow us on X:
Mihnea (https://x.com/MinnyTheRapper)
Matej (https://x.com/matejanez)
Marko (https://x.com/markowifk)
Subscribe to our Youtube channel:
Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/@PrivacyNowWeb3)
20 Oct 2025
The Race to Real-Time Privacy
What if privacy on the blockchain didn’t mean going dark, but going compliant?
In this episode of Privacy Now, Mihnea Stefanescu sits down with Dr. Adam Gągol, co-founder of Aleph Zero, CEO of Cardinal Cryptography, and the architect behind Blanksquare , a new middleware layer bringing Privacy-as-a-Service to the EVM ecosystem.
Together, they explore how the Blanksquare SDK enables private transactions, compliant shielding, and selective disclosure, all while running at subsecond ZK proving speeds.
Topics include:
🔹 The evolution from Aleph Zero to Blanksquare
🔹 Privacy as a compliance tool, not an obstacle
🔹 How subsecond ZK proofs make privacy usable
🔹 Selective disclosure & the “Anonymity Revoking” model
🔹 Why middleware beats L1s and privacy coins
🔹 The future of privacy, regulation & cryptography
Follow Mihnea Stefanescu on X - https://x.com/MinnyTheRapper
Follow Adam Gagol on X - https://x.com/GagolAdam
Check out Blanksquare - https://blanksquare.io/
Follow Privacy Now on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@PrivacyNowWeb3
29 Aug 2025
The Final Frontier of Privacy
What if the most secure blockchain wasn’t on Earth at all… but in space?
In this episode of Privacy Now, Mihnea sits down with Filip Rezabek, co-founder of SpaceComputer and PhD candidate at TUM, to explore the bold idea of a tamper-proof orbital computer that could redefine trust in Web3.
We cover:
The vision of an Orbital Root of Trust
Threshold cryptography, TEEs, and reproducibility in distributed systems
Why bridges remain fragile, and how SpaceComputer secures them
Lessons from MEV and cross-chain arbitrage research
The future of confidential computing, AI, and cryptography beyond Earth
Filip’s journey from academic research to building cypherpunk systems in orbit is a glimpse into the next frontier of decentralization.
Follow Mihnea, Filip and Space Compute on X and subscribe to our Youtube channel:
https://x.com/MinnyTheRapper
https://x.com/rezabfil
https://x.com/SpaceComputerIO
https://www.youtube.com/@PrivacyNowWeb3
30 Jul 2025
Privacy Under Fire
What does real privacy in Web3 look like?
In this episode of Privacy Now, I sit down with Ameen Soleimani, the founder of PrivacyPools.com (https://privacypools.com) and 0xbow and Matej Janez, Head of BD at Oasis, to explore what comes after Tornado Cash, and why privacy is a public good worth fighting for.
We dive into:
The evolution from Tornado Cash to Privacy Pools
The injustice facing Roman Storm & Alexey Pertsev
What “ethical privacy infrastructure” actually means
Ameen’s friendship with Vitalik & values as a builder
Privacy as a public good, decentralization, and building under pressure
With Roman Storm’s trial beginning this week, this episode could not come at a more crucial moment.
Subscribe and listen now to hear why Ameen believes privacy isn’t just a right , it’s the foundation of a truly decentralized world.
Find us on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/@PrivacyNowWeb3
Host & Guests' Socials:
Mihnea - https://x.com/MinnyTheRapper
Ameen Soleimani - https://x.com/ameensol
Matej Janez - https://x.com/matejanez
18 Jun 2025
Unlocking the Locked
Rico van der Veen and Robert Brienza discuss using unvested tokens as collateralized liquidity instruments without breaking vesting contracts, potentially reshaping tokenomics and early-stage markets in this interview episode.
20 May 2025
Trust the Swarm
In this episode of Privacy Now, we sit down with Yannick Myson, founder of Swarm Network, to explore one of the most exciting trends in AI and Web3: decentralized agent swarms.
Yannick unpacks how autonomous AI agents can collaborate to verify truth, preserve privacy, and reshape the future of intelligence, all without centralized gatekeepers.
We dive into:
– What AI agent swarms are and how they work
– Why decentralized intelligence matters
– How Swarm uses zero-knowledge proofs for privacy
– The intersection of AI, blockchain, and governance
– The risks of centralized AI and the ethics of swarm systems
This is the episode for anyone curious about the next wave of AI in the Web3 world.
Listen now and subscribe for more episodes on the future of privacy, decentralization, and emerging tech.
Follow Mihnea on X:
https://x.com/MinnyTheRapper
Follow Yannick on X:
https://x.com/YannickMyson
You can find us on Youtube:
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#AI #Web3 #SwarmNetwork #PrivacyNow
11 Apr 2025
Building Thriving Web3 Communities: Insights from the Frontlines
What does it really take to build a thriving Web3 community—beyond memes, airdrops, and Discord hype?
In this episode of Privacy Now, Mihnea sits down with four seasoned community builders from across the Web3 ecosystem to unpack what works, what doesn’t, and what’s next for decentralized communities.
Guests:
💡 Ruben Amar – Head of Community, Fuel Network (https://fuel.network)
💬 Alexandru Stoicescu – Community & Events, Request Network (https://request.network)
🔐 Park Feierbach – CEO, Radiant Commons (https://radiantcommons.xyz), working on Penumbra (https://penumbra.zone)
🕊️ Kate – Former Community Lead, Axelar (https://axelar.network)
🎯 Topics we cover:
Why token tunnel vision kills real community growth
The tension between mercenary users vs. organic contributors
Rethinking ambassador programs for long-term value
The role of product-market fit in community health
How to build engagement during market downturns
Governance, reputation systems, and the myth of “communities building themselves”
What the future of community looks like—composable, multi-platform, and creator-led
#PrivacyNow #Web3 #Blockchain #CommunityBuilding #DAO #CryptoCulture #FuelNetwork #RequestNetwork #Penumbra #Axelar #Oasis #Oasisnetwork
14 Feb 2025
The Future of Blockchain Access
In this episode of Privacy Now, we dive into Liquefaction—a game-changing approach to private key management in blockchain.
Joining me is James Austgen, PhD researcher at Cornell Tech and co-author of Liquefaction, to explore how Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) enable new ways to share, rent, and pool private keys without compromising security.
But with great power comes great risk. Could this technology disrupt DAOs, token lockups, and Web3 governance? Or will it redefine privacy in blockchain?
Learn more about Liquefaction here:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2412.02634v1
https://github.com/key-encumbrance/liquefaction
23 Dec 2024
Women in Web3
Women in Web3, a topic that's not discussed enough in today's landscape.
Nelly Cornejo, Alina Latinina and Ann Brody join for a riveting discussion and share pro tips and career moves for everyone listening.
They're all part of a really cool movement, Women in Web3 Privacy.
Check out their website at https://womeninweb3privacy.com where you can find all their socials.
Also suggest giving Alina's latest article a read: https://mirror.xyz/alinalatinina.eth/1ZgmgCUj7dHPE50muBT7DrUTEFidL9EFZqntIKUYvdQ
17 Oct 2024
The fundamentals of Privacy
Join us for a talk about one of most fundamental human rights, privacy.
We discuss the current landscape, regulatory environments and how web3 is helping users take ownership over their data.
We're joined by Harry Roberts(Technical Product Manager for OPL and Sapphire) and Anthony Simonet-Boulogne(Head of Research & Innovation at iExec)
25 Jul 2024
AGI: Where Does Humanity Fit In? — with Trent McConaghy
"Cognitive AI is marketing BS.” Join us with Trent McConaghy (Founder of Ocean Protocol) to discuss the changing landscape of AI, the limits and possibilities of cognitive AI, and his journey to founding Ocean Protocol. Ocean Protocol's dApp Predictoor has seen huge success with blockchain users, enabling prediction-based trading with AI. Featuring Mihnea Stefanescu (Community Lead at Oasis Network), Matej Janez (Head of Partnerships at Oasis Network), and Marko Wific (Head of AI at Oasis Network).
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
YouTube views
493,363
Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025
Spotify
5.0 / 5
6 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 38 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
39
Social presence
0
YouTube
93
Engagement
0
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