consumer-crypto
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Chris Kalani Took the Long Way Back to the Pixels
A first startup taught the product designer what he did not want from a second. At Phantom, Chris Kalani turned that lesson into a founding team, a clearer job, and a wallet built for people who would rather not admire the machinery.
Anthony Anzalone Burned the Artwork. Now He Wants the Technology to Disappear.
A $95,000 Banksy went up in stubborn flames. Five years later, the founder behind the spectacle is still obsessed with proving what is real - only now the fire has given way to invisible infrastructure.
Fliq by EthosX
Fliq is a creator-owned, mobile-first prediction market built by EthosX (YC S22), the DeFi derivatives protocol founded by ex-JP Morgan derivatives quant Deepanshu. Fliq turns trading into simple yes/no questions on sports, politics, memes and culture, letting local creators launch their own markets. Built on the Aptos blockchain with USDT settlement, it aims to onboard the ~95% of people in markets like India who have never traded, making prediction markets as engaging as short-form video.
Burnt
Burnt is a New York-based Web3 company and the core team behind XION, a Layer 1 blockchain built to make crypto invisible to everyday users. Founded by Anthony Anzalone - better known as the artist-provocateur 'Burnt Banksy' - the company uses 'generalized abstraction' to remove wallets, private keys and gas fees so that people can sign in with an email or a face scan and pay in USDC. Burnt has raised more than $36M from investors including Animoca Brands, Circle Ventures and Multicoin, and pitches XION as consumer-grade infrastructure for brands like Uber, BMW and others. In 2026 the XION network rebranded to Verona.