brainpower

Austin Federa & Team Built DoubleZero Network in Under a Year. Now 30% of Solana Runs On It

Bowen Belmer Season 1 Episode 23

Austin Federa left his role as Head of Strategy at Solana Foundation to solve a problem most don't know exists: the public internet is killing decentralized AI and blockchain scalability.

In under 12 months, his team built DoubleZero Network—a parallel internet on private fiber that now powers 30% of Solana validators and $23 billion in connected stake. This is 70 live fiber links across 5 continents, solving the infrastructure bottleneck that would've killed Solana's million-TPS roadmap and made decentralized AI agents impossible.

Austin breaks down:
→ The One Thing Your future AI agent needs to survive
→ Why Facebook is the largest investor in subsea fiber
→ The 30-minute AI model download problemis  costing millions in wasted compute
→ How Wall Street uses this same infrastructure and why blockchain needs it more
→ Token launch chaos, first SEC no-action letter in 4+ years, and lessons learned

Perfect for: Solana builders, decentralized AI developers, crypto infrastructure investors, anyone tired of vaporware

⏱️ KEY TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 - Why Austin Left Solana Foundation
02:09 - The Fire Dancer Million-TPS Problem
05:01 - Facebook's Subsea Fiber Secret
08:36 - The 30-Minute AI Model Download Bottleneck
13:11 - Geographic Decentralization vs 500 Square Meter Markets
16:42 - Flash Boys for Web3
22:39 - TCV Metric That Made People Mad
25:38 - Token Launch Postmortem
27:28 - SEC No-Action Letter (First in 4+ Years)
35:55 - Your AI Agent Will Need This

🔗 CONNECT WITH DoubleZero NETWORK:

Website: https://doublezero.xyz/
Twitter/X: https://x.com/doublezero


🔗 AUSTIN FEDERA:

Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/austin_federa
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/austin-federa/


🔗 PROJECTS MENTIONED:

Fire Dancer: https://jumpcrypto.com/firedancer
Solana Foundation: https://solana.org
Solana Validators: https://docs.solana.com/running-validator


🔗 DECENTRALIZED AI ECOSYSTEM:

Morpheus AI: https://mor.org
Morpheus Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/MorpheusAIs
Morpheus Builder Subnet: https://dashboard-v2-zeta.vercel.app/builders/brainpower-base
Morpheus API Gateway: https://openbeta.mor.org/?utm_source=brainpower&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=austinfedera
Bittensor: https://bittensor.com
Venice AI: https://venice.ai


🔗 FOR BUILDERS:

DoubleZero Developer Resources: https://docs.malbeclabs.com/


📚 DIG DEEPER:

→ Flash Boys by Michael Lewis (HFT infrastructure parallel)
→ Solana's Multiple Concurrent Leaders roadmap
→ TCV vs TVL metrics for infrastructure
→ SEC no-action letters in crypto
→ Week in Morpheus Newsletter: https://weekinmorpheus.com


📱 BRAINPOWER PODCAST:

Host: Bowen Belmer
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/BowenBelmer
Morpheus Community: https://mor.org
Learn More: MOR.org


🎬 ABOUT:

Brainpower features unfiltered conversations with builders creating decentralized AI infrastructure. No hype. Just hard technical problems being solved by people who left cushy jobs to build the future.


💡 TAKE ACTION:

🔔 SUBSCRIBE for infrastructure deep-dives other channels won't cover
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💬 COMMENT: Are you building on Solana? Experienced validator centralization pressure?
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