In this episode of Blocklayer Podcast, Kenzi Takahashi sits down with David Minarsch, Co-Founder and CEO of Valory, to explore what “autonomy” really means — and why autonomous agents might become the next major interface layer between humans, software, and markets.

David shares his path into crypto and AI, including his work with Fetch.ai, and the founding story behind Valory and OLAS. We dig into the rise of autonomous agents: what they can do today (beyond demos), where they’re already useful, and what breaks when you try to deploy them in the real world — especially inside permissionless, adversarial environments like Web3.

The conversation also covers the challenges in the Web3 × AI landscape: coordination problems, incentive design, security, and reliability. David makes a strong case for mission-driven teams that can keep building through cycles, and for an open-source ethos — with OLAS positioned as infrastructure to coordinate decentralized autonomous agents in a way that’s composable, verifiable, and scalable.

Expect a thoughtful deep dive on autonomy, agent coordination, and the future shape of Web3 as agents become first-class participants.

This episode was supported by Diksha Desai and Sachi Shiokava.