Beyond the Code

A milestone episode, recorded live at Consensus Miami 2026: after three years, Beyond the Code has its first sponsor — and there's a good story behind why it's FirstRead.
Yitzy is joined by returning guest Mike Bacina, now a partner at NXT Law leading the firm out of Cayman, to talk about how boutique firms are gaining a real edge with AI, why the billable hour quietly works against adoption at big firms, and why "AI will take your job" is the same fear lawyers have had about every technology before it.
Sponsored by FirstRead — AI-powered contract help for lawyers. 10% off with code BYNDTHECODE10: https://first-read.com/signup?ref=BEYOND2026

Snir Levi is the founder and CEO of Nominis — a crypto compliance and blockchain intelligence platform. Before building Nominis, Snir was inside Celsius Network during its rise and sudden collapse, working in the security department with no warning of what was coming.
In this episode, Snir walks us through what it was actually like when Celsius froze withdrawals, how he turned that experience into a company, and what Nominis is uncovering today — including IRGC activity, sanction evasion through crypto, and why tracking inflows and outflows to Iran is the wrong way to look at the problem entirely.
We also get into the future of stablecoins, the slow death of the token economy, and where AI is reshaping compliance workflows.
🔗 Try Nominis: https://www.nominis.io/ — use code DLTLAW5 for 5% off.
🔒 Sponsored by FirstRead — AI-powered legal contract review.Try free at https://first-read.com/signup?ref=BEYOND2026 | Code BYNDTHECODE10 for 10% off.

Sam Krichevsky and Sarah Figueroa are married, co-founders, and some of the most fun people I've met in this space.
We sat down at Coindesk's Consensus Miami 2026 to talk about their whole journey - from Sarah mining Ethereum in 2017 and founding GeoJam (a social music platform whose biggest investor was Mariah Carey) to watching it collapse after a single exchange dumped over 10% of their token supply in one night.
Now they're building Swivul - an all-in-one travel and entertainment booking platform built specifically for the Web3 and crypto industry. One-click checkout, crypto payments, concierge service, and, crucially, tools to actually measure the ROI on your travel and entertainment spend. Travel and entertainment is your second-largest controllable expense on a P&L, and almost nobody tracks it.
We also get into what it's really like to build a company with your spouse. Honest, funny, and worth hearing if you're considering it.
This episode is brought to you by FirstRead, the AI-powered legal contract assistant. Use code BYNDTHECODE10 for 10% off at https://first-read.com/signup?ref=BEYOND2026

Live from Consensus 2026 in Miami, we're joined by Russ Davis - "In Russ We Trust" - one of the co-founders of Shiba Inu, the meme coin that changed everything.

Russ tells the full story: from passing on Doge in 2016 (a decision that would've been worth $15 million), to taking over Shiba's marketing in February 2021 when it was stuck at a $2M market cap, to watching it explode to $40 billion in eight months.

This episode is sponsored by FirstRead — the AI-powered legal assistant that reads, marks up, and chats through contracts right inside your Word document. If you're a founder, builder, or anyone dealing with legal agreements, FirstRead is a game-changer.
🔗 https://first-read.com/signup?ref=BEYOND2026
Use code BYNDTHECODE10 at signup for 10% off.

In this episode, we cover:
- The exact post that started it all and why $100 turned into $2M
- Why most of his friends sold at $5,000 and kicked themselves in October
- Shiba Physicals — NFC-chipped collectibles and the post-NFT pivot
- The DeLorean partnership and what's dropping in Q2
- How meme coin communities actually work (and how Shiba avoided becoming a dumpster fire)
- Hopium: the Clarity Act, TradFi adoption, and the path back up

Live from Consensus 2026 in Miami, we're joined by Jacqueline Cooper , also known as CryptoMom2 (we already had CryptoMom No. 1 on this show) ,— partner at Cogent Law Group, co-founder of the Blockchain Legal Institute, and a 10-year veteran of the blockchain space.
Jacqueline shares her unexpected origin story (a chance encounter in Scotland), what it felt like to lose two years of Bitcoin mining rewards to a company collapse, and why she built a centralized library of legal resources for the decentralized world.
We also get into something most crypto holders ignore: what happens to your digital assets when you die? If your wallet access is biometric-only — and you're gone — your family may never touch that generational wealth.

This episode is sponsored by FirstRead — the AI-powered legal assistant that reads, marks up, and chats through contracts right inside your Word document. If you're a founder, builder, or anyone dealing with legal agreements, FirstRead is a game-changer.
🔗 https://first-read.com/signup?ref=BEY... and use code BYNDTHECODE10 at signup for 10% off.

In this episode, we covered:
- The difference between knowing enough and knowing too much as a client
- Why the Blockchain Legal Institute exists and who it's actually for
- How blockchain is being used by FedEx, McCormick, and global supply chains
- The TradFi/crypto convergence and payment rail risks
- Not your keys, not your crypto — a firsthand story
- Digital estate planning: wills, cold wallets, and backup access

Find the Blockchain Legal Institute at: https://bli.tools/